PC Help Concerning Wacom Intous Drawing Tablet

DeaDPo0L84

Member
Me and my wife both got gaming PCs roughly 6 months back. I use mine primarily for gaming and general web surfing. She uses hers for games as well but also digital art. The tablet I purchased for her is a really good Wacom Intous Pro 4 (medium). She was really excited to jump in and tackle a new way to do art but unfortunately it's been a bit of a headache ever since shes had it.

She consistently every time she uses it after drawing for a decent amount of time will get a bsod, sometimes the same code but usually a different one. We have looked up every code and taken the suggested steps but still, as of two days ago when she went to draw, roughly an hour or two in she got another bsod.

This doesn't happen when she plays games or really much of anything else on her PC, only when using the tablet. I am currently using the tablet on my pc for the first time and so far (knock on wood) it hasn't crashed. But in a odd way that kinda makes it more confusing cause that means it's a pc issue and not a hardware issue.

A lot of sites say it could be a ram problem but I have friends well versed in the pc world who say if it was a ram issue then she would notice problems no matter what she was doing on her pc and yet the problem only persist with her drawing tablet.

Basically I am at a loss of what to do, I feel like we have exhausted every avenue to fix the problem, guess I am hoping maybe someone here has had a very similar experience and can shed some light on what I am potentially missing.
 
Sounds like a driver related issue.

Next time it happens on her PC, restart the computer then look up what errors are reported in the windows event viewer. It should give you a more detailed account of what's going on than the BSOD codes will.
 
DeaDPo0L84 DeaDPo0L84

Wacom Tablets are just an input device just like a mouse. I've been using them for nigh on a decade + and never had one cause a BSOD directly. I suspect the problem is either a software issue (try updated her digital art programs to the latest versions) or it could be a case of the PC overheating or a RAM issue due to sustained use/high memory requirements. Try running something like the free version of Speccy (https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy) to see how hot the system is getting when she's running her stuff and maybe windows memory diagnostic to detect any RAM issues. Also check her application preferences to see whether they are optimal (in Photoshop, for instance, you can get the GPU to take a lot of the load, as well as set the size of memory and cache). Might be a good idea to check that her PC case is clean of dust and has good airflow and possibly whether the thermal paste has dried up on the CPU. Either way, Software/Hardware are the most likely causes.
 
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During drawing the tablet uses also a lot of CPU power, even reaching 40 % in some cases, depending on the application. You could add less CPU cores to the applications.
 
Me and my wife both got gaming PCs roughly 6 months back. I use mine primarily for gaming and general web surfing. She uses hers for games as well but also digital art. The tablet I purchased for her is a really good Wacom Intous Pro 4 (medium). She was really excited to jump in and tackle a new way to do art but unfortunately it's been a bit of a headache ever since shes had it.

She consistently every time she uses it after drawing for a decent amount of time will get a bsod, sometimes the same code but usually a different one. We have looked up every code and taken the suggested steps but still, as of two days ago when she went to draw, roughly an hour or two in she got another bsod.

This doesn't happen when she plays games or really much of anything else on her PC, only when using the tablet. I am currently using the tablet on my pc for the first time and so far (knock on wood) it hasn't crashed. But in a odd way that kinda makes it more confusing cause that means it's a pc issue and not a hardware issue.

A lot of sites say it could be a ram problem but I have friends well versed in the pc world who say if it was a ram issue then she would notice problems no matter what she was doing on her pc and yet the problem only persist with her drawing tablet.

Basically I am at a loss of what to do, I feel like we have exhausted every avenue to fix the problem, guess I am hoping maybe someone here has had a very similar experience and can shed some light on what I am potentially missing.

What's the status on using it with your computer?

How much RAM do you have, and how much RAM does she have?
It could be a variety of things, but my first guess is that it's a memory-leak via software. You may not have the problem if you have enough RAM, whereas she might, if her system has less.

Try using different software, and see what happens?
Otherwise, it's pretty strange that it (may, depending on your answer) only happens on her PC, and not yours.
 
Holy crap what a day today, busy work day and then stuck outside doing yard work all day. This is the first time I am actually sitting down with a chance to respond. First off, thanks to all of you for not only responding but giving good in depth answers. As far as her specs, we have the EXACT same pc. So we both have the 2070 super gpu, 16gb of ram, and are using a i7-9700k cpu. She did initially have 32gb of ram cause she was going to mess around with lots of different digital art programs but because ram was suspected to possibly be the problem I removed two sticks so now she is at 16gb like myself.

I have only tried her tablet once but did not encounter any errors, not exactly scientific I know but i'll keep trying to see if I can replicate the error.
 
Holy crap what a day today, busy work day and then stuck outside doing yard work all day. This is the first time I am actually sitting down with a chance to respond. First off, thanks to all of you for not only responding but giving good in depth answers. As far as her specs, we have the EXACT same pc. So we both have the 2070 super gpu, 16gb of ram, and are using a i7-9700k cpu. She did initially have 32gb of ram cause she was going to mess around with lots of different digital art programs but because ram was suspected to possibly be the problem I removed two sticks so now she is at 16gb like myself.

I have only tried her tablet once but did not encounter any errors, not exactly scientific I know but i'll keep trying to see if I can replicate the error.

