DPC Watchdog Violation at random times

[renderXR]

Hello! I am having a problem for a while now, my pc keeps on randomly crashing with a blue screen of death with bugcheck DPC watchdog violation. I have been messing around with drivers, as I thought that the problem was with drivers, but to no avail. It would be nice if somebody who knows about this could help fixing this. I have 3 minidumps down below on a drive:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jBKoG0lEC_7vCg5UkLfwxsxXvph5PE6A
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YI-yjJjWAJyD1ya_ykqa-735thrpodwY
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jCUdUD6O5q4XDdABxRnwMv2GYEF-J0Ex


my PC specs:
----------------------------------------------
Processor - AMD FX(tm)-6300 Six-Core Processor
Manufacturer - AMD
Speed - 3.5 GHz
Number of Cores - 6
CPU ID - 178BFBFF00600F20
Family - 15
Model - 02
Stepping - 0
Revision - blank

RAM - 8.0 GB

Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Chipset - GeForce GTX 970
Dedicated Memory - 4.0 GB
Total Memory - 4.0 GB

Operating System - Microsoft Windows 8.1 (build 9600), 64-bit
Service Pack - 0
Size - 64-bit
Edition - NVIDIA
Version - 6.3.9600
Locale - 0809

BIOS - Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG
Version - Award Software International, Inc. FA
Manufacturer - Award Software International, Inc.
Date - 04/23/13

Audio 1
Sound Device - NVIDIA Miracast Audio
Driver - 10.56.25.620
Audio 2
Sound Device - NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Driver - 1.3.35.1
Audio 3
Sound Device - NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
Audio 4
Sound Device - High Definition Audio Device
Driver - 6.3.9600.16384
Audio 5
Sound Device - DFX Audio Enhancer

DVD - blank
CD - blank
Size - 931.2 GB
Free Memory - 753.6 GB

 

[twelfthmonkey59]

Check any usb devices you have. I was all set to send my new Ryzen back because I kept getting watchdog errors. After much sleuthing, I came upon someone who had an usb problem. lo and behold- I unhooked my Logitech camera and problem solved. It seems Ryzen and usb are finicky neighbors.

 

[jr9]

- Your nVIDIA display drivers are causing these crashes. Boot into safe mode (inside advanced startup options), download and use Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall your nVIDIA display drivers, then boot into normal Windows and install the latest graphics card drivers from the nVIDIA website and install them and then restart.

- USB devices alone will not cause DPC issues. USB drivers for those devices however could cause this to happen, but that isn't the case here.

 

[renderXR]

- Your nVIDIA display drivers are causing these crashes. Boot into safe mode (inside advanced startup options), download and use Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall your nVIDIA display drivers, then boot into normal Windows and install the latest graphics card drivers from the nVIDIA website and install them and then restart.

- USB devices alone will not cause DPC issues. USB drivers for those devices however could cause this to happen, but that isn't the case here.

I have successfully tried what you asked, but it gave another crash a few hours later.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MMHyiI8uQLS8nLqmVxZaWM2gx6MCS45c
Did I execute your steps poorly or is there another cause?

 

[jr9]

- Your nVIDIA display drivers are causing these crashes. Boot into safe mode (inside advanced startup options), download and use Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall your nVIDIA display drivers, then boot into normal Windows and install the latest graphics card drivers from the nVIDIA website and install them and then restart.

- USB devices alone will not cause DPC issues. USB drivers for those devices however could cause this to happen, but that isn't the case here.

I have successfully tried what you asked, but it gave another crash a few hours later.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MMHyiI8uQLS8nLqmVxZaWM2gx6MCS45c
Did I execute your steps poorly or is there another cause?

The nVIDIA display driver is still running in that crash dump file. You ran DDU in safe mode right with nVIDIA selected? Have a look in add and remove programs and make sure everything nVIDIA is gone, Display Driver Uninstaller program should have cleared everything out.

