MCintosh MA7900 USB Driver causing Windows10/11 Crash

Try uninstalling the McIntosh driver and use the Microsoft driver included with Windows. Most likely the driver is trying to call a function that has changed with the Windows 10 / 11 kernels.

Follow these instructions about uninstalling drivers - link to Microsoft article.

After restarting, Windows should automatically detect the MA7900 and install the Microsoft driver. Use the instructions in the previous post to make sure that happened. Then test your setup. Hopefully you'll be able to play music without causing a kernel panic / crash.

I used the device manager to uninstall the driver. After restating Windows the MA7900 was not detected and the sound setting in Windows did not show the MCintosh device. The front panel of the MA7900 did not display the bit/rate 32/192k as usual. Therefore, Windows 11 does not have any inbox driver for the MA7900. As a result, I installed the original MCintosh driver package. After restarting Windows the MA7900 was detected and the bit/rate 32/192k shows on the front panel. This time the Windows Sound settings shows the MCinstosh USB Audio device as a choice to play the music. I was able to play music from spotify and video from Youtube music. Since this is an intermittent problem, I don't know if the problem will happen again after reinstalling the oribinal MCintosh driver. I will keep you posted.

Hmm... that's odd. Even CEntrance says that Windows 10 includes a USB audio driver - link. Maybe you can try the driver on their website if you still have issues going forward.

Hmmm... that's interesting. The MCintosh helpdesk engineer told me about two years ago that Windows never provided a driver for the MA7900 and it was required  to download and install the MCintosh driver.  I will continue to test to see if the issue can be reproduced.

Your plan is great about getting the driver directly from CEntrance if the Windows OS crashes again. Thanks for your support.

After three days of working fine, Windows 11 just crashed as usual with "DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION" stop code 0x133.

I implemented the plan of downloading and installing the CEntrance universal audio driver and it appears that the installer completes fine but the this driver is not connecting to the MCintosh DAC.

First, installed the driver on top of the existing MCintosh driver to see if the device manager "Sound, Video and Game Controllers" shows the new driver associated with the MCintosh. The old CEntrance driver was still present.

Second, used device manager to uninstall the old MCintosh CEntrance driver. Run the new CEntrance driver installer utility. It completted fine. However, the MC7900 was not showing on the display the bit/rate 32/192k. This is an indication that the new CEntrance USB DAC driver for the device is not loaded.

In conclusion the new universal CEntrance driver versin 9.6 downloaded is not compatible with the MC7900 DAC.

Installed the old MCinstosh driver back and Windows is playing music over the USB to the MC7900 with the expectation that the intermittent problem is still present.

This intermittent Windows crash "DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION" stop code 0x133 when using the MC7900 USB DAC is very difficult to resolve.

It seems to me that this is a class problem and perhaps no one else in the planet is crazy to use the Windows operating system to play music using the USB DAC on the MC7900.

I may have to give up and use the laptop internal audio port to play music which is not as good as using the DAC on the MC7900.

I appreciate your support services. I

Any new idea or suggestion?