Windows 10: Several Event ID 41 errors, but haven't experienced a BSOD or any unexpected shut downs.

I guess I should preface this by saying that I've probably spent equal amounts of time troubleshooting as I have doing normal tasks on this PC, but this is the closest I've come to figuring out my issue and I'm not too sure where to go from here. Last year I had to do a factory reset to fix a 100% disk usage issue, but it seems more issues have cropped up lately that first came to my attention due to stuttering/micro-stuttering in games differing in severity.



Specs:

- i7 8700k

- GeForce GTX 1080

- 16GB Dual Channel DDR4 @2666MHz

- 2TB 7200RPM SATA HDD


- 850W EPA Bronze PSU


Display: ASUS PG279Q




Regarding the errors I'm seeing in Event Viewer, here's what I'm seeing under EventData for Event 41:



BugcheckCode 0

BugcheckParameter1 0x0

BugcheckParameter2 0x0

BugcheckParameter3 0x0

BugcheckParameter4 0x0

SleepInProgress 6

PowerButtonTimestamp 0

BootAppStatus 3221225684

Checkpoint 16

ConnectedStandbyInProgress false

SystemSleepTransitionsToOn 1

CsEntryScenarioInstanceId 0

BugcheckInfoFromEFI false

CheckpointStatus 0



Unfortunately after running a "Repair Upgrade" to fix an ESENT error which turned out to be unnecessary, I seem to have lost all my previous event logs where it showed Event ID 41 errors dating back to around November of last year, which is around when I was using my PC most after the factory reset. From what I remember, the EventData for each of those errors were the same as this one shown here, but I guess I can't be 100% sure of that currently. The times associated with these ID 41 errors also didn't seem to match up with any of the issues I've been experiencing. At the moment, I seem to have quite a few errors listed here even after running the repair upgrade, but the ones that seem to be relevant to this issue specifically are Event ID 29 and ID 6008. 6008 states that the shut down from last night was unexpected, but as per usual all I did was select "shut down" from the start menu, and this led to Event ID 41 showing up on my first boot of the day. I couldn't get this error to show up again today after a few restarts and a couple of normal shut downs. I can list all the other errors in Event Viewer if necessary, but they seem to be unrelated to this. Also not sure if this is worth mentioning, but the repair upgrade didn't seem to go exactly how it was meant to. I got put right back into my desktop with Windows automatically downloading a few things from the Microsoft Store, but didn’t go through that initial “out of box” experience that was displayed through a guide.

As mentioned, I have not experienced any sudden crashes or a BSOD, but I have been running into some strange issue with Windows freezing for around 5-7 seconds while doing basic tasks on my desktop. This probably started about a week ago and would normally happen once per day, usually after a few hours of using the PC. I was only able to catch a few while task manager was opened, and all three happened in the past two days. Two were 1-2 second freezes, but one was the usual random freeze/hang where I can't do anything until everything appears to stabilize again. When these occurred, I noticed CPU usage spikes in task manager. The 5-7 hang showed usage spiking to 100%, while the much shorter freezes showed CPU usage spiking to around 50% or lower. These also didn't occur with any components under any heavy load.

Before this, I was trying for countless hours to troubleshoot an inconsistent stuttering issue I'm seeing in some form in most games I've tried. Monitoring components using MSI Afterburner/RTSS, typically at a 1000ms polling rate during my tests of these games didn't give me anything super conclusive, but there were some odd things to point out. First of all, not all stutters were caused by this, but I could link a lot of them to GPU usage dipping to any percentage. This includes GPU FB usage and "GPU power", but not all GPU usage dips would result in GPU power dipping as well. Sometimes I'd see CPU usage spiking/dipping a bit in response to this, though most times it wouldn't do anything unusual. Just recently started monitoring CPU power as well and haven't seen any dips there. Clock speeds for both GPU and CPU do not dip during these stutters. Usually these dips in usage result in both a major frametime spike and FPS drop, but some stutters result in frametime spikes with either very minimal drops in FPS or no drops at all. Memory usage does not exceed the limit in any programs, and both sticks are running at the correct frequency it tends to bounce around 2650MHz for whatever reason. Not sure if this at all seems connected to whatever is going on here, but felt it was worth mentioning.


Side note: Experienced an even shorter freeze during this. Scrolled across briefly with my mouse when it happened, and CPU usage went up to around 40-45%.


Trying to troubleshoot this issue led me to this page https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/client-management/troubleshoot-event-id-41-restart, and this particular section seems applicable to my situation:

Event ID 41 is not recorded or the bug check code is zero. This behavior might indicate a power supply problem. If the power to a computer is interrupted, the computer might shut down without generating a Stop error. If it does generate a Stop error, it might not finish writing the error codes to disk. The next time the computer starts, it might not log Event ID 41. Or, if it does, the bug check code is zero. Conditions such as the following might be the cause:

• In the case of a portable computer, the battery was removed or completely drained.
• In the case of a desktop computer, the computer was unplugged or experienced a power outage.
• The power supply is underpowered or faulty.

A lot of this seems to point towards the power supply being the issue in some way, though I'm not sure how to go about troubleshooting this, or if it's really the issue at all. I guess it's likely I could be dealing with totally separate issues here, but I'm kinda stumped either way. I should also note that the stutters in a some games ex: Sea of Thieves, PUBG occur more often than the issues I'm experiencing while just browsing or troubleshooting on my desktop. In other games like Destiny 2, I remember experiencing a terrible stutter once or twice every couple sessions.



I can't exactly recall all of the things I've tried when attempting to fix this issue, as all of this has been pretty overwhelming and spread out over several weeks, but I can try to remember some key points. All drivers are up to date along with Windows/BIOS, nothing is overclocked, I’ve tried DDU and re-downloaded the latest driver from NVIDIA’s website, I've used Windows 10’s tools to scan my HDD/memory, I've ran a system file check, ran disk cleanup/cleaned out all temp files, tried setting power plan to high performance, moved the DP cable to another port, tried plugging PC into a CyberPower UPS System still plugged in just in case, and made sure nothing was overheating. While playing demanding games, the hottest my CPU has gotten has been 65°C typically around 40-45, and my GPU is typically hanging around 75-81°C. There's definitely been a lot more attempts, but these are the ones that come to mind that seem to be the most relevant. I haven't tried a clean boot yet as I'm not sure how I'd single out a problem that seems to occur randomly.


Another note: Experienced another short 1 second freeze while typing this up. CPU usage spiked to around 25-30%.


I'm sure I'm missing something I initially wanted to mention and have forgotten, but I can only think of two other weird things. The first one I think of dates back to the time I first got this computer almost 2 years ago, and it was unable to properly wake up from sleep and would crash every time. I believe a BIOS update eventually fixed this so I kind of ignored it, but I can't be certain what the fix was. Not sure if this was maybe an early sign that there was a problem with my PSU, but guess it was worth tossing in here. Another thing happened 1-2 weeks ago when I was making sure all cables were plugged in correctly, and I only noticed the power cord hanging out slightly from the outlet. Normally this isn't a problem, but I decided to just push it in all the way just in case, and the slightest touch ended up shutting everything off immediately. It appeared to boot back up again just fine, and I've since removed the weird "extra outlet" thing that was plugged in there, but not sure if that was the issue. Also not sure why I ignored that thing being there, as my monitor and PC were the only things plugged in.


Regardless, I'd like to thank anyone in advance that might attempt assisting with this issue. I can provide any additional info if necessary, and my apologies if this is a little long or messy.

:)

 

Event 41, Karnel - Power

Hello,

The Event 41 is used to report the unexpected shutting down of a device. For better assistance, we'd like to ask the following:

• What troubleshooting steps have you tried so far?
• Did you make any changes to your computer? If yes, can you tell us the changes?
  

Meanwhile, we recommend following the workaround on this link. The article
is about Windows Kernel event ID 41 error "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" in Windows.

We are looking forward to your reply.

 

Kernel-Power event id 41. BugcheckCode 0

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

In-order to get more clarity on this issue and to assist you with appropriate troubleshooting steps, reply with answers to the below questions:

1. Are you aware of any changes made on your PC, prior to this issue?
   
2. Is this issue specific while playing a particular game?
   
3. Which edition of Windows are you currently using?
   

A Kernel Power Event 41 can occur in the following scenarios.

Scenario 1: The computer restarts, and there is a Stop error BugcheckCode in the event data.

Scenario 2: The computer is shut down by pressing and holding the power button.

Scenario 3: The system randomly restarts and no Stop error BugcheckCode is listed, or the computer is completely unresponsive (hard hang).

I suggest you refer the article on Kernel
Power Event ID 41 and follow the steps for the scenario that is causing this error on your PC.

Additionally, you can refer the article on Windows
Kernel event ID 41 error "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" in Windows
and check if that helps.

Regards,

Sandeep Kumar M

Microsoft Community – Moderator

 

event 41

Hello,

The kernel power event ID 41 error occurs when the computer is shut down, or it restarts unexpectedly. Having said that, we highly suggest performing the troubleshooting steps in this article:

Windows Kernel event ID 41 error "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" in Windows.

If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to share them with us here. Your input is very much welcome in our Community.