Reading a memory dump

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Is there a tool that will let me peek at a memory dump (MEMORY.DMP)? I had a BSOD a while ago (DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION) and it created a dump. Most of what I’ve found on the Internet says that the dump probably occurred because of a driver issue. No drivers have changed on my machine since I did my clean Win 10 install. I thought maybe the dump might give me a clue as to what driver was causing the issue.

Windows 10 is becoming a bit too flakey for my tastes. I’m hoping the Anniversary Update fixes a few things.

Rob

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Check out the free home version of WhoCrashed.

--Joe

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Joe: Thanks! I’ll check that out.

Rob

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A DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION (bugcheck 0x133) is like an arterial blockage, Windows waits too long for *something* to send (presumably vital) data. Lag, lag, lag, crash

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ntdebugging/2012/12/07/determining-the-source-of-bug-check-0x133-dpc_watchdog_violation-errors-on-windows-server-2012/

https://www.sysnative.com/forums/bsod-kernel-dump-analysis-debugging-information/11184-dpc_watchdog_timeout-debugging.html

https://bsodtutorials.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/debugging-stop-0x133-and-dpc-internals/

http://bsoddebugging.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/0x133-dpcwatchdogviolation.html

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Joe & Satrow: Thank you for your posts, and Joe, thanks so much for letting me know about WhoCrashed. I ran it this morning and it pointed to a kernel driver for avast! anti-virus. Arrrgh. Us avast customers just went through a very bad weekend; avast pushed out a bad update that made their product appear to be non-functioning. They finally fixed the problem but now I’m wondering if they have a new one. Avast just came out with a new release of their product, renamed Nitro and it seems to be having some issue. Maybe nitro glycerin would have been a better name.

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These issues aren’t restricted to Avast – any security or other 3rd party software that uses drivers/filters close to the Windows kernel can also be affected by an update and any resulting changes to the different security tech. built into W10.

Expect further issues after the AU.

Perhaps best results will be: keep all MS software and W10’s defaults, or trim Windows to the bone and use it as a platform for 3rd party software. Getting into mix and match or duplication territory is more likely to lead to further bugs, glitches and frustration somewhere down the line.

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These issues aren’t restricted to Avast – any security or other 3rd party software that uses drivers/filters close to the Windows kernel can also be affected by an update and any resulting changes to the different security tech. built into W10.

Expect further issues after the AU.

Perhaps best results will be: keep all MS software and W10’s defaults, or trim Windows to the bone and use it as a platform for 3rd party software. Getting into mix and match or duplication territory is more likely to lead to further bugs, glitches and frustration somewhere down the line.

Oh…understood. The thing is my Windows 10 system has been somewhat flaky from the get-go. I did a clean install of Windows 10 and it’s always had an intermittent problem of clicking on an icon and nothing happens for about 2 minutes or so…then the system comes back to life. I previously ran Windows 7SP1 on this machine and it ran like a top; no issues whatsoever. Some Avast users are mentioning instability under Windows 10 so I may try uninstalling it for a while and just use Windows Defender and Malwarebytes to see if these problems go away. Other people I’ve talked to are not having these issues so it’s something specific to my setup.

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Have you run Task Manager to try to catch what might be taking over your system?

--Joe

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Have you run Task Manager to try to catch what might be taking over your system?

Joe: Once this happens, I have to wait until the system responds to keystrokes and mouse-clicks so I can’t even get into Task Manager while this is happening. I do have Sysinternals Process Explorer running all the time and it doesn’t show any spike in CPU activity. About all I can do while the machine is “thinking” is move the mouse around, but it doesn’t respond to clicks and the keyboard is unresponsive. The Event Viewer shows nothing. It’s quite frustrating.

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W10’s Task Manager, with only 60 seconds of history available, is close to useless for these hanging/freezing issues. Having it open full time on the Performance tab might be of some use, though switching tabs during a freeze to find a likely culprit might not be possible.

Does Reliability Monitor give any further clues?

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