My system has an MSI Z490-A Pro motherboard, Core i9-10900KF, RTX 3070 Ti, 32 GB of DDR4-3200 memory, an Inland Platinum 4 TB NVMe SSD, and a Corsair RM750x power supply. Over the past few months, I have been getting increasingly frequent blue screens, often while gaming. The system still boots and the SSD appears usable, but several crash records seem to point toward the NVMe drive.
The relevant records include WHEA-Logger Event ID 1, BugCheck 1001 with stop code 0x124, and Kernel-Power Event ID 41. The WHEA raw data identifies a storage component and includes text referring to an NVMe PCIe SSD. CrystalDiskInfo reports about 92% health and a temperature around 27°C, with approximately 144 TB read and 88 TB written. I have already updated the motherboard BIOS and reseated the drive, but the crashes continue. There are no minidump files available.
The SSD is still under warranty, but the retailer is several hours away, so I would like to know whether these errors are strong enough evidence that the drive is failing and what additional tests could distinguish a bad SSD from a motherboard slot, firmware, or another hardware problem.
3 Answers
Event ID 41 is only reporting that Windows restarted unexpectedly; it does not identify the failed component. The useful entries are the WHEA Event ID 1 and the 0x124 bugcheck. Since those records point to the NVMe storage path, replacing or testing the SSD is reasonable, but the motherboard M.2 slot, PCIe signaling, or power delivery could produce similar symptoms.
The best confirmation would be testing the drive in another system, testing a known-good NVMe drive in this system, or installing Windows temporarily on another drive and seeing whether the WHEA errors continue. Also run the system at stock settings while testing, including disabling CPU, memory, and GPU overclocks or XMP.
The WHEA record is significant here. Stop code 0x124 indicates an unrecoverable hardware error, and the raw data identifying an NVMe PCIe storage device makes the SSD or its PCIe connection a strong suspect. A normal temperature and a 92% health rating do not prove the drive is good; SMART health can remain normal even when a controller or connection is intermittently failing.
Before replacing it, check whether the SSD has a firmware update, reseat it carefully, inspect the mounting screw and contacts, and test it in another M.2 slot or another computer if possible. Back up anything important immediately.
A drive diagnostic alone may miss an intermittent controller failure. Check the Windows crash settings and enable automatic small memory dumps, then look in the Minidump folder after the next blue screen. A proper dump can sometimes show whether the storage driver is merely where the system noticed the failure or whether another driver is involved.
Regardless of the final diagnosis, make a full backup or clone now. If errors continue with the SSD in another slot and with stock BIOS settings, that is strong evidence to pursue a warranty replacement rather than relying only on CrystalDiskInfo.
There does not appear to be any newer firmware for this model, and I have already reseated it. The temperature stays close to 27°C, so overheating seems unlikely.