Mysterious Windows 10 Kernel-Power Event ID 41 Critical Shutdown/Reboot Errors

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Today as I stepped up to the computer, I watched as it was mysteriously rebooting itself. This is the first time I’d seen it actually happen in real time. A few days ago when I was nosing around the Events Viewer for something else, I noticed these but didn’t believe they were happening. Now I do.

What would you go hunting to find out the cause of this thin-skinned baloney? The curious thing about this is the Windows 10 OS was wiped and reinstalled on this box in early-ish October. A Windows administrator these days I’m not.

Although the computer’s in a locale with lots’a power outages, there’s also a decent APC Sinewave APR unit on it, and it seems to have been functioning just fine. Nothing in its log about a power issue from today.

Merci for any help.

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Fred

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Was Microsoft “disturbed” when placing one of the many so called critical updates?

When this happend here I replaced an OS image from several weeks old back. And never found a real reason. If you do, please report!

Regards  Fred

* _ the metaverse is poisonous _ *

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Mr. Austin

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Thank you, Fred.

I took a cursory look at that idea right after I posted this thread. In my first look at the idea you suggested, there were no Microsoft software patches immediately before the date of the first, mysteriously spontaneous reboot. However, via the Windows Store the machine was switched from Win 10 Home Edition to Pro a couple of weeks before the event (because it was written to give more flexibility to when I’d allow patches to Microsoft’s incessant patches). I’ll want to fish out when that was done because by itself that would seem to be a likely candidate for a cause.

There was also no new software installed right before the first spontaneous reboot on 11-1. What is also noteworthy about this is that the machine had been turned off, and unused for close to 2 weeks before the first event. The OS had already been reinstalled according to Hoyle. After the machine was again in use I began reinstalling all the non-OS software.

Drive imaging? The reason I wiped and reinstalled the OS had crashed, and the EaseUS restore process failed abysmally. So I began hunting drive imaging software on which I could depend, but after the first inexplicable reboot. I tested Macrium, Aomei, R-Drive Image, and a couple of others. But my testing was not completed until nearly 4 weeks after the first reboot.

And to restore an image it would seem likely that the problem will still be unsolved. By the way, R-Drive Image is what I ended up using. Their e-mail support has been average. And I have been able to get them on the phone for “general” questions. But their software still has a little issue which its publisher has not solved, when it shows the exact wrong image date and time in their own recovery console. So I wouldn’t give it an unqualified recommendation:  I opened a ticket about that and they wrote back that they’d ask their developer about it, and since that time I’ve been hearing crickets about that one issue.

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I use Event Viewer and look for Kernel Boot events in the System log. You should find some info on why near these events.

cheers, Paul

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Mr. Austin wrote:

Today as I stepped up to the computer, I watched as it was mysteriously rebooting itself. This is the first time I’d seen it actually happen in real time. A few days ago when I was nosing around the Events Viewer for something else, I noticed these but didn’t believe they were happening. Now I do.

What would you go hunting to find out the cause of this thin-skinned baloney? The curious thing about this is the Windows 10 OS was wiped and reinstalled on this box in early-ish October. A Windows administrator these days I’m not.

Although the computer’s in a locale with lots’a power outages, there’s also a decent APC Sinewave APR unit on it, and it seems to have been functioning just fine. Nothing in its log about a power issue from today.

Merci for any help.

This won’t offer you any help, but is for informational purposes.

Early last year I noticed that the three HP Pavilion G6-2235 laptops I had would each periodically and spontaneously reboot, and show the same Event Viewer ‘Critical Error’ you’ve documented.  These were doing so with intervals anywhere between by-weekly and twice a day. Troubleshooting was unsucessful. They were running Win 10 Pro 22H1 at the time and I’d hoped this ‘behavior’ would go away when 22H2 was added.

But the behavior remained the same with 22H2 installed, so I sold the laptops for parts last fall and replaced them with three ThinkPads E595 20NF.

These are also running Win 10 Pro 22H2, and now they are exhibiting the identical reboot behavior and accompanying Event Viewer messages as the HPs, although they seem to be doing so less frequently than then did the HPs.  Troubleshooting has also not helped with them either (this includes, besides driver changes, trying clean installs).

It’s all mighty mysterious and very frustrating.  In my mind it is likely a “fault” within the OS.

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Mr. Austin

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Here’s an additional Event Log screen showing different reboot times for a different reason, “The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck”.It’s more than interesting that a bugcheck reboot coincides well with the event I noticed yesterday.

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Captain Al wrote:

This won’t offer you any help, but is for informational purposes.

Well, Captain, I might beg to differ that your reply won’t offer any help. Look what this machine is running, eh?

On account’a because I specifically remember never wanting 22H2 on this box until Microsoft forced the issue on 10/9, and that was well before the 1st spontaneous reboot. Look at the date, eh? That’s when I’d first wiped and reinstalled the OS. But until then I had intentionally avoided 22H2 since it first came around as an option.

And in the many, many years I’ve been around Windows, including servers and workstations, I’ve never once had spontaneous reboots from Windows. BSOD’s yes… every 16th Blue Moon… but those were always traceable and fixable.

So, thank you. I wonder if your ‘non-help’ might have instead given me an interesting investigatory path.

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Captain Al

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The stop code 0x000000d1 is a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error. Check that all your drivers are up-to-date and Windows 11 compatible.

--Joe

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joep517 wrote:

The stop code 0x000000d1 is a DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error. Check that all your drivers are up-to-date and Windows 11 compatible.

Thank you, JoeP517! That’s the sort of advanced geekology I was hoping someone might notice. I didn’t know that because I’d never wanted to look into such levels of error codes over my 3 decades using Windows.

This particular machine, according to Microsoft, is unfit for Windows 11. And about that I’m glad because it (they) usually wants to sell me things which have no utility or bearing on what I want or need. But I will certainly look into the idea.

In the case of this machine all its drivers are fastidiously updated on a regular basis.

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Oops. Sorry, I forgot it was Windows 10 when I composed my reply. Nevertheless, you should check to make sure all your drivers are Windows 10 compatible. Sometimes, a driver may install but turn out to have issues with a particular Windows release. If one of your drivers has been updated very recently perhaps you need to revert to a prior version.

--Joe

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Captain Al wrote:

he time and I’d hoped this ‘behavior’ would go away when 22H2 was added. But the behavior remained the same with 22H2 installed, so I sold the laptops for parts last fall and replaced them with three ThinkPads E595 20NF.

Say, Captain,

Are/were any of those machines using either a Windows account PIN or password? That an additional thing I implemented with the early October reinstall of the OS. It’s the first time I’ve ever been using that on that Windows box. Of course it’s linked to a Windows account which might be phoning home at log-in.

Thank you.

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I have seen this same situation from Windows 7 to Windows 11. My assumption is that is is something inside OS. MS has stopped caring about making a good quality product. They only care about making more money and even more money.

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Paul T wrote:

I use Event Viewer and look for Kernel Boot events in the System log. You should find some info on why near these events.

cheers, Paul

Never once have I seen anything like this in XP, 7, 8, 8.1, or 10 Home, and those are across a very long time.

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Mr. Austin wrote:

Captain Al wrote:

he time and I’d hoped this ‘behavior’ would go away when 22H2 was added. But the behavior remained the same with 22H2 installed, so I sold the laptops for parts last fall and replaced them with three ThinkPads E595 20NF.

Say, Captain,

Are/were any of those machines using either a Windows account PIN or password? That an additional thing I implemented with the early October reinstall of the OS. It’s the first time I’ve ever been using that on that Windows box. Of course it’s linked to a Windows account which might be phoning home at log-in.

Thank you.

All the laptopts, the three HP’s, and the three ThinkPads, are/were setup without a password or PIN, and as well with a local account.

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Mr. Austin

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Captain Al wrote:

Mr. Austin wrote:

Captain Al wrote:

he time and I’d hoped this ‘behavior’ would go away when 22H2 was added. But the behavior remained the same with 22H2 installed, so I sold the laptops for parts last fall and replaced them with three ThinkPads E595 20NF.

Say, Captain,

Are/were any of those machines using either a Windows account PIN or password? That an additional thing I implemented with the early October reinstall of the OS. It’s the first time I’ve ever been using that on that Windows box. Of course it’s linked to a Windows account which might be phoning home at log-in.

Thank you.

All the laptopts, the three HP’s, and the three ThinkPads, are/were setup without a password or PIN, and as well with a local account.

Thank you very much. Well, then, your facts indeed suggest that the bug is indeed inherent in 22H1 and 22H2 Windows Pro code.

I think I mentioned that I’d changed our box to Pro 64-bit from Home 64-bit around October 9th, 2022. I don’t recall any evidence of a problem like this with Home this year, or ever before in my use of it for 4+ years.

So given these things, I don’t imagine that we’re the only people who noticed this destructive wackiness. Maybe I’ll give it whatever amount of time seems good and see if anyone else who’d had our experiences finds this thread  And if no one does, maybe I’d make a dedicated, inquisitive post on these fora, and/or Reddit, and/or another. Maybe Windows Central.

You might be interested to hear that today I nosed around for a Windows program to read and analyze the Memory.dmp file, and I didn’t find one. The Memory.dmp file on my machine is something like 2.6 GB. Although I just want to read the contents of the Memory.dmp and nose around, Microsoft’s own WinDbg Preview utility gives an interminable flashing cursor. The only other thing I’d found to read mini dumps, not the full dumps, is NirSoft’s utility. But that doesn’t show the full events log although it does show several ntoskernal.exe crashes:

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Mr. Austin wrote:

But that doesn’t show the full events log…

Nirsoft has another utility to do that:

FullEventLogView

Regards, Phil

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Mr. Austin

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Phil F wrote:

Mr. Austin wrote:

But that doesn’t show the full events log…

Nirsoft has another utility to do that:

FullEventLogView

Regards, Phil

Thanks. I missed that for some reason. I just now downloaded and installed it and will fish around in it.

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Mr A, please only quote a small section in your replies, as Phil F has done.
To quote a section, highlight the relevant text and click Quote.

cheers, Paul

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I’ve been chasing this error for a few years now on an MSI board and never found a solution. I thought it was the Xbox controller for a while and then I suspected the Wi-Fi usb adapter was a culprit and am testing the system again without it plugged in as the driver is no longer supported on windows ten. All other drivers are current and all updates have been installed.

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