Driver Power State Failure on Windows: Causes and Fixes

Driver power state failure is a BSOD error that may appear on Windows 10. Some users claim that the error is random. However, we can assure you that it’s not.

The DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE error can have multiple causes, including outdated or incompatible drivers, a power saving mode that’s not working properly, and various third-party software that hamper your system.

It’s not fatal, so that means you don’t have to immediately jump to reinstalling your operating system.

Driver Power State Failure: Fixes

Before resorting to that ultimate scenario, try using the solutions below to see if you can fix the Driver power state failure error on Windows 10, first.

Identify the driver causing DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE

Before cycling through fixes blindly, it helps to narrow down which driver or device is actually causing the crash. Here’s a quick way to do that:

• Boot into Safe Mode. Safe Mode loads only essential drivers. If your PC runs stably there, a third-party driver is almost certainly the culprit. You can boot Windows 10 in Safe Mode to test this.
• Check Reliability Monitor. Press Win + R, type perfmon /rel, and press Enter. Look for BlueScreen events and note the error code — 0x9F corresponds to DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Click any event for additional detail about what failed.
• Analyze minidump files. Use a free tool like BlueScreenView or WinDbg to open the crash dump files stored in C:\Windows\Minidump. These files show exactly which driver was active at the moment of the crash.
• Know the usual suspects. The most common offenders are graphics, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, chipset, and USB controller drivers — particularly external adapters. Focus your investigation on those devices first.

1. Check your device drivers

Get started by updating your device drivers to the latest version. The best place to get drivers is directly from your PC maker’s support page (for branded laptops and desktops) or from the component manufacturer’s official site or dedicated tool — not from generic third-party driver updaters, which can install mismatched packages and make the problem worse.

Prioritize updating these drivers first: chipset, storage/NVMe, graphics, Wi-Fi/Ethernet, Bluetooth, and USB controller drivers. Go directly to the hardware vendor — for example, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Realtek, or Qualcomm — and download the latest version for your specific hardware model.

If the crash started after sleep, startup, shutdown, or a major Windows update, also check for BIOS/UEFI and firmware updates from your PC or motherboard manufacturer’s support page. These updates frequently fix power state transition bugs that trigger this exact BSOD. Microsoft’s own documentation on the DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE bug check provides additional technical detail on what causes this stop code.

2. Unplug all external hardware components

Some users managed to fix the Driver power state failure BSOD error on Windows 10 by removing all peripherals from their desktop or laptop. This includes not only USB sticks, memory cards, Wi-Fi adapters and webcams, but also mice and keyboards.

Get rid of all hardware with a cable, except for your monitor. Then, reboot your computer. If you no longer get the Driver power state failure error message, then it’s clearly something wrong with at least one piece of hardware.

We recommend you boot Windows 10 in safe mode and then uninstall and reinstall the driver of each device on your computer. But if this doesn’t work either, you should consult a specialist to troubleshoot your faulty equipment.

3. Uninstall your device drivers

If your devices aren’t working properly, they might be missing, incompatible, or corrupt. In this case, you can uninstall the problematic device driver — but note that Windows may reinstall the same faulty driver or a generic fallback driver, so you will need to install the correct driver manually afterward.

1. Right-click the Windows 10 Start menu and select Device Manager
2. Expand the menu and identify any devices with a yellow exclamation mark
3. Right-click the suspected device and select Uninstall device. When prompted, check the box that says Attempt to remove the driver for this device if it appears, then confirm the uninstall.
4. If the device is an external peripheral, disconnect it from your PC before rebooting.
5. Reboot your computer.
6. After restarting, manually download and install the latest official driver for the device directly from the OEM or component vendor’s website — do not rely on Windows to find the correct driver automatically.

4. Disable power saving mode

In certain cases, the Driver power state failure can be caused by incorrect power setting profiles. It’s easier to disable the feature instead of fixing it. Here’s how you can do that:

1. Right-click the Windows 10 Start menu and go to Settings
2. Select System
3. Go to Power & Sleep. Set Screen and Sleep to Never

Next, disable power management at the individual device level — this is especially important for network adapters, Bluetooth, and USB controllers, which are common triggers for this BSOD during sleep and wake transitions:

1. Open Device Manager (right-click Start and select it from the menu).
2. Expand Network adapters, Bluetooth, and Universal Serial Bus controllers.
3. Right-click each device in those categories and select Properties.
4. Click the Power Management tab and uncheck Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power. Click OK.
5. Repeat for each suspected device.

You should also disable Fast Startup, which can interfere with clean power state transitions:

1. Press Win + R, type control panel, and press Enter.
2. Go to Power Options, then click Choose what the power buttons do.
3. Click Change settings that are currently unavailable, then uncheck Turn on fast startup (recommended) and click Save changes.

Optional diagnostic step: To identify exactly which devices or drivers are failing during sleep and wake transitions, open an elevated Command Prompt or PowerShell and run the following commands:

powercfg /energy

powercfg /systemsleepdiagnostics

Both commands generate HTML reports (saved to your system folder) that list power-related errors and problem devices. Review those reports to pinpoint the hardware responsible for the crash.

5. Uninstall third-party software

Unfortunately, certain software applications are not fully compatible with Microsoft’s operating system and may cause the Driver power state failure Blue Screen of Death error on Windows 10.

Examples include anti-malware applications and web browsers. In this case, there’s nothing left to do besides removing the faulty tools. It can be tricky to determine the culprit, however.

Try to remember when the Driver power state failure error started appearing on your PC. It helps with pinpointing a specific day when you recently installed a new piece of software.

1. Right-click the Windows 10 Start menu and go to Apps and Features
2. Set Sort by to Install date to view the most recently installed applications first
3. Select a recently installed program, click Uninstall, and proceed with the removal process. Do this for every recent app
4. Restart your computer and check if you still receive the Driver power state failure error

6. Use System File Checker

If your system has corrupt or missing files, it could be the reason why you keep seeing the Driver power state failure error message on Windows 10.

However, you should be able to quickly troubleshoot this problem using System File Checker (SFC).

Here’s how you use the System File Checker

1. Run CMD with administrator rights
2. Type sfc /scannow
3. Wait until the computer scan is over.
4. Exit Command Prompt and restart your PC.

7. Restore Windows to a safe checkpoint

If you’re the type of user who regularly creates system restore points, then you could revert Windows to a previous checkpoint when you didn’t receive the Driver power state failure error.

1. Press Win key + R, type control panel, and press Enter
2. Find and click Recovery
3. Click Open System Restore
4. Follow the wizard steps to revert Windows to a previous checkpoint
5. Restart your computer

At this point, if you still receive the Blue Screen of Death message with the DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE error, it’s time to back up all your files and folders, in order to prepare for Windows 10 reset.

Conclusion: Resolving Driver Power State Failure

To recap, if you encountered the Driver power state failure BSOD error on your Windows 10 PC, you should check your device drivers, unplug all peripheral devices from your computer, and reinstall your device drivers.

You should also prevent your operating system from entering a power saving mode, remove recently installed software from your computer, use System File Checker to repair corrupt system files, and restore Windows 10 to a previous checkpoint in recovery mode.

However, if everything fails, there’s no other choice besides refreshing Windows 10.

Did the solutions above work for you? Did we miss an important step anywhere along the way? Let us know in the comment section below.

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Alex Ion

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