My PC is only about two years old, but it has been crashing more and more often. At first it happened occasionally during long gaming sessions, but now I'm seeing frequent freezes, black screens, and unexpected restarts. Sometimes I get no error at all, while other times Windows reports a Kernel-Power 41 event saying the system rebooted without shutting down cleanly. I've also noticed BugCheck, volmgr, SideBySide, EventLog, and Service Control Manager errors.
I've updated Windows and various drivers, manually reinstalled some motherboard and graphics drivers, and tried troubleshooting display drivers, but the crashes continued and may have become worse. I'm not very experienced with PC hardware, so I'm unsure whether the problem is related to the power supply, RAM, CPU, graphics card, motherboard, storage, or Windows itself. The system is running Windows 11 with an ASUS TUF Gaming B650-PLUS WiFi motherboard, Ryzen 5 9600X processor, MSI MAG A750GL PCIE5 power supply, 32GB of DDR5-6000 RAM, and an ASRock Arc B580 12GB graphics card. What should I test first, and is the CPU likely to be failing?
3 Answers
The power supply is worth checking even if the wattage looks sufficient. A gaming system can still crash if the supply or its connections are faulty. Check that the motherboard, CPU, and graphics-card power cables are fully seated, and compare the BIOS voltage readings with the expected values. BIOS readings are only a rough indication, though, so testing with a known-good power supply is more useful than relying on software voltage readings. Don’t open the power supply itself.
Before assuming the CPU is dead, test the basic components one at a time. Try booting in Safe Mode, remove and reseat the RAM, and run a full scan of each storage drive for errors. You can also test the memory with a bootable memory diagnostic and run separate CPU and GPU stress tests if the system stays on long enough. If it cannot remain stable even in Safe Mode or during a fresh installation, focus on hardware rather than more driver changes.
I’ve tried some of those steps already, but now it sometimes crashes before I can complete anything. I’ll need to work through the tests as soon as I can keep it running.
Kernel-Power 41 usually only means Windows noticed an improper shutdown; it doesn’t identify the failing part. A clean Windows installation from a USB installer is a good way to separate software and driver problems from hardware problems. Disconnect other drives during setup, remove the existing partitions on the system drive only if your data is backed up, and first test with the default Windows drivers. Then install the latest chipset, motherboard, and graphics drivers from the manufacturers’ support pages. If it still crashes on a fresh installation, hardware becomes much more likely.
That makes sense. I’m starting to suspect hardware, especially since the crashes have continued after reinstalling several drivers.
The BIOS readings look reasonably normal from what I can tell, but I understand that doesn’t completely rule out a failing power supply.