[SOLVED] PC is experiencing random shutdowns with no warning, I can't seem to find the issue. Can anybody help me out?

Feb 24, 2022
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My specs are
PSU:
Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-E
CPU: i9 10900K
GPU: EVGA Geforce1080ti 11gb
RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator (2x16), 32GB Corsair Vengeance (2x16)
PSU: EVGA Supernova Gold 850W

I started trying to build this PC almost 2 years ago and I have been trying desperately to find out what's wrong with it and taking it places to no avail. I can't tell if it's something more serious is wrong or if it's something minor. I have monitored my temps, everything seems to be more than sufficient. I've been staying on top of the event viewer during my time on the PC and there are a number of errors and warnings, though I'm not sure what the root of them could be. But, whenever my PC shuts off, I see a Kernel-Power error in the event viewer and I see Event ID: 41, Category (63), (70368744177664),(2)

From what I can tell, there are various potential culprits with this and it could either be failing RAM, fast startup, a BIOS bug, fail-safe or an insufficient PSU. Since I've started building, I had bought a second 850W PSU because I thought my original PSU could've been the issue, but it has not solved anything putting a new PSU in. I've disabled fast startup, I've gone through and installed any drivers I needed to get or update, I've ensured the BIOS is up-to-date, and it seems from what I've seen the RAM is fine.

Is there a chance that my PSU is just not powerful enough to power my system consistently? Maybe I should invest in a 1000W PSU? Or does anybody by chance have any recommendations or past experience with something similar?
 
Solution
Check what it says on the kernel-power-event... it's supposed to be the PSU but the issue also occurs to laptops, so it becomes a long discussion that gets nowhere..

Kernel-Power, Event ID 41, Task Category: (63)

I personally found once that on several new installs of Windows 10, it was suddenly shutting down without a warning and that is a symptom of a bad PSU, no warning or record of the shutdown occur because power was lost before anything could be registered. But what fixed my installation of Windows 10, was updating the drivers... It was a new install and was working on Microsoft Windows generic drivers, and that was the problem. It may have been a coincidence, but countless blue screens and shutdowns are caused by Windows...
Check what it says on the kernel-power-event... it's supposed to be the PSU but the issue also occurs to laptops, so it becomes a long discussion that gets nowhere..

Kernel-Power, Event ID 41, Task Category: (63)

I personally found once that on several new installs of Windows 10, it was suddenly shutting down without a warning and that is a symptom of a bad PSU, no warning or record of the shutdown occur because power was lost before anything could be registered. But what fixed my installation of Windows 10, was updating the drivers... It was a new install and was working on Microsoft Windows generic drivers, and that was the problem. It may have been a coincidence, but countless blue screens and shutdowns are caused by Windows drivers (.sys files)... especially if you haven't updated them recently. So that would be my suggestion, update drivers to your particular hardware.

Speaking of drivers, Nvidia Video Cards can cause black screens, restarts and shutdowns if they are not running on Nvidia drivers or if they are not updated.
 
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Solution
Feb 24, 2022
3
0
10
Check what it says on the kernel-power-event... it's supposed to be the PSU but the issue also occurs to laptops, so it becomes a long discussion that gets nowhere..

Kernel-Power, Event ID 41, Task Category: (63)

I personally found once that on several new installs of Windows 10, it was suddenly shutting down without a warning and that is a symptom of a bad PSU, no warning or record of the shutdown occur because power was lost before anything could be registered. But what fixed my installation of Windows 10, was updating the drivers... It was a new install and was working on Microsoft Windows generic drivers, and that was the problem. It may have been a coincidence, but countless blue screens and shutdowns are caused by Windows drivers (.sys files)... especially if you haven't updated them recently. So that would be my suggestion, update drivers to your particular hardware.

Speaking of drivers, Nvidia Video Cards can cause black screens, restarts and shutdowns if they are not running on Nvidia drivers or if they are not updated.

I just installed the driver for the video card, I believe I had already had done this just the other day when I was installing the other drivers but I figured it wouldn't be any harm. I also just did a Windows update, would that update the Windows 10 drivers or is there another way to go about it that may be more efficient? I'm gonna continue using the PC to see if there's any further issues or if it powers off again and I'll keep you updated.
 
I just installed the driver for the video card, I believe I had already had done this just the other day when I was installing the other drivers but I figured it wouldn't be any harm. I also just did a Windows update, would that update the Windows 10 drivers or is there another way to go about it that may be more efficient? I'm gonna continue using the PC to see if there's any further issues or if it powers off again and I'll keep you updated.
Windows updates can include drivers, but they may not be the best drivers. When you are manually updating drivers from the Device Manager, Windows drivers are always available and shown as most compatible, while third party drivers are mostly shown as incompatible, but if you continue installing them, and you don't get blocked by Windows from continuing, and you can install them, the "incompatibility" disappears. Besides, most device vendors keep updating their drivers while Microsoft mostly doesn't, so it's advisable to always install the device drivers that come included in the disk packaged along with the device. And if the device vendor's website has updated drivers offered for download, you should use those to update your installed drivers.

To simplify updating your drivers, updating applications can do it in a few minutes... the inconvenience is they have a bad reputation, but you can always remove the application afterwards, using some application uninstaller such as Revo Uninstaller, which removes all application remaining files and registry entries from your system... next run virus and malware scans to make sure nothing was left behind that would cause mild if any security issues. One of such updating applications I have used is SlimDrivers and even left it installed, and never had an issue related to the application... but it configured it to cancel all its automatic functions, from startup, automatically checking for new updates, etc. In your case, my advice is to remove it as soon as you're done updating drivers, and next just check for startup program entries* for unknown items, and run virus and malware scans.

SlimDrivers

Revo Uninstaller
https://revo-uninstaller-portable.uptodown.com/windows


*Check for Startup Entries
• Start button > Search for "msconfig" and click on the result to open the MSConfig Utility > click the Startup tab > click the link and go to the Taskmanager, and check no unknown apps are running in the top section of running processes. In you need assistance identifying those, post a question here or in a separate post.
• Also check in the MSConfig utility, in the Services tab, select the Hide all Microsoft Services box, and see that no other running services than those from the antivirus and necessary applications, are active with a check mark.
• After this, run the suggested security scans.