Your PC will shut down and restart if the system runs into a critical system error. The ‘DPC Watchdog Violation 0x00000133’ error is often accompanied by the Blue Screen of Death.
This ‘Stop Check’ warns you that your PC has damaged or corrupt hardware, drivers or software.
What is “DPC Watchdog Violation Error 0x00000133”?
DPC stands for Deferred Procedure Call. That is the interrupt-handling mechanism built into Windows.
It allows drivers, files that allow a device to communicate with the operating system, to process interrupt services fast if they’re high-level or defer those at a low-level.
This basically means the DPC lets drivers schedule operations with high priority over those with low priority by making low priority ones wait.
The Watchdog part of the error message refers to the system monitoring background performances and Windows processes.
Why and When Might this Error Occur?
There are different reasons you might experience the ‘DPC Watchdog Violation’ error.
You might have incompatibility issues or unsupported hardware, your system monitoring service might be overwhelmed, or the system might be stuck on an interrupt request.
Here are some examples of Watchdog Violation causes:
- Your drivers are incorrectly installed, damaged or out of date. When your drivers aren’t working properly, they are unable to communicate with the PC.
- There is a software conflict between 2 installed programs. This can bring up the 0x00000133 error. Perhaps you have 2 firewall programs or 2 antivirus programs trying to cancel each other out or preventing one another from running correctly.
- You have installed incompatible hardware. Sometimes newer hardware or software won’t work on an older computer.
- You have corrupted system files. This means the PC won’t be able to boot up the operating system properly.
- The firmware version is outdated on your Solid-State Drive. This will cause an error between the operating system and the firmware or drivers on the solid-state drive.
The Event Viewer might help you to identify which device, software or driver incompatibility is causing the error if you aren’t sure.
Follow these steps to use the Event Viewer:
- Search for Event Viewer in the search bar then open it.
- Find Windows Logs on the left side of the screen and click on the down arrow.
- Look at the list of events and find the ones saying “Error Level“.
- You can click them to see more details about the source, identification and timing.
How To Fix DPC Watchdog Violation Error 0x00000133
Now you know what the error is and why it might occur, we can go through some methods to solve the problem.
Fix #1: Update the Drivers
Old, out of date drivers can produce a DPC Watchdog Violation error because it creates instability.
The PC won’t run the drivers because they aren’t supported.
This is the method for updating a Solid-State Drive driver but these steps will work on other devices you have plugged into the PC.
- Search for “File Explorer” in the search bar and open it.
- Right-click “My Computer” or “This PC” and click on “Manage“.
- Select “Device Manager” in the window that opens.
- Click on “Disk Drives“, then locate the SSD.
- Right-click on it and select “Properties“.
- Make a note of the SSD type, make and model.
- Now either get the latest version from the manufacturer’s website or right-click the SSD and select Update Drivers.
Fix #2: Use the SATA AHCI Controller to Change Data Exchanges
If the error only seems to happen when you have connected a storage device to the computer, the error is probably caused by a data exchange issue between the computer and the memory on the storage drive.
You can fix this by changing the driver responsible for exchanging the data.
- Right-click the Windows logo and select “Device Manager“.
- Find the “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers” menu and expand it.
- Now right-click on the controller in the drop-down menu and select “Properties“.
- Click the “Drivers” tab and then “Driver Details” (the driver selected should be ‘iastorA.sys’ or ‘storahci.sys’)
- Press “OK” and select “Update Driver“.
- Than select “Browse Your Computer for Driver Software” and choose the “Let Me Pick from a List of Available Drivers” option (ensure the box saying “Show Compatible Hardware” is checked).
- Select the “Standard SATA AHCI” option and follow the instructions on the screen.
- Restart your computer.
Fix #3: Check for Hard Disk Drive Errors
You can either use a 3rd party program to locate and repair your hard drive or use the Windows CHKDSK Utility, as follows:
- Type “cmd” in the search box.
- Right-click on the Command Prompt which appears and select “Run as Administrator“.
A black box will come up telling you which Windows version you’re running.
- Type in this: chkdsk c: /f (if it asks you for a Yes or No, press “Y” and press Enter again.
It will take a while for the CHKDSK to run, finding and fixing issues.
Fix #4: Look for Corrupted System Files
Corrupted or damaged system files can cause a 0x00000133 error.
You can use an SFC check to look for corrupted files:
- Open Command Prompt and Run it as Administrator.
- When a black box opens, showing you which version of Windows you have, type this in: sfc /scannow
- Press Enter and wait until the scan finishes.
- The utility will automatically fix any corrupted files it finds and ask you to restart the PC.
- If it doesn’t find any corrupted files, you can exit the application.
Fix #5: Check for a Hardware Incompatibility
Hardware compatibility problems can occur when you plug external devices into the PC.
Try unplugging all the devices one by one and then plug them in one by one to discover which is causing the error.
If everything seems to work fine, it is probably a software issue, so move on to fix #6.
Fix #6: Remove New Software
If you are experiencing the DPC Watchdog Violation error after downloading and installing a new app or upgrading an existing one, remove the software.
Go to the Control Panel, open Programs Menu and choose to Uninstall a Program. You will see a list of all your software.
Search for the problematic software or scroll down the list until you find it. Select Uninstall, then reboot the PC.
Hopefully, the 0x00000133 error will be gone for good now!