13 Solutions to Fix Driver Power State Failure on Windows

Did you know? There are over 500 different kinds of the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) errors for the Windows Operating System. All of them come up in Windows computers when they find themselves in a critical spot. These are like little, digital jumpscares designed for Windows users. The BSoD that this article handles is different from most of the others. Let’s work on how to solve the Driver Power State Failure blue screen. 

What does a Driver Power State Failure error mean?

The Driver Power State Failure is quite different from the other BSoD errors. While a traditional BSoD appears suddenly while the computer is being used, the Driver Power State Failure BSoD appears when Windows is being booted up or restarted.

The Driver Power State Failure Blue Screen of Death

Like every other blue screen that the users face, this is also caused by incompatible drivers, old operating system versions, and malware. But one of the main elements responsible for this issue is a system driver being in an unstable state of power supply.

This is the error message that you’ll see when the Driver Power State Failure strikes your system:

Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’re collecting some error info, and then we’ll restart for you.

If you’d like to know more, you can search online for this error. DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE  

Facets that can cause the Driver Power State Failure error

  1. Upgrading the Operating System – This error can come up while Windows is being upgraded from an older version to a newer one. This could be because the old drivers not being suited for the new operating system.
  2. Old system driver – Your existing drivers can become old over time and have to be updated regularly to gain the most out of the computer and prevent issues from coming up. Thus, causing a huge range of blue screen errors.
  3. The Sleep mode – When the PC is sleeping and needs to be used, the OS sends out a wake-up call to awaken it. Sometimes this call is ignored and thereby causing this specific BSoD.

Means to fix Driver Power State Failure error

  1. Disconnect peripherals
  2. Disable Power Saving
  3. Make changes in the Power settings
  4. Modify the Power Plan Settings
  5. Adjust the Nvidia Power Settings
  6. Use the Driver Verifier to check your drivers
  7. Update, Rollback, or Get rid of the irksome System Drivers 
  8. Run an SFC Scan
  9. Run a DISM Scan
  10. Make a few changes in the Registry Editor
  11. Use the System Restoration utility
  12. Disable the Antivirus temporarily
  13. Update the BIOS

Solutions to Fix Driver Power State Failure error in Windows 10 computers

Before we get to looking at the methods that can fix the Driver Power State Failure, there is a possibility of your PC not booting up in normal mode. If so, you will have to launch the system in Safe Mode. If you do not know how we have an article on How to start Windows 10 in Safe Mode

These are all the techniques that can be used to see to the Driver Power State Failure error on Windows 10:

1. Disconnect peripherals

There are USB and audio slots in computers. They are used to connect to additional hardware like speakers, printers, USB drivers, and more. When these are not connected properly, they may or may not be detected, confusing the computer. 

Remove everything that is connected to your ports and restart the PC. 

If the BSoD does not come up when the system is being rebooted with no attached devices, the external hardware was responsible for this error. If you wish to know which accessory was causing this issue you can connect one device at a time and restart your PC. 

2. Disable Power Saving

Turning off the Power Saver for Windows is a possible solution to your Driver Power State Failure error. This can be found in the control panel and can be turned off to fix the Driver Power State Failure blue screen of death error.

This is the procedure to switch the Power Saving feature off in Windows:

  1. Search the phrase “Control Panel”. Open the search result at the top.
Search result for Control Panel
  1. Go into the Hardware and Sound settings and then click on Power Options.
Power Options in the Control Panel
  1. In the Preferred plans section, select the Change Plan settings link. You have to make sure that the Balanced (Recommended) radio button is checked.
Change Plan Settings for Balanced power plans
  1. Click on the Change advanced power settings link.
Change advanced power settings link in Power Options
  1. Expand the Wireless Adapter Settings heading and the Power Saving Mode sub-heading.
  2. Pull the Setting drop-down menu and choose Maximum Performance.
Expanded Wireless Adapter settings in Power Options
  1. Then, go into the PCI Express option and proceed into the Link State Power Management sub-option.
  2. Select Maximum Power Savings in the Setting dropdown menu.
Power Options for PCI Express
  1. Press the Apply and Ok buttons, to save the changes. 

After this is complete, reboot the system to see if the problem comes up during this process.

3. Make changes in the Power settings

This issue is caused by some active aspects in the Power Options of Dell computers. You have to disable them on your Windows 10 PC to get rid of this issue.

  1. Open the Control Panel window through the Quick Link menu (Windows + X) or the search results.
  2. Go to the Power Options sub-settings in the Hardware or Sound settings.
  3. From the left panel, select the Choose what the power button does link.
Choose what the power buttons do option on the left panel
  1. Under the Define power buttons and turn on the password protection section, click on Change settings that are currently unavailable to enable every option in the window.
Option to enable unavailable options
  1. Uncheck the Turn off fast startup (recommended), Sleep, and Hibernate checkboxes under the Shutdown Settings section.
Shutdown Settings section with checkboxes
  1. Once you’re done, select Save Changes and close the window.

4. Modify the Power Plan Settings

  1. Search for Power Options in the search bar and open the first search result.
  2. Click on the Change Plan Settings link next to the High-Performance radio button.
  3. Open the Change advanced power settings link.
  4. On the Power Options page, click to expand the Sleep section.
  5. Set the Sleep and HIbernation settings to Never.
Power Plan Settings
  1. In the Power buttons and lid section, change the setting to Do nothing.
  2. Click on Apply and then, Ok to keep the changes you made.

5. Adjust the Nvidia Power Settings

  1. Right-click on the Nvidia icon in the task tray and choose Nvidia Control Panel.
The Nvidia Control Panel option from the Nvidia symbol in the task tray
  1. Click on the Manage 3D settings option in the left panel.
Manage 3D settings option in the Nvidia Control Panel
  1. On the right side of the window, change the Preferred graphics processor to your High-Performance Nvidia processor.
High-Performance NVIDIA processor in the Preferred Graphics Processor drop-down menu
  1. Look for the Power Management mode in the settings and choose Prefer maximum performance.
Power Management mode option in the Nvidia Control panel
  1. Save your changes by clicking on the Apply button at the bottom. 

6. Use the Driver Verifier to check your drivers

The Windows Driver verifier is a scanning feature that was designed to find and fix any damages to the device driver software so that they can be fixed before any further injury. This verifier is a good resolve if the Driver Power State Failure issue is caused by faulty drivers.

Here’s how you can verify your drivers:

  1. Type in Powershell to search for Windows Powershell in the taskbar’s search box or bring up the Quick link menu by pushing the Windows + X keys on your keyboard, simultaneously. 
  2. Choose Windows PowerShell (Admin). If you took the search step, click on Run as Administrator under the result.
Search results for Windows PowerShell
  1. Type in the command “Verifier” in the blue window and press Enter to execute it.
The verifier command in PowerShell
  1. The Driver Verifier Manager menu box appears on your display. 
  2. Go along the following route to scan all the drivers available on your computer:

Create Standard Settings > Automatically select all drivers installed on this computer > Finish 

  1. If you wish to scan only chosen drivers, take the following path :

Create Standard Settings > Select driver names from a list > choose the drivