Hey everyone! I'm dealing with some frustrating issues—a year-long battle with random BSOD crashes while gaming. These crashes seem to happen only with certain games and are pretty unpredictable. When the crash happens, the game freezes up, there's some audio stuttering, and then I either get a blue screen or a continuous audio hang, leaving me to do a hard reboot. After restarting, the only clue I get from the event viewer is a kernel power event 41 with a bug check code of 239. The weird part is, I'm not getting any system dump files, which makes it hard to figure out what's going wrong.
I've already tried the usual fixes: disk checks, memory tests, reinstalling drivers, and even reinstalling Windows. I also ran OCCT to stress-test the CPU and GPU, but nothing worked. Recently, I discovered a tip about changing the default page-file location to a different drive, and it finally led to generating a dump file after the last crash! However, I'm not familiar with analyzing these Windows dump files, so I'm reaching out for help. I've linked the dump file below. If there's anything I'm missing or if you need more information, just let me know! Thanks for the help!
[Link to dump file](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/p7gc4jhtil41czq6v4lln/050325-11156-01.zip?rlkey=w5nbkkxouh5sjvo9k7u8q3f4i&st=6xoptnuy&dl=0)
3 Answers
Your description sounds like a possible issue with your system drive. Can you share what make and model your drive is? Sometimes faulty drives can contribute to these kinds of intermittent crashes.
The dump file shows a Critical_Process_Died error, indicating an important Windows process didn't run correctly. This can stem from various issues, but I'd suspect storage and memory are the main culprits. If you can collect more dump files, that could help identify any patterns.
Appreciate the input! I just started saving the dump files since I figured out the page file method today. If I get another one tonight, I'll definitely share it!
To analyze BSODs accurately, we really need those dump files. If you can boot into Windows normally or through Safe Mode, check the folder C:WindowsMinidump for any dump files. If you find any, zip that folder and upload it somewhere like mediafire or catbox.moe. Having multiple dump files is ideal, so if you only have one, try changing the dump type to Small Memory Dump following a guide. This will keep them from overwriting each other.
Thanks for asking! It's a Samsung EVO 970 NVMe, 500GB.