So you took two sticks of ram out and the issue still happened?

I would uninstall the drivers and reinstall them. Make sure you get the latest ones from wacoms website and don't use the ones on disc. You might also use something like memtest86 on her PC and let it run for a few hours or overnight and see what it reports.

If you could, post the BSOD code you get as well.

Also using it wired or with the wireless adapter or some other bluetooth adapter?

I have installed wacom stuff on quite a few PC's at a school I work at and have had no troubles with them ever causing crashes, even on laptops.
 
Sounds like the demand the tablet is placing on your system is causing a BSOD. i.e the problem is with your pc. I would say....something stemming from heat issues. But it could also be faulty RAM or a dying motherboard.
 
I have wacom, not that good of a tablet, but the only thing that ever happened to me is that it stops detecting pressure and I have to restart drivers.
Your issue reminds me of the old (like it ever changed) AMD cards, whenever I pushed the browser (...) too far, it would give me a bsod. The usual suggestion was "disable hardware acceleration" which a. worked like a charm and b. hints to poor drivers.
Yours is a strong ass configuration. I would say it's trash drivers.
 
I have wacom, not that good of a tablet, but the only thing that ever happened to me is that it stops detecting pressure and I have to restart drivers.
Your issue reminds me of the old (like it ever changed) AMD cards, whenever I pushed the browser (...) too far, it would give me a bsod. The usual suggestion was "disable hardware acceleration" which a. worked like a charm and b. hints to poor drivers.
Yours is a strong ass configuration. I would say it's trash drivers.

She has deleted everything concerning the tablet and reinstalled a couple of times already and the issue persist. Not really sure what to do, my PC knowledge is rather limited and I get wildly different answers when searching reddit, etc.
 
She has deleted everything concerning the tablet and reinstalled a couple of times already and the issue persist. Not really sure what to do, my PC knowledge is rather limited and I get wildly different answers when searching reddit, etc.

Is it the PTK640 tablet?


Check the version of the driver you have, install other/older ones.
 
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It's the wacom intros pro 4 (medium if that matters).

It can be called whatever you want, your product has got a specific code, like CTH-470/490 etc.
Flip your tablet, does it have this thing?

kVygw3g.png


If it does, then the drivers I linked should work.
Go to your wacom desktop center, and look for

k2Cd5bI.png


Take note of your current drivers, and try anything but those.
Also, when you uninstall drivers, make sure you actually did it, with a software like driver sweeper or something. Tablet drivers are as bad as graphic ones.
 
It can be called whatever you want, your product has got a specific code, like CTH-470/490 etc.
Flip your tablet, does it have this thing?

kVygw3g.png


If it does, then the drivers I linked should work.
Go to your wacom desktop center, and look for

k2Cd5bI.png


Take note of your current drivers, and try anything but those.
Also, when you uninstall drivers, make sure you actually did it, with a software like driver sweeper or something. Tablet drivers are as bad as graphic ones.

She just flipped it over and its PTH-660, shes currently using the driver 6.3.38-2
 
So I actually had this installed from a previous task. I do notice that core 2 seems to get hotter than the others and its usage is significantly different than the others. I have no clue if that's normal.

That's absolutely normal, some cores will always run up to five degrees celsius higher than the others. Are you using a stock cooler on the 9700k? I don't think that's the deal, most people who draw art do so on laptops or cheap rigs, yours shouldn't sweat any tablet.


Test older drivers.
 
That's absolutely normal, some cores will always run up to five degrees celsius higher than the others. Are you using a stock cooler on the 9700k? I don't think that's the deal, most people who draw art do so on laptops or cheap rigs, yours shouldn't sweat any tablet.


Test older drivers.

So even the fact that particular core is almost 30-40% usage while the rest are much lower is normal? I genuinely don't understand how they work so I'm curious lol.
 
So even the fact that particular core is almost 30-40% usage while the rest are much lower is normal? I genuinely don't understand how they work so I'm curious lol.

It's normal, not all cores are as busy. Try to test the tablet by keeping Core Temp open and see how much does the cpu spike and its temperature in real time.
To throttle your cpu, or most cpu for that matter, it would have to hit 180-210F. I don't think that's the case, unless someone poorly installed the cpu and/or the thermal paste/heatsink, the motherboard is faulty or the cpu itself is.
Seriously, if the 9700k can't handle a puny tablet, you have serious issues.
Also, to rule out any gpu problems, see if you can force the gpu fans to run at higher speed all the time, like 55-60%, that'll do (and it's even overkill for that task). Use MSI afterburner for it, so you can monitor the temps of the gpu too.
 
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So I actually had this installed from a previous task. I do notice that core 2 seems to get hotter than the others and its usage is significantly different than the others. I have no clue if that's normal.

It's probably fine. If you're approaching 80-degrees Celsius, that's pushing the limits.
I don't know anything about the tablet's software, but I'm betting it's more of a single-core-using piece of software, rather than spreading the load over multiple cores. Unless it's supposed to have really good multi-core-support, it's fine.


At this point, I'd say your priority is to replicate the issue on your other machine, which has identical hardware. If you can replicate the problem, it's some fault with the tablet. If you cannot, it's a fault with the computer.
Try to post the BSOD code, or codes, as well.
 
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