If you could: Windows key -> dxdiag -> enter. Post a screenshot of the contents of any "display" tabs.

 

[ajgarcia1428]

From what it looks like in your dump reports using bluescreen and whocrashed, you might be suffering from the NVIDIA bug affecting the kernel mode drivers, being a select few like nvlddmkm.sys.

I've been troubleshooting this on a number of systems past few weeks recurring from the latest updates of the NVIDIA drivers released. Spoke with an IT out in there field and they know it's a driver issue they are trying to fix.

Cartoondabuddhalover narrows it down here in this forum
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3619276/dpc-watchdog-violation-middle-game.html

NVIDIA confirms the bug here
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4278/~/security-bulletin%3A-multiple-vulnerabilities-in-the-nvidia-windows-gpu-display

Keep me updated and check out cartoondabuddhalover's solution he came up with.

 

[renderXR]

- Your nVIDIA display drivers are causing these crashes. Boot into safe mode (inside advanced startup options), download and use Display Driver Uninstaller to uninstall your nVIDIA display drivers, then boot into normal Windows and install the latest graphics card drivers from the nVIDIA website and install them and then restart.

- USB devices alone will not cause DPC issues. USB drivers for those devices however could cause this to happen, but that isn't the case here.

I have successfully tried what you asked, but it gave another crash a few hours later.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MMHyiI8uQLS8nLqmVxZaWM2gx6MCS45c
Did I execute your steps poorly or is there another cause?

The nVIDIA display driver is still running in that crash dump file. You ran DDU in safe mode right with nVIDIA selected? Have a look in add and remove programs and make sure everything nVIDIA is gone, Display Driver Uninstaller program should have cleared everything out.

If you could: Windows key -> dxdiag -> enter. Post a screenshot of the contents of any "display" tabs.

I have executed the steps again to see if I did something wrong, but it crashed again. This is what my display tab looked like when I just deleted the drivers in safe mode.

I will start looking in Ajgarcia's suggestion

 

[ajgarcia1428]

Okay it looks like your on the right track with removing the drivers. I just want to ask if your allowing Windows update to install the update for the driver and not use device manager? Just wanted to point out that device manager will update to the bugged driver.

 

[jr9]

nVIDIA Drivers aren't loaded (that is what you should see after DDU) in that session so can you post the crash dump for that latest crash?

If the nVIDIA display driver is still there somehow then I'd recommend going into system32 and seeing if it's there. It shoudn't be. If another driver or process is at fault in the latest crash then that's progress.

 

[renderXR]

Okay it looks like your on the right track with removing the drivers. I just want to ask if your allowing Windows update to install the update for the driver and not use device manager? Just wanted to point out that device manager will update to the bugged driver.

I don't use the device manager to install updates. I have no clue if I have windows updater allowed to install an update for the driver, where do I see that?

I have deleted the nvidia driver again and downgraded to "385.41 GeForce Game Ready Driver" like Cartoondabuddhalover suggested, but this one has crashed multiple times already.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VJ7dIranc1bZewixymQvgCw41AlQMkHs
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RUXxRxdEL9F36edWOfc_91mLi8i_c-uH
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1F4O8eOv4j6LLMYjlHohUPVG_LP_YEjhf

His final solution was: "If reverting to a previous version doesn't work at all, you should use DDU to delete the graphics drivers, allow windows update to update the driver to the 23.21.13.8813 version. I found this to be a solution on a client's built computer for now." But my question is, how do I allow windows update to do this when I have the driver deleted?

 

[jr9]

Those crash dumps have nVIDIA display driver running in the as well. You can still use your GPU with the nVIDIA drivers cleaned out with DDU. It will work in low resolution mode using a Windows VGA basic driver. I recommend using DDU again in safe mode, booting into Windows, and then going into Windows update and finding the GPU driver there to use. You ask Windows update to search for updates and it will find the display driver. If it crashes again after that then it can't be drivers.

