Question Headphones causing OS and/or system reboot

[Eric_M1989]

Hello. I recently built my first PC. I built it mostly for gaming. I will put my specs at the bottom, after I describe my issue.

Today, about 3 hours into my gaming session (which had run smoothly up to this point), the PC resets. A few seconds of black screen. My monitor gets confused and tries to look for other inputs, because it appears to have lost signal from the PC. Then the windows 10 loading screen comes on, and the swirly circle telling me to wait. After a minute, it lets me log back in. The hardware in the PC appears to continue running without resetting -- fans, lights... everything.

I looked around the internet for some answers, and I found out how to look at my system event log. I've noticed a couple error messages that seem likely to be related to the issue.

1. Kernel Power 41

I found another thread about this error message: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/bad-psu-kernel-power-41-63.2633938/

I am getting this Kernel Power 41 error message as well, but only when I have any headphones plugged in.
And what is more confusing is that it is any headphones plugged in anywhere. If I use my nicer gaming headphones (HyperX Could 2 w/ virtual 7.1 surround sound), in any USB port, windows will randomly reset.
No blue screen.

No hardware seems to power down. The CPU, CPU fan and rgb, MOBO rgb, RAM rgb, and case fans all continue to run. This appears to just be a reset of Windows/the OS. I am running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. Of course, just because I can't see it doesn't mean it isn't a hardware failure, but I've found people reporting harder system reboots than what I appear to be experiencing.

But if I take the USB sound card off the Hyper X headphones, and plug them into the 3.5mm headphone jack on my monitor, the same thing happens. If I plug my cheap earbuds into the 3.5mm headphone jack on the monitor, it happens.

I also dicovered that, when using the Hyper X headphones connected via USB, I get the following event log message in conjunction with an unwanted Windows reset:

• "The device HID-compliant headset (location (unknown)) is offline due to a user-mode driver crash. Windows will attempt to restart the device 5 more times. Please contact the device manufacturer for more information about this problem. "

What else is odd is that this issue did not seem to happen until I tried the HyperX headphones. I had previously used the earbuds via monitor connection without any issues. And I also had previously used a different set of USB stereo headphones. Further, it has been happening quicker. For instance, the first time the system reset was about 3 hours into a gaming session. But now it seems that if I plug in headphones for more than a few minutes, the system resets.

My computer does not crash like this when I don't have headphones plugged in. I can game, watch videos, listen to music, on multiple monitors, for hours and nothing happens. But, I plug in a pair of headphones, and within minutes Windows is resetting again.

I am quite frustrated, and would appreciate some input. My specs are below.

Thanks,
Eric

SPECS:

CPU: Ryzen 7 2700X
GPU: Geforce GTX 1660Ti
RAM: G.SKILL TridentZ RGB Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3466 (PC4 27700) Desktop Memory Model F4-3466C18D-16GTZRXB
MOBO: ASUS ROG Strix X-470-F Gaming
PSU: EVGA 750 BQ
Case: Cougar MX330 Gaming Midi Tower

 

[Colif]

It appears there is a problem running those headphones on Windows 10 for a few months, since 1809 was released at least. What version of win 10 are you on now?
right click start
choose run...
type winver and press enter
current build is 1903

that's exactly what we were looking at in the past days, but didn't want to make an official statement about until we confirm it's stable. We've even suggested to a couple of users in this thread to try downgrading to pre-1809, or one of the early cumulative updates that came after 1809 was released, but those users never got back to us.

To give you, and everyone else here, a better idea on why we think this could potentially be a Windows update issue:

OS Build 17763.316 came out on February 12th - With this update rolling out, there's been some reports of system crashes, but not enough to make one think that it's something major. As days went by, we've started noticing more complaints in this thread and started collecting system details and Event Viewer logs from all of you in order to determine what might be causing the issue. Once we've built up over 20 solid cases, the issue has been escalated with our engineering team that started looking into the issue and even set up a number of test benches in our lab to try and replicate the issue.

In the meantime, OS Build 17763.348 came out on March 1st and Microsoft added a note to it stating the following:

• After installing this update on machines that have multiple audio devices, applications that provide advanced options for internal or external audio output devices may stop working unexpectedly. This issue occurs for users that select an audio output device different from the “Default Audio Device”. Examples of applications that may stop working include: Windows Media Player Realtek HD Audio Manager Sound Blaster Control Panel

NOW, the best part about it that gives us hope 😀 ! A few of days ago, they've rolled out a new cumulative update which apparently addressed that issue. The update went live on April 2nd, and if you still haven't received it through your Windows Automatic Update, you can download it manually from the Microsoft Support page at http://spr.ly/61694EjSck ( . We're still testing our systems with this build, and weren't able to replicate the system crashing issue that all of you had been experiencing.

If any of you decide to install this update, please get back to us with your results either by commenting here, or sending us a PM!

reddit link

Problem doesn't appear to be fixed yet as I can find people from a month ago still having same issues.

Do you have latest BIOS for motherboard?

 

[Eric_M1989]

I am running windows version 1903. I am aware of that Reddit thread, and have reached out to HyperX to see if they can help me troubleshoot.

The distinction I see with my issue is that the resets occur when I have other headphones plugged in (ones that aren't the HyperX ones that the reddit thread is concerned about).

 

[Eric_M1989]

SO:

This morning I did two things, and the problem appears to have been solved.

First, I overclocked/calibrated my RAM timings (ASUS BIOS was a bit confusing the first time I tried this).
Second, I downloaded a Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1903 for x64-based Systems (KB4501375).

If I had to guess, it was probably the Windows 10 update that did the trick, but I'm really not sure. I'm just happy everything seems to work now. I'll update this thread if something changes.