Question PC crashing with Kernel Power 41 errors.

[ChikZ]

Little backstory: I've had my PC for only 9 months (since May 2020), last upgraded my ram and got an m.2 nvme ssd on christmas. I've been able to live stream and play most games at high settings without problems all the way until the 15th of February. I started crashing, event viewer shows Kernel Power 41 Critical errors, which after reading around, I found can be anything, from audio drivers to failing components. I don't believe a PSU could start failing in under a year with no warnings. I also found Event 98 that says "Volume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume4) is healthy. No action is needed." that happens right before every crash. I've already tried reinstalling my GPU drivers, reseating my ram and gpu, cleaning some fans, checking my temps, etc. About the temps, I can sometimes run games at high settings without problems now, then just randomly I start crashing. I first started crashing in only 1 game (no BSOD, no fans making much noise, PC just goes black and restarts). Then I've tried running userbenchmark, which even though I know isn't anything special, I've noticed that the second the first GPU test starts, my PC crashed. That happened twice, then I waited about an hour, and it stopped. This now happens every day, after I boot my PC up, I can play games with no problems for hours, that's why troubleshooting this is hard, since later at about 5PM, I just crash at about anything. Yesterday I crashed when I loaded into windows, or when I started paint.net with only a few programs in my background. I've tried disabling xmp on my ram, not sure if it worked, have to test later. One more thing I forgot to mention, whenever I try a PSU wattage calculator, it finds my same exact PSU, which makes me think my PSU is not actually the issue.
PC Specs:
MSI GTX 1650 4GT LP OC
Ryzen 5 1600AF
XPG Spectrix D41 2x8GB 3000MHz
Corsair VS450
ASUS Prime B450M-K
1TB HDD Seagate
512GB XPG Spectrix S40G

 

[Colif]

event 41 isn't exactly a sign you need a new PSU, it is a reaction to the restart. Windows runs a report at startup and if it finds a previous shutdown was unexpected, it creates event 41

so calc says a 450watt psu?? wonder if its power spikes turning PSU off

no bsod seems to infer its not software

try running these on gpu and see if you crash (don't run both at once)
https://geeks3d.com/furmark/

https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

If it always happens at certain times, log progress of what PC is doing
try running hwinfo https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
when you start app, click the box next to sensors only and click run
in next window, click the settings button
under polling set it to 500 and click the Set button, then ok (that just makes recording more accurate)
Click on the button next to the clock, that says "Logging Start" if you hover over it
that opens File explorer, create a file that you recognise and log what happens during a crash
the results are CSV files, these can be read in Excel or Google docs.
if you need help, upload results to a file sharing website and I see what I can find.

i doubt its ram but
Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

 

[ChikZ]

event 41 isn't exactly a sign you need a new PSU, it is a reaction to the restart. Windows runs a report at startup and if it finds a previous shutdown was unexpected, it creates event 41

so calc says a 450watt psu?? wonder if its power spikes turning PSU off

no bsod seems to infer its not software

try running these on gpu and see if you crash (don't run both at once)
https://geeks3d.com/furmark/

https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

If it always happens at certain times, log progress of what PC is doing
try running hwinfo https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
when you start app, click the box next to sensors only and click run
in next window, click the settings button
under polling set it to 500 and click the Set button, then ok (that just makes recording more accurate)
Click on the button next to the clock, that says "Logging Start" if you hover over it
that opens File explorer, create a file that you recognise and log what happens during a crash
the results are CSV files, these can be read in Excel or Google docs.
if you need help, upload results to a file sharing website and I see what I can find.

i doubt its ram but
Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Tried hwinfo, loaded in a game, crashed immediately. https://www.dropbox.com/s/y7p1pth6x1gcs6b/hwinfo.CSV?dl=0
Windows is telling me I have drive errors now, which happened for the first time since I started crashing. Immediately went into disk checking upon booting my PC up. Safe to assume it's my drive then?

 

[Colif]

XPG drive - Run diagnostics - https://www.adata.com/en/ss/software-6/
Seagate - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/

 

[ChikZ]

XPG drive - Run diagnostics - https://www.adata.com/en/ss/software-6/
Seagate - https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/seatools-win-master/

Both passed. What I've noticed though, is after that crash and after windows self diagnostics for my drive ran and everything, I lost some data for the game I was playing, not a big problem, since my money and levels stayed, but all my items are gone. I'm probably going to reseat the SSD to make sure it's fine.

 

[Colif]

well, if you crash in a game, its not going to have time to save any progress, that makes sense. all the data in ram will be lost when power is lost. NVME are fast but not that good.

I haven't looked at the hwinfo file yet, i will a little later.

 

[ChikZ]

well, if you crash in a game, its not going to have time to save any progress, that makes sense. all the data in ram will be lost when power is lost. NVME are fast but not that good.

I haven't looked at the hwinfo file yet, i will a little later.

No, I should've probably explained. I play Phasmophobia, in it you buy items that you use for ghost hunting, etc. You buy the items and they stay in your inventory, you can use them if you want to on missions, but I kept all my items in my inventory for that test game. Even though I didn't touch the items and I've had those items for months now, they still disappeared. Every single one of them. I think I can request a backup, so it really isn't a problem, but this just gives me more evidence that it's an ssd issue. I've ran furmark for 10 minutes at 720p, got to 68C max, didn't crash. I should've probably done 1080p and longer, but I thought I'd crash before then, considering I can't even load into a game of Phasmophobia anymore without crashing.

 

[Colif]

the game runs in ram, it only uses the ssd if you run out of ram. So if the items were lost, I would look at ram before the ssd. When you open the game, the files aren't running off the ssd or hdd, it is in ram. The files for those items on the ssd shouldn't just disappear if written into ram, that isn't how it works.

try memtest.

note: it runs in virtual memory but since it doesn't physically exist and is an illusion created by windows to make every process think it has endless resources, I said ram as its closer to reality than saying the ssd/hdd as they are just storage and you don't want to run off that. Sooo slow. its more a fantasy land that exists on cpu/ram

 

[ChikZ]

the game runs in ram, it only uses the ssd if you run out of ram. So if the items were lost, I would look at ram before the ssd. When you open the game, the files aren't running off the ssd or hdd, it is in ram. The files for those items on the ssd shouldn't just disappear if written into ram, that isn't how it works.

try memtest.

note: it runs in virtual memory but since it doesn't physically exist and is an illusion created by windows to make every process think it has endless resources, I said ram as its closer to reality than saying the ssd/hdd as they are just storage and you don't want to run off that. Sooo slow. its more a fantasy land that exists on cpu/ram

Tried memtest for a bit, but considering I don't have any time right now and want to try other things, I skipped the long tests, I got no errors from the other ones anyway. I will rerun memtest later today if I don't find anything else, but I'm about 90% sure it's an SSD issue, the Event 98 that says "Volume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume4) is healthy. No action is needed.", the thing with my save file and just the thing I did when I got this drive, I didn't install windows clean, I used a third party software to put everything from my hdd to my ssd, which I now, obviously, regret. What I'm going to try to do is get rid of my SSD, try to run some stuff with just my hdd and hope for the best.

 

[Colif]

adata have a bad name for themselves with ssd, so it could just be a bad drive.
not sure i would go back to a hdd now I have used an nvme.
I would (did) buy a Samsung NVME and not look back.

its at least worth it to see if problem is the nvme. Hope you best.

 

[ChikZ]

adata have a bad name for themselves with ssd, so it could just be a bad drive.
not sure i would go back to a hdd now I have used an nvme.
I would (did) buy a Samsung NVME and not look back.

its at least worth it to see if problem is the nvme. Hope you best.

Little update. Tried running windows off of my hdd, still crashed. I replugged my 24 pin motherboard cable, tested userbenchmark and 10 minute run of the game with no problems. I'm still very sceptical, since I could do the same thing yesterday for an hour, then the issues returned, but the cable seemed like it wasn't completely plugged in. I'm going to update later, in case it returns.
EDIT: After 3 hours of playing, didn't crash once. Seems to have thankfully been the 24 pin connector.