 

[renderXR]

Those crash dumps have nVIDIA display driver running in the as well. You can still use your GPU with the nVIDIA drivers cleaned out with DDU. It will work in low resolution mode using a Windows VGA basic driver. I recommend using DDU again in safe mode, booting into Windows, and then going into Windows update and finding the GPU driver there to use. You ask Windows update to search for updates and it will find the display driver. If it crashes again after that then it can't be drivers.

Alright, it is now running on the 23.21.13.8813 version, that windows update installed. I will give updates if it crashes again.

 

[renderXR]

Those crash dumps have nVIDIA display driver running in the as well. You can still use your GPU with the nVIDIA drivers cleaned out with DDU. It will work in low resolution mode using a Windows VGA basic driver. I recommend using DDU again in safe mode, booting into Windows, and then going into Windows update and finding the GPU driver there to use. You ask Windows update to search for updates and it will find the display driver. If it crashes again after that then it can't be drivers.

Alright, it is now running on the 23.21.13.8813 version, that windows update installed. I will give updates if it crashes again.

It is still crashing...

 

[jr9]

If the Windows Update or latest nVIDIA drivers are crashing, I would consider some more drastic options such as:

- Run the PC with the video card display drivers uninstalled for a while. It will be in lower res mode but if it doesn't crash after a day or so then it's definitely graphics related. It probably is. The FX CPU doesn't have integrated graphics sadly so you can't just fall back on them in the meantime.

- Try a different video card with a fresh set of drivers. Or try the 970 GTX on a different machine. Or have a PC shop perform this diagnostic for you if you don't have spare parts.

- Backup and reinstall Windows (complete format and reinstall not reset or refresh)

If you find the silver bullet solution that isn't any of these options let us know. I can't think of any. Generally if a see a GPU crashing with fresh drivers I will test it on the testbench system and if it's crashes there I declare the card defective and if it doesn't I declare there is an issue with the machine it came from and go from there.

 

[kris_hm]

I'm having the same issue with my Geforce 750TI, I keep getting this watch dog bluescreen on my desktop and bluescreenviewer claims it to be my video driver. I used Display Driver Uninstaller in safemode to remove my driver, then rebooted and installed fresh drivers from Nvidias website. I went a little over 24 hours without a crash which looked promising at first but then it crashed as i was using my computer. Except this time it didnt log the bluescreen so i cant look at the dump.. weird.
But its crashing the same way so im going to assume its the same answer.
Did your computer start crashing shortly after doing a windows update? My machine was fine a couple weeks ago, did a windows update and then my computer started crashing. Not sure if its related to the crashes or not...
Not sure if this has anything to do with it either, but after a bluescreen a few days ago my BIOS became corrupted and i had to reset it with the jumper on the board. I was also hoping this would be the overall fix but it wasnt. If i find any other solutions i will update here as well.

 

[prabhatp]

My desktop computer crashes because of DPC Watchdog Violation Error. I've uninstalled and reinstalled its drivers, did not worked. I've scanned my computer for viruses, found nothing. I used chkdsk and also removed recently installed software, did not worked. Please help me out. Here is a link to 3 minidump files in .zip folder and a system information file - https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvJajiCV_sBFgwuE9CxpDxtt_hQM

 

[jr9]

My desktop computer crashes because of DPC Watchdog Violation Error. I've uninstalled and reinstalled its drivers, did not worked. I've scanned my computer for viruses, found nothing. I used chkdsk and also removed recently installed software, did not worked. Please help me out. Here is a link to 3 minidump files in .zip folder and a system information file - https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvJajiCV_sBFgwuE9CxpDxtt_hQM

Please start your own thread if you have an issue.

 

[prabhatp]

Please start your own thread if you have an issue.
[/quotemsg]

I already had a thread - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3687706/dpc-watchdog-violation-error-windows.html
I will be really thankful if you will reply me over there since no one has answered me there and I'm in deep trouble.
Thank You.