ACER ASPIRE V3-571G BSOD DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION after cleaning up fan

Hello friends.

I have the issue stated at the title. I cleaned my laptop's fan because it was getting noisey and I also changed thermal paste on my gpu (730m). I may have scratched something by accident but I want to believe that I was careful enough. Now when I turn it on and use my gpu instead of the onboard (while trying to play etc), I get "windows problem resolving" processes on task manager, then it freezes and after a while I get BSOD with code DPC WATCHDOG VIOLATION. Also some of the left side keys are not working, like 'A', CAPS LOCK, CTRL, SHIFT and ESC. 'A' worked once but then stoped again after a while. I tried cleaning the thermal paste in case it was soomewhere it shouldn't but nothing changed. Also for the keyboard issue, I tried cleaning the connectors (in case of thermal paste smudge), better clipping the ribbon cable but still no change. Any suggestions? (Funny thing is that fan is noisier than before Smiley Tongue )

Accepted answers

IronFly

can you please try this to analyse your crashes?

download this tool, whocrashed:
http://www.resplendence.com/download/whocrashedSetup.exe

before running it, browse to C:\windows\minidump
delete all files apart the first 2-3 files (newest)
then install whocrashed and run it
click on Analyze
report here the result.

All comments

IronFly

can be a shortcut created by the thermal paste if you used silver based paste.

have a close look with a magnifier if possible.

or in the worst case, some component went bad during you clean up.

Trukntigger

You mention fan even worse than before cleaning. Did you lube the fan? I know they claim maintance free but they are not, just longer lasting. Pull sticker at center, behind it is the spindle bearing shaft. Few drops of light 3in1 or sewing machine oil may help a lot. You cleaned using what? Again some things better and safer- rubbing alcohol ok but does so so job. Found zippo lighter fluid works real well but use caution, is it flameable till it evaporates. Electronic cleaner works but costly and messy. Also sounds like a screw or something loose and shorting out a possible. Partial keyboard working normally in the keyboard or ribbon to it. If system got too hot it can actually damage the plastic trace lines in keyboard- basically a few layers plastic membrane with conductive trace work on them, any break in that trace work would cause it. I'd retrace your work and look for some of what I mentioned.

Aristeidis

I used arctic mx-2 . I'm not sure if it's silver based but when I find the time I will check with a magnifying glass to see if I let any smudges behind. Thank you!

Aristeidis

In fact I just cleaned the dust that was blocking the air flow from the side. I will use some kind of lubricant for the fan axis the next time I work on my laptop, thanks for mentioning that, it didn't even cross my mind, sorry. As for the keyboard I will check to see if there are any thermal paste residues or any dust stuck at the motherboard's keyboard connectors instead of the ribbon. If that won't work either I will just try a new keyboard frame. What I'm concerned most is the gpu issue though. Eventually I will send it to acer tec but I don't want to get there just yet

Trukntigger

I find it odd this error you mention shows being related to hard drive firmware. Was a very common BSOD in Win8 when SSD firmwares were going thru so many changes. You mention it happened after you cleaned and only when the nvidia gpu kicks in. If I did not know better I would think theres a issue with the install or last update on the nvidia drivers or worse the ssd is failing. Test it? What prompted you to clean out the laptop in the first place? Was there something not running correct and you thought it was just dirty? Something just not adding up but I can not put my finger on it. Keep updating on forum here, I want to see where this ends up.

Trukntigger

I want to add are you running Win8 still or did you go with the free upgrade to Win10? Or did you ever try Win10 on it? ( you still could upgrade for free just have to do a few tricks for that to work). Again, let forum (me) know.

Aristeidis

I see your enthusiasm but unfortunatelly I'm going to let you down on it. I am not using an ssd. I use the standar 500gb hdd that came with the laptop. I am running win 10. Never had a software problem before I tried to clean the fan. Everything was working as it should.Been like that for the past years. There were no software updates prior the fix. I was intrigued to clean up my laptop because I had spare time and because it was making me nervous every time I had to listen the fan roar on heavy load. I also searched this error code online but I think all these solutions that I found are outliers to my case!

Trukntigger

Try this- https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/573811/nvidia-streamer-service-may-be-freezing-your-pc/ May help.

IronFly

can you please try this to analyse your crashes?

download this tool, whocrashed:
http://www.resplendence.com/download/whocrashedSetup.exe

before running it, browse to C:\windows\minidump
delete all files apart the first 2-3 files (newest)
then install whocrashed and run it
click on Analyze
report here the result.

Aristeidis

I replicated the issue just to be sure and here are the results. Under these three crash reports there are two more like the first one. Since I didn't have a driver issue before I tend to explain it as a overheating issue due to the paste I applied on the gpu. I will give it to a professional to clean up my mess and reapply thermal paste and I will let you know what happened.