Intel XTU crashing when contacting watchdog driver

[generalguy]

I'm using an i9-13900k on a Z790-I STRIX asus motherboard. All drivers are at the latest ones issued by Asus, and so is the bios/ME firmware.

Intel XTU's does not recognize the watchdog timer driver's availability -- it shows up fine in device manager -- and according to the XtuCore logs:

2024/01/02-16:58:54.2404|IMP] Watchdog Present = True
2024/01/02-16:58:54.2404|IMP] Aux Wdt Recovery Flag = False
2024/01/02-16:58:54.2463|!ERR] IronCity.Common.DriverAccessException: IOCTL returned code 5
at IronCity.HardwareServices.PchWatchdogService.GetWdtStatus()
at IronCity.HardwareServices.PchWatchdogService.get_Failed()
at IronCity.HardwareAccess.XtuWatchdogAccess.‪‌‫‎‭‏​‌‪‌‎‫‍‌‪‫‮‫‍‫‮‌‭‍‍‮(IWatchdogService )
at IronCity.HardwareAccess.XtuWatchdogAccess.Initialize()Exception thrown while communicating with Watchdog Timer Driver.
2024/01/02-16:58:54.2463|IMP] Watchdog Present = False

As you can see it attempts to use an IOCTL (DeviceIoControl on windows) to do something and fails. Note that there's a bunch of garbage unicode characters in there too. The error code is

ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED so something is broken in the way the XTU process is communicating with the device.

The full logs are attached, however they have obfuscated names for some reason.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

generalguy, Thank you for posting in the Intel® Communities Support.

We will be more than glad to assist you with this matter. 

In order for us to try to provide the most accurate assistance on this matter, we will do further research on this scenario. As soon as I get any updates, I will post all the details on this thread.

Any questions, please let me know.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello generalguy, I just received an update on this matter.

While we are still working on this case, we just wanted to confirm if you already tried reinstalling the tool:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000032459/processors/processor-utilities-and-programs.html

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[generalguy]

Hi Albert,

Yes, the problem persists even on a completely new Windows 11 install with a completely fresh XTU install. The uninstall/reinstall did not work either.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hi generalguy, Thank you very much for confirming those details.

We will continue working on this scenario and provide a response as soon as possible.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[generalguy]

Hi, the problem still exists on the new version of XTU. It appears that the WDT service is recognized by some processes and not others. It still causes some to crash and the GUI does not recognize that it exists so it won't automatically restore on boot.

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello generalguy, I just received an update on this matter.

After reviewing the case we would like to let you know that some users with an ASUS* motherboard combined with an unlocked processor may be unable to restore profile settings or XTU performance issues. This is because the Intel® Watchdog Timer Driver (Intel® WDT Driver) is not present in Intel® XTU.

Find Watchdog section and confirm Watchdog Present shows False. False means the Watchdog is not detected within the system on BIOS. This is ASUS known issue, not related to Intel® XTU, so the next thing to do will be to get in contact directly with them for further technical assistance on this subject:

https://www.asus.com/support/

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[generalguy]

Hi albert

According to device manager the included ICCWDT in XTU appears to be matching to the right device and working correctly:

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hi generalguy, Thank you very much for your response and for providing the picture.

Perfect, it is great to see that the included ICCWDT in XTU appears to be matching to the right device and working correctly, since in some situations, that is not the case.

So, just to confirm, after sharing those details, is Intel® XTU still crashing?

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello generalguy, I just wanted to check if you saw the information posted previously and if you need further assistance on this matter?

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Alberto_R_Intel]

Hello generalguy, Since we have not heard back from you, we are closing the case, but if you have any additional questions, please post them on a new thread so we can further assist you with this matter.

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician