New PC errors with default radeon wattman settings and amdkmdag device stopped working

N

nubba

Member
Hi,

I recently bought one of the pre-built PC's from PC specialist with an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X and AMD radeon RX 5700 XT card. Since having the pc (less than a month) i experience daily crashes whenever trying to play games. The crashes are either complete shutdown (which generates the default radeon wattman error) or a crash to desktop but i cant shut the programme down (which generates the amdkmdag error).

I have tried uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling using DDU in safe mode which was recommended to me by PC specialist tech support. This has not helped. I dont think the system is overclocked (it was a prebuilt one so i am not sure). I have also disabled the fast start up in the power settings which was also recommended by PC specialist tech support.

What i am trying to understand is if these errors might be related to a faulty graphics card and if i need to then seek to send the PC back (i would not know how to change a graphics card myself).

Many thanks in advance
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
As strange (and potentially annoying) as it sounds - try a windows re-install and see if that seems to help, I had similar issues and a reinstall of windows seems to have solved them.

If it is a new GPU you can definitely change it yourself, its super easy and we (or they) can talk you through it, alternatively they will be able to take it back and change it for you if necessary.
 
N

nubba

Member
Thanks very much for replying. Apologies if this sounds very dense but the system came preinstalled with windows and there is no disc (and in fact i do not even have a disc drive). I am therefore not sure how i do a windows reinstall.
 
Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
nubba said:
Thanks very much for replying. Apologies if this sounds very dense but the system came preinstalled with windows and there is no disc (and in fact i do not even have a disc drive). I am therefore not sure how i do a windows reinstall.
Click to expand...
No problem, have a read here:

Reinstall Windows - Microsoft Support

Learn how to reinstall Windows on your PC and how activation works after it's installed.
support.microsoft.com support.microsoft.com
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
Do you have a USB stick with at least 8GB spare?

If so you can use the instructions here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 and follow the instructions in the 'Using the tool to create installation media .....' section
Note, anything on said USB stick will be overwritten so save anything you need from it elsewhere.
They've made the Win10 installation a lot easier than some previous Windows versions :)

Edit: MartinR36 beat me to it :)
 
N

nubba

Member
thank you all very much for the replies. I will have a read of what i need to do and will attempt to reinstall over the weekend. I hope that will fix the issues and i will drop a line back how i am getting on. What i am most concerned about is identifying a hard wear issue so that i can have it addressed under warranty. From reading articles i was concerned it was a hard wear issue with the card or the 650 psu is not capable of running the card and the rest of the stuff in the computer.

I really know nothing about computers hence going with a system that was pre-built but even that seems to be causing issues.

Thanks once again and i will attempt to reinstall windows.
 
Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Rakk said:
Do you have a USB stick with at least 8GB spare?

If so you can use the instructions here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 and follow the instructions in the 'Using the tool to create installation media .....' section
Note, anything on said USB stick will be overwritten so save anything you need from it elsewhere.
They've made the Win10 installation a lot easier than some previous Windows versions :)

Edit: MartinR36 beat me to it :)
Click to expand...
And before doing this make sure you have all your personal data backed up as it completely wipes the drive so that you start from a completely clean install, once you've reinstalled it then run updates till no more show & install graphic drivers from the AMD website
 
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Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
nubba said:
thank you all very much for the replies. I will have a read of what i need to do and will attempt to reinstall over the weekend. I hope that will fix the issues and i will drop a line back how i am getting on. What i am most concerned about is identifying a hard wear issue so that i can have it addressed under warranty. From reading articles i was concerned it was a hard wear issue with the card or the 650 psu is not capable of running the card and the rest of the stuff in the computer.

I really know nothing about computers hence going with a system that was pre-built but even that seems to be causing issues.

Thanks once again and i will attempt to reinstall windows.
Click to expand...
That's why a total clean install of windows is suggested as at the moment we can't say if it's software or hardware causing the problem, once we know we've got a properly clean install of software we can work from there
 
N

nubba

Member
can i chose the "reset windows" option under recovery as that option says it will reinstall windows?
 
Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
nubba said:
can i chose the "reset windows" option under recovery as that option says it will reinstall windows?
Click to expand...
No that doesn't do a clean install it just sets everything back to default settings so any problems can still be sat under the surface
 
N

nubba

Member
ThornyFloweringShrub said:
Hey. Just because I've had a new PC for just over a month, with the 5700 XT and also problems - I thought I'd share this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/cf111o

You might have already seen it but in case you haven't its a summary of various things that have worked for some people. My card still crashes but it does crash... less than when I first got the PC.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that link it was very helpful. Can i ask a question about this point in the link you sent?

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: DO NOT RUN ANY CPU, GPU MONITORING SOFTWARE IN THE BACKGROUND AT ALL! IF YOU WANT TO SEE FPS, USE STEAM, UPLAY, ORIGIN etc. They all conflict to the new RDNA architecture. (Credits to reddit User zqz110110)

The PC has something call ICUE installed on it. This seems to have some monitoring software in it (it can tell the temperature of the system for example). Should i disable that? To be honest i am not even sure what ICUE does. In addition there is something called Aura which seems to control the colours of the lights in the case.

I will try a reinstall but it seems harsh considering i have had the system for a month and have only installed MS teams, Overwatch, Destiny 2, battlenet and discord as well as setting up an RDC to my work PC. I have used the DDU to remove the old drivers and have updated to the latest ones. Everything else is as it was out of the box.

Sorry to hear you are also struggling with this card.
 
T

ThornyFloweringShrub

Bronze Level Poster
nubba said:
Thanks for that link it was very helpful. Can i ask a question about this point in the link you sent?

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: DO NOT RUN ANY CPU, GPU MONITORING SOFTWARE IN THE BACKGROUND AT ALL! IF YOU WANT TO SEE FPS, USE STEAM, UPLAY, ORIGIN etc. They all conflict to the new RDNA architecture. (Credits to reddit User zqz110110)

The PC has something call ICUE installed on it. This seems to have some monitoring software in it (it can tell the temperature of the system for example). Should i disable that? To be honest i am not even sure what ICUE does. In addition there is something called Aura which seems to control the colours of the lights in the case.

I will try a reinstall but it seems harsh considering i have had the system for a month and have only installed MS teams, Overwatch, Destiny 2, battlenet and discord as well as setting up an RDC to my work PC. I have used the DDU to remove the old drivers and have updated to the latest ones. Everything else is as it was out of the box.

Sorry to hear you are also struggling with this card.
Click to expand...
By monitoring software it means things like Radeon Overlay - stuff that provides metrics in the top of your screen for example. As is my understanding.

Try DDU but get the Radeon Software and extract it to desktop first with 7 zip. Then turn off internet. After doing DDU, go to device manager and go to your graphics card (its named something like Microsoft Visual Adapter without the drivers). Right click and go to update drivers. But select manual, then select the Radeon Software folder you extracted to desktop. I had a crash yesterday so I thought I'd try with the software again (not working today so was just going to chill on the PC this afternoon). Run game, whole PC crashes. So I'm definitely more stable without the Radeon Software.

You're not alone!

EDIT: Its under Display Adapters in device manger.
 
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