Getting a CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT on i9-14900K

[dwiercioch]

I have been battling a CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error along with the associated BSOD on my Gigabyte AORUS Z790 AORUS MASTER X motherboard which is only a few months old.  The system is cooled by a Corsair H150I liquid cooler so not sure what else I can do there. I've had to replace the processor once already due to a threading issue. This one worked better (for a while), but now I'm getting this CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error about once a day (along with a BSOD), usually early in the morning (around 3am) when my machine is doing backups or is otherwise idle, but occasionally when I am doing some simple web browsing during the day, too.

As far as my typical load, I am not a gamer.  However, I do run the Handbrake video encoding tool a lot. With that said, whether or not handbrake is running seems to have little effect about whether the system crashes or freezes. Nothing obviously wrong in the Windows system logs.

I believe I am running the latest motherboard firmware along with all the latest chipset drivers for my board. The system has never been overclocked to my knowledge.  In fact, I have chosen one of the less stressful standard configurations provided by Gigabyte's bios compared to the out-of-the-box over-optimized settings.

I am working with Gigabyte at the moment, but they are saying that a CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT usually means a problem with the CPU.  I have tried some research online, but I am not coming up with much success. I have even reloaded Windows 11 but I still get this error. As far as I can tell, I have the latest system patches and drivers for my hardware, but I don't know how to test that thoroughly.

The standard memory tests pass. Where do I go from here?  Are there other tests I can run? Do I have another bad processor? This is all incredibly frustrating. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

[dwiercioch]

I just took a look at what you did before.  Up to now, I've felt I've been pretty good at solving just about any PC problem I've encountered, but all I can say after reading that thread is these are skills that are seriously beyond me and I've been building my own PCs for over 30 years (albeit not overclocked).

As for yet another BIOS update released so quickly after the last one, I am quite happy with the way things are performing right now and I have no plans to update (for now). I pointed Gigabyte to this thread in order to close the ticket I had with them. For now, I simply want to enjoy my stable system after so many months of frustrating instability. Thanks again - you were an absolute lifesaver to my sanity!

[dwiercioch]

Update.

Soon after I had thought my problem was solved, I had yet one more WATCHDOG error. At that point my setting was 50 using the method recommended by zzetta. Instead of increasing it yet again, I decided I'd take a look at the latest BIOS update for the board. The version I had been using had only been released a few weeks before then so I thought it unusual that yet another would be released so quickly.

I downloaded and installed it and found that the section we had been monkeying with to gain stability had been changed a little. For example, one of the settings that had a default of 80 before had been changed to 110. As a result, I decided to simply accept the new starting point without making any changes at all just to see how that would run.

And wouldn't you know it.  It passed all my stress tests. More importantly, after a little less than a week, I have had zero problems at all whereas previously I was getting unexplained freezes and BSODs on the average of 1-2 times per day.  So whatever the folks at Gigabyte did, it definitely seemed to address the problems I was having. (knock on wood)

[zzetta]

I'm happy it worked for you!

You were probably on the edge of stability, that's why you still had crashes but not that often. 

Another way of fixing the stability issue is by changing the Vcore Loadline to "Turbo" and setting AC and DC loadline both to '1'. This actually gives way better results in terms of voltage, temps and power consumption compared to my first way of fixing it. If you feel that the gigabyte profile is limiting your performance too much, or the cpu is running at very high temps, then you can try this fix too. 

[dwiercioch]

Thanks for the follow up zzetta. I did look in the BIOS for the items you mentioned, but I wasn't 100% sure which items applied since they were named something slightly different. So I'm leaving things alone for the moment. That may change later if the need arises.

I will note that since my last entry from a couple weeks ago, I have had only one BSOD, but this time it was for a CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED failure instead of a WATCHDOG error.    Following some recommendations I found online, I did an SFC /scannow followed by a chkdsk on my C drive.  Both steps seemed to correct some errors that were present and I have had no problems since. At this point, I am convinced this flavor of BSOD was a software problem caused by so many hard shutdowns caused by the WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT error prior to this point, likely leaving my OS in an inconsistent state that the combination of steps above corrected. I don't believe this inconsistency was what was causing my original problem since I had even re-installed the OS at one point when I was working directly with Gigabyte.

In any event, my overall impression for now is that the latest Gigabyte BIOS update (release 7d for my board) has solved my stability problems. Even though I may be giving up a little performance, I am not a gamer and I am absolutely ecstatic with the overall stability I now enjoy - the above BSOD notwithstanding. From what I have been reading there are many people having stability problems with these latest round of Intel processors so I felt better that it wasn't something I had done wrong during the build process. I'm not sure whether this is due to the various board manufacturers setting their defaults beyond Intel's recommendations or whether the problem is due to a deficiency in the CPU. But I am a happy camper at the moment with a stable system.

Thanks again for reaching out. Your help was absolutely vital for me getting to this point.

[madiha0098]

Hi dwiercioch,

Sorry to hear about the issues you're facing. Here are a few steps that might help:

1. **Update Firmware and Drivers:** Double-check for the latest BIOS and chipset drivers from Gigabyte’s website.
2. **Run CPU Diagnostics:** Use Intel's Processor Diagnostic Tool to check for CPU issues.
3. **Memory Tests:** Although standard memory tests pass, try running extended tests with MemTest86.
4. **Check Power Supply:** Ensure your PSU is stable and sufficient for your setup.
5. **Temperature Monitoring:** Use software to monitor CPU and system temperatures to rule out overheating.
6. **Reset BIOS:** Consider resetting the BIOS to default settings or a stable profile provided by Gigabyte.

If these steps don’t resolve the issue, it might be worth discussing further with Gigabyte support or considering another CPU replacement.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

[dwiercioch]

Hi madiha0098,

Thanks for the advice which I will note is quite solid. I had previously carried out most of what you had recommended but was still getting stability errors.  Turns out I was battling something that was fixed in a BIOS update that was released about a month ago. Before then, zzeta provided extraordinary help to get me to the state of nirvana I now enjoy - a rock solid system. See above.

Cheers!