Lenovo Legion T5 prebuilt - DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION issues

Table of Contents

Background

The Lenovo Legion T5 has been experiencing issues related to its Nvidia GPU drivers. Users have reported frequent crashes, freezing, and blue screen errors (BSOD) when using certain Nvidia drivers, particularly DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION BSODs.

The root cause of the GPU issues in the Lenovo Legion T5 appears to be an incompatibility between the Nvidia audio and graphics drivers and the other system components. This incompatibility can lead to conflicts that result in frequent crashes, freezing, and BSOD errors. This is a manufacturing issue from Lenovo.

Additionally, some users have reported that the PCI Express Root Port is also a contributing factor. This component, related to the video card, can cause hardware errors that further exacerbate the instability issues.

To address this issue, Lenovo has released a tool to address the current issue, details of which can be found here: System may blue screen (BSOD) after installing Nvidia Graphics driver version 27.21.14.6231 - Legion T5-28IMB05 - Lenovo Support US

Symptoms and Diagnosis

  • Frequent crashes of programs.
  • Black screens, freezes, GPU driver timeouts.
  • BSODs with DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION, or other BSODs blaming the NVidia drivers.

All symptoms are common to a misbehaving GPU driver. Only difference here is that issues will still persist even after a GPU driver reinstall via DDU.

Known Solution

  • First, follow the steps to reinstall NVidia drivers via DDU
  • Next run the Lenovo patch tool after reinstalling the NVidia drivers:
    • Download the Patch tool from here: Lenovo T5 Support Page
    • Unzip the tool file, three files should be present in the zip file.
    • Run the Repair bsod instruction.cmd file as administrator.
    • If successful, in Device Manager, the NVIDA USB 3.10 eXtensible Host Controller device will now have a download arrow in front of it. Install it, and you may restart the PC.

This is in accordance with Lenovo guidelines and documentation, and has been proven to work across multiple systems.