I'm having a tough time with my laptop recently—I've been getting Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors related to DPC Watchdog, and it seems to be linked to the ntoskrnl.exe file according to my minidump files. I've included my laptop specs: Ryzen 5 7535HS, RTX 3050 Mobile GPU, 24 GB of RAM, and I'm running Windows 11. These BSODs have mostly started happening after I shut down my computer, and I've owned this device for about 3 years without any serious issues. I don't believe malware is a problem, but one of my dump files was flagged as a virus by Mediafire, showing a malware warning (Js.Exploit.HTML-29) when checked against VirusTotal.
Here's what I've already tried to fix the issue:
- Updated drivers via the NVIDIA app
- Ran 'sfc /scannow' in the terminal with no corrupt files found
- Checked for any driver updates for my wifi card, but Windows said I'm good there
- Executed 'dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth' in the terminal as well.
I'd appreciate any guidance on how to resolve these BSOD errors!
1 Answer
It sounds like the issue could stem from your memory, but not necessarily RAM—it might be related to how Windows uses storage. When Windows runs low on RAM, it may start using the page file on the storage drive. Try checking for anything that's overclocked or undervolted; removing those might help. To diagnose the RAM specifically, test it one stick at a time. If your laptop crashes with either stick alone, it might be a CPU issue since faulty RAM can sometimes be missed by memory testers, especially with DDR4 and newer systems.
I experienced a similar BSOD with a Synthetic Watchdog Timeout code, and it pointed to my CPU as well. That's a pain for a laptop, but I discovered a pending BIOS update and applied it—let's hope that resolves it for good!