At my wits end - Kernal-Power Event 41 Freeze.

[Robble]

Hi everyone, first post, after weeks and weeks of reading and hoping to solve my problem on my own. It's a long one, please bear with me as I wanted to be comprehensive and hopefully not miss anything.

I've read a lot of threads on this error. I primarily receive this error when gaming (Aion/WoW), but have recently started to have it pop up when browsing, etc.

System will suddenly freeze & hang, playing a sound loop of whatever the most recent game or browsing sound was, forcing a "press and hold power button" type reboot. As it doesn't BSOD on me, I can't seem to find any dump files, I've searched on *dmp as suggested here several times.

It happens totally randomly, but i notice it seems to happen in clusters...either i can play/surf for a few days with no issues, then I seem to get a week of constant crashing etc.

What I get in event viewer is this:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 2/18/2010 10:50:08 PM
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: Rob-PC
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>2</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-02-19T04:50:08.900400000Z" />
<EventRecordID>10216</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Rob-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">129110285588568000</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

I'm far from a computer expert, but I have a friend who is much more capable walking me through a number of different fixes based on his experience and my research on the site...things I've tried to date, with no luck.

Updated Vista 32 to 7 64 (complete wipe/install (i had the same issues with vista 32 btw)
Updated from 4 Gig to 8 Gig of RAM
Swapped in new RAM, 2 completely different sets of 8gb of RAM from newegg, both tested clean with memtest
New Vid Card (Same model, Dell swapout (warranty)
New Heatsink (same as above)
Newest drivers for vid card
Older Drivers for vid card
New drivers for mobo
Older drivers for mobo
Flashed bios
Reset CMOS (popped battery and let mobo reset)
Adjusted chipset voltages
Turned off disabled sound devices
Disabled all sleep/hibernate functions
Took side off case and had a humdinger of a fan blowing through the case for a few days (thought it may be heat)
Reinstalled game(s) that was having issues
Disabled second audio device
Reseated RAM a million times and blown out the case with duster daily
Disabled onboard sound in BIOS
Physicall removed soundcard
Removed Windows Gadgets


Lastly, i've read some threads on a possible internal firewall on my motherboard that causes memory leaks/freezes, i am getting a cheap network card to throw in an open slot and see if that does anything, but as you can imagine i'm far from optimistic at this point. Every time I seem to get a glimmer of hope and uninterrupted gameplay, it comes back.

I'm 'extremely' frustrated, open to any suggestions anyone here may have. As I'm pretty new at this, if I left off information that is necessary for anyone to respond, please let me know and I'll do my best to obtain it.

Thank you in advance for anything you can offer.

Edit - I run McAfee as a virus program, and have not done any overclocking.

 

[Robble]

Ugh, almost 50 views with no response does not instill me with confidence. I do thank everyone for taking the time to read though.

If someone with a higher level of competetnce than I have could even give me a generic "you're screwed get a new machine" I'd appreciate trying to get some sort of closure

Thanks again!

 

[zigzag3143]

Ugh, almost 50 views with no response does not instill me with confidence. I do thank everyone for taking the time to read though.

If someone with a higher level of competetnce than I have could even give me a generic "you're screwed get a new machine" I'd appreciate trying to get some sort of closure

Thanks again!

Hello Robbie

there is a known problem with you maudio driver (realtek)

i think i found out a solution for problem. it seems there was problem with realtek audio driver. i installed newest 2.24 driver, and i havent seen any crashes anymore.


I have seen these quite a few times so ifI were you I would get that drive and install it.


Let us know if you need help

Ken

 

[Robble]

Thank you Ken, I'll give that a whirl tonight.

I'd thought that disabling my sound devices would cover that possibility, but that is definitely a piece of my system that i have no confidence that I know what I'm doing with. I usually see 2 entries under Sound Devices in device manager and am not sure what goes where..so I had just turned them both off.

 

[Thorsen]

Have you or can you test the PSU and see if it is functioning properly? This is the only other thing I can think of that is not on your list.

 

[brady]

to be honest this screams hardware. you have a persistent issue that passed between operating systems. Seems like the only thing you haven't replaced is psu, mobo and hdd. I hate blaming things on motherboards due to it's pretty hard to pinpoint the issue... it just screams hardware to me.

 

[Robble]

Thank you both for responding, I have not done anything with the PSU, I'm not quite sure what steps I would take to "test" one.

I'd slowly been winding down to a motherboard issue I guess via process of elimination. I guess with all the issues to date I just fear going to a repair shop and having it replaced then running into the same freeze....and going certifiably insane.

 

[brady]

Yeah, I understand that. I hate blaming the motherboard but honestly, if you don't look at it now, it will most likely be the issue. irony

 

[Robble]

I'm going to go ahead and disable onboard sound in the BIOS to make sure I have all the bases covered. I guess if I still freeze up I'll start pricing out motherboards and installation costs!

 

[zigzag3143]

Thank you Ken, I'll give that a whirl tonight.

I'd thought that disabling my sound devices would cover that possibility, but that is definitely a piece of my system that i have no confidence that I know what I'm doing with. I usually see 2 entries under Sound Devices in device manager and am not sure what goes where..so I had just turned them both off.

Good Luck and let us know. I was amazzed the first time I saw this.

