Question "DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION" BSOD with USB WiFi adapter ?

liberty610

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Oct 31, 2012
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Hey guys. I'm having an odd issue with a family members PC. I've narrowed it down to being caused by USB Wifi dongle causing the issue. I'm running windows 10 with all the latest updates.

Recently, anytime the PC would attempt to communicate with the USB wifi adapter so I could go online, the wifi icon in the task bar went from showing the 4 to 5 bars of signal to the disconnected globe icon. It would then go back to showing 4 to 5 bars of signal, then the entire system would freeze, then BSOD with DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION.

I then was able to do everything with the PC as long as I was connected with a LAN cable. The second I put a USB wifi dongle into a USB port, it will then freeze up, and BSOD again.

I bought a brand new wifi dongle from Netgear and tried that, and it still freezes and crashes when trying to access the internet with it. Every single time it crashes with a BSOD it says DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION in the error.

As soon as I disconnect the wifi dongle and run the computer, it works flawlessly. Offline or online with a LAN cable. The second I connect any USB wifi antenna to it, it BSOD crashes with DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION error.

I am running 16gb of ram on Windows 10 with Intel Core i7-6800K and GIGABYTE GA-X99-Ultra Gaming motherboard.

Any ideas how I can remedy this? Thanks.