[SOLVED] Windows 8.1 'DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION' BSOD

doveman

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Oct 11, 2007
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My Dad's PC started crashing with this error a couple of weeks ago.

His system is Asus Z97-A motherboard, i5-4670k, 32GB DDR3, AMD RX570 8GB GPU, one 1920x1080 monitor, Logitech HD Webcam C270.

He says that after rebooting he gets a warning that Radeon Wattman has been reset to default but also that the BSOD only seems to occur when he's browsing, although that doesn't rule out the GPU driver as it's obviously using the GPU to display the web pages.

He's done a virus and malware scan and sfc /scannow and stress tested the GPU, which runs at 37c idle and 75c fully loaded. He's got a dual-boot Win 8.1/Windows 10 system and he says it doesn't seem to happen in Windows 10, although he only really uses that for X-Plane at the moment so he doesn't use that much and he hasn't got much else installed.

He's tried switching from the Intel SATA driver to the Standard SATA AHCI Controller but that hasn't helped.

As AMD haven't released any Windows 8.1 drivers for years, the GPU drivers won't have auto-updated recently. He's sent me the mindumps which start on 2 September and looking at them in Bluescreenview some identify atikmdag.sys as the problem but others don't.

I've shared his minidumps here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AtSWiUdE3JSOiGs-0NrOthXzo2rt?e=JCpoj4

I'd be grateful if someone could take a look and try and help me fix this for him.
 

doveman

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Oct 11, 2007
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Thanks. It turned out to be a conflict between Avast antivirus and Malware Bytes. He uninstalled the latter and that fixed it.

It gave him the incentive to get on and install his main software in Windows 10 at least, so he'll be using that mostly in future.