Ken

 

[Robble]

So an update.

Disabled every audio device the system has, and made additional changes to sleep/hibernation settings (turned all off).

Still crashing

Also found a tidbit about having to go into registry to get "high performance" option to actually register. Apparently you can set it in your options and your registry will still have "balanced option" without an overide.

Still crashing

So, last thing I have to try is plugging a network card into an open slot to see if it's possibly some kind of internal motherboard firewall, and I may give a new PSU a whirl..I have a 750w supply that came with the machine, I think installing one of those may be within my skillset, will see. Aside from that as far as I can tell that will be the end of the road sans a complete new motherboard. I'm obviously not optimistic.

Frustrating.

 

[petdroo]

Hi did you resolve this? I have a similar problem, and have had 3 motherboards

I have windows7x64 its driving me nuts, I have a new psu,old one will not even power my Asus mb,Maybe my new psu is faulty how can you test it?
I have tested all my hardware eccept psu, it must be a driver/bios setting ahhhhhhh!!!

 

[Robble]

Sorry to say I'm still unresolved. Looking through my event viewer I've had this critical error 30 times in the last 7 days. Considering I'm only on the computer a few hours a night during the week if I'm lucky, you can understand how frustrating it is.

Sorry to hear you share the same issue, this one really stinks.

So you have had the same issue occur even after replacing a motherboard? Ugh. I also suspect a driver/bios "something" is to blame, but I don't have much to go on from this point.

If anybody has any clues that I haven't tried, feel free to post them, I'll try about anything I have the competence to do.

 

[petdroo]

Sorry to say I'm still unresolved. Looking through my event viewer I've had this critical error 30 times in the last 7 days. Considering I'm only on the computer a few hours a night during the week if I'm lucky, you can understand how frustrating it is.

Sorry to hear you share the same issue, this one really stinks.

So you have had the same issue occur even after replacing a motherboard? Ugh. I also suspect a driver/bios "something" is to blame, but I don't have much to go on from this point.

If anybody has any clues that I haven't tried, feel free to post them, I'll try about anything I have the competence to do.

Yep I have had a few motherboards,
1st one was a cheap nvidia 8100 board but it worked, accept that my touch screen would blank out.Sold it on fleabay..
Then a gygabyte,785g, that took ages to boot, and returned that.
And 2 Asus boards, same modals.I thought the first one was faulty because of the freezing issue. Asus exchanged it, as they could not help me with the bios settings.
But 4 months later,I am still having this issue.

 

[Aegis]

I have the same issue.

i7 920 2.67GHz
12GB DDR-3 1333MHz
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
BFGTech GTX 285 OC
Windows 7 Pro x64

Same audio loop crashes with same lack of dump files and same non-informative error reported in the event viewer.

 

[Robble]

Well tonight i'm going to try the following "fixes" I've read on other boards.

-Disabling Windows 7 Sidebar -no idea why this would be the fix but I'm desperate
-Updating Harddrive Firmware - apparently some Seagate models caused freezing
-Slotting a nework card in open PCI slot
-Totally removing my soundcard, may slap a new one in
-Swapping out my Powersupply (stopping on way home)

Any recommendations out there for a new powersupply? Current is 750w, not sure on the exact voltages.

I'm going to try the first two fixes, then try to play for awhile, I'm assuming I'll still crash (because at this point I think I'm cursed).

After I'll do the new sound card, then the new power supply. I'll post back if I have any success.

 

[Aegis]

Robbie, in the essence of troubleshooting, my similarities to your setup seem to be:

Similar OS (Windows 7 Pro x64)
Similar Make of Hard Drives ( I have 2 Seagate 1TB Barracuda 7200RPM drives )

I had my PSU tested, and it is fine under load. (An Antec 850W model).

I had used the Seagate "SeaTools" program which will tell you what model HDD you have and what firmware version. My drives also suffer from clicking when it crashes, and a firmware update (if available) would definitely be within the realm of responsibility. SeaTools told me, though, that both HDDs passed the Long DST test, which to Seagate, indicates the drives are fine (though says nothing of the firmware version)

 

[petdroo]

Well my spec is completly diferent, amd 9500,kingston sd drive, as in my system spec,I doubt if it is a hard drive problem, maybe a power setting inside the bios what bios have you guys got?

Mine: BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 2708, 05/01/2010

 

[Robble]

Not much new to report, I didn't have a lot of time to work on it last night.

I disabled sidebar & all gadgets and still froze.

Physically removed my soundcard and still froze.

Spent some time looking for new firmware for my hd, (hitachi) but wasn't having much luck, was tired and frustrated and called it a night.

I did stop and get a new power supply, but once I got into the case and see exactly how Dell has theirs installed, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to remove/replace, looks like I'd have to remove the entire motherboard and all components...not comfortable going that far.

I've considered doing a complete system restore off the CD's, then wiping/installing to Windows 7 again, updating all drivers again, and seeing if it works, but not sure I'm up to that undertaking.

Should be getting the new network card today, that is going to be about my last attempt at resolving. After that I may call Dell and just pitch a fit and try to get the whole machine replaced.

 

[petdroo]

If you are still under warrentee from dell, they are pretty good with support.
Asus and Gygabite suck!
Sad you can not solve it, I am still having the same problem, not sure what to do..