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Drivers & Software

denisrs
Journeyman III

HD 6900 series (6970) causes DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION in Windows 10 2004 (x64)

Hi,

Ever since spring Windows 10 2004 update, my PC can't wake up from hibernation from time to time due to DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION errors.

Here is an excerpt from crash analysis report by WinDBG (X64) (please see a complete version in the attachment):

DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION (133)
The DPC watchdog detected a prolonged run time at an IRQL of DISPATCH_LEVEL
or above.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000000, A single DPC or ISR exceeded its time allotment. The offending
    component can usually be identified with a stack trace.
Arg2: 0000000000000501, The DPC time count (in ticks).
Arg3: 0000000000000500, The DPC time allotment (in ticks).
Arg4: fffff803724fa320, cast to nt!DPC_WATCHDOG_GLOBAL_TRIAGE_BLOCK, which contains
    additional information regarding this single DPC timeout

...

IMAGE_NAME:  dxgmms1.sys

IMAGE_VERSION:  10.0.19041.450

STACK_COMMAND:  .thread ; .cxr ; kb

BUCKET_ID_FUNC_OFFSET:  4d1

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  0x133_DPC_dxgmms1!VidSchiProcessDpcCompletedPacket

OS_VERSION:  10.0.19041.1

Yes, the report is indicating a DirectX driver ("dxgmms1.sys") as a culprit, however, Microsoft says the error is caused by underlying video card driver, which is seen in the report's stack trace section as "atikmpag.sys".

Of course, I have the very latest AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series driver installed: 15.301.1901.0 from 26.02.2016.

It is old and as we can see from the date it normally does not get updated for more than four years by now but AMD says that HD 6900 Series is compatible with Windows 10 (including x64): https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-615 so I wonder if they will remove the claim (limit it to Windows 10 1909 version) or update the driver?

There is a fundamental way to deal with some of those errors: increase Window's DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION threshold timeout so that even slow-starting drivers like this one would not generate the error. However, this would only help if the driver just a bit slower, and not unable to wake-up after hibernation.

Is it possible to fix this?

Thanks in advance.

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3 Replies

Thanks but I already have this exact setting made. I have also disabled fast boot in BIOS (which is a separate thing) just in case. Alas, I still have the DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION errors.

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asdf23451
Adept III

With such a old GPU, using anything newer than 7 or 8.1 gives you no advantages. HD 6970 doesn't support DX12 or Vulkan.

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