BSOD Win10 - DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION & CRITICAL_STRUCTURE_CORRUPTION

[Jul]

Got these 2 BSODs in 6 days. First ones on this installation.

Hardware:

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• Windows 10 x64 retail
• Age of system:
  • 2 HDDs: 200GB ~10yrs, 500gb ~5yrs
  • 1 SSD: 250gb 1yr
  • Video Card: 1.5yrs
  • MB&RAM&CPU: 3yrs
  • Soundcard: 5yrs
• Age of OS: On new installation since I got my SSD (1yr -- so not upgraded from Win7 or 8)
• CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
• Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Dual-X 2048MB
• Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme3 AMD 970 So.AM3+ Dual Channel DDR3 ATX Retail
• Soundcard: Asus Xonar DS
• PSU: Corsair CX500 500W
• System Manufacturer: custom / myself
• Desktop PC

Some background:

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• Got the first BSOD (dpc watchdog violation) while browsing after deinstalling asus driver (see below for context), particularly watching videos on youtube / twitch. After reboot I installed the driver again (of course).
• second BSOD (critical structure corruption) after I exited out of SSH tunnel to my pi, I'm not sure what I had running in the background, but most probably chrome.
• I'm using 2 soundcards at the same time.
  • Soundcard of MB for my speakers
  • ASUS Xonar DS for my headset.
  • When I need my headset as my primary device, I set its Adapter accordingly - so I switch between 2 adapters, but both stay enabled.
  • Before I used above method, I had a Y-Plug in my ASUS card for both my headset and speakers. This used to work fine, but when I accidentally pulled on my headset cable I would get a BSOD (which was before this installation)
• I'm experiencing some crackling audio and minifreezes while watching videos in a browser (I'm using chrome, but its happening for Firefox too).
  • However, when I close chrome it stops.
  • Games work perfectly fine. (I only tested Dark Souls 2)
  • When I open chrome again, the crackling may or may not start again.
    • PC is currently running for 24hrs+. It had this crackling / mini-freeze problem. I closed and reopened chrome -> crackling starts again. Close chrome again, start game -> no crackling. Start chrome again -> no crackling (or freezing). I tried to force a BSOD but no success.
    • Yesterday I had my PC running for 15hrs+ and experienced crackling / mini-freezes. Closing and reopening chrome stopped it.
  • This is not the first time I'm experiencing this issue. Before, I resolved this with reinstalling the driver for my Asus soundcard. I've done this for like half a year. Before that, I used the Y-plug.
  • EDIT: I just deinstalled the MB Audio driver and turned OnBoard Audio in BIOS off, will report back on this should crackling arise again. So currently I'm only using speakers on the ASUS soundcard.
• PC is running for 24hrs+ with verifier activated, before that, 15hrs+ with verifier (accidentally shut my PC down). No BSODs.
• Temps are fine. (Max values of current session: CPU 45°C, GPU 73°C @ Fan Speed 63%)

Memory dump of second BSOD
Unfortunately, I didn't save the memdump of the first BSOD.

 

[Xer]

Hi Jul,

The first minidump from March 31st actually points towards your NIC, the Atheros AR922X.

fffff801`6148a858 fffff801`5f76cebb : 00000000`00000133 00000000`00000001 00000000`00001e00 00000000`00000000 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff801`6148a860 fffff801`5f62e196 : fffff801`5f92e180 ffffd001`75b30830 00000000`00140001 fffff801`5f92e180 : nt! ?? ::FNODOBFM::`string'+0xadbb
fffff801`6148a8f0 fffff801`5f6303df : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 fffff801`5f8f6e50 ffffe001`db2f0d00 : nt!KiUpdateRunTime+0x56
fffff801`6148a950 fffff801`5fddfa46 : 00000000`00000000 fffff801`5f92e180 00000000`00000009 0002d8b5`b1356c59 : nt!KeClockInterruptNotify+0x44f
fffff801`6148aab0 fffff801`5f6fa197 : fffff801`5fe2a4b0 00000000`00001385 00000000`00000000 00000000`00001385 : hal!HalpTimerClockInterrupt+0x56
fffff801`6148aae0 fffff801`5f754b8a : fffff801`5fe2a4b0 00000000`00000000 0002d8b5`b1354740 00000000`00000001 : nt!KiCallInterruptServiceRoutine+0x87
fffff801`6148ab20 fffff801`5f754fb7 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiInterruptSubDispatchNoLockNoEtw+0xea
fffff801`6148ab70 fffff801`e63a8e82 : ffffe001`daea0030 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000f43 fffff801`e63a8ced : nt!KiInterruptDispatchNoLockNoEtw+0x37
fffff801`6148ad00 ffffe001`daea0030 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000f43 fffff801`e63a8ced ffffe001`db8574e0 : [COLOR=#ff0000]athwnx[/COLOR]+0xc8e82
fffff801`6148ad08 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000f43 fffff801`e63a8ced ffffe001`db8574e0 ffffe001`daea6220 : 0xffffe001`daea0030

Going by the DxDiag readout, it looks like you might just be using a generic/old driver? It seems like Atheros drivers for Windows 10 generally start with 10 (eg 10.x.x...), whereas you have 3.0.2.181 installed. I'm not sure what the best place to get Atheros drivers from is (Qualcomm says to get them from the OEM, so for your build you might need an unofficial repository), but you would just be looking to get the current W10x64 version.

Edit: I should add, I'm not really sure what to think regarding the second BSOD. I'm not able to check out the full dump at the moment, but given the nature of the crash there wasn't anything terribly revealing in the minidump.

 

[Jul]

Hey Xer,

I totally forgot I had a WLAN-Card. It is a TP-Link: TL-WN951N. I just updated the driver to the newest version, I got it from here: Select Qualcomm Atheros wireless driver
It's working fine. However, I'm not using WLAN anymore, so I should just remove it from my board.. maybe another day. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!

Fingers crossed for the second BSOD!!

 

[Xer]

Hey Xer,

I totally forgot I had a WLAN-Card. It is a TP-Link: TL-WN951N. I just updated the driver to the newest version, I got it from here: Select Qualcomm Atheros wireless driver
It's working fine. However, I'm not using WLAN anymore, so I should just remove it from my board.. maybe another day. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!

Fingers crossed for the second BSOD!!

If you're no longer using it, but don't want to take it out of the computer, you also have the option of disabling it from Device Manager. Simply open Device Manager, open the Network Adapters menu, right-click on the card, and select "Disable". Good luck!