My Windows 7 Kernel Power Error Experience

It’s been a while since the last time I posted. Some life stuff to deal with.

A few weeks ago my Windows 7 gaming rig began crashing (BSOD followed by an auto-reboot). After it happened a few times, I realized that this was happening either after the computer came out of hibernation or started going to sleep. The computer was able to boot into Windows just fine. I checked the event viewer and found the error listed as Kernel Power Event ID 41.

Searching the net, I found that quite a few people were having this problem and there was just about as many troubleshooting tips. I will throw the solution to my problem into the mix. Maybe this will help someone out there.

One time as I rebooted the computer after flashing the BIOS (one of the tips I found), I just happened to be looking through the Windows Performance Monitor and I noticed that Windows was only reporting 4 of my 6GB of memory. I went into BIOS to confirm and it was also only reading 4GB.

I became worried that one of the memory sticks had died for some reason. However, after reseating the memory, Windows and BIOS reported 6GB of memory. The computer stopped auto-rebooting and the error disappeared.

NVIDIA Shelves 196.75 Driver

Engadget is reporting that NVIDIA has temporarily pulled it’s 196.75 driver after reports of slow FPS framerates, bad performance and overheated chips. Apparently this is due to a problem with how the update handles the automated fan controller. In some cases, the video card died altogether.

It is recommended that this update is avoided until NVIDIA fixes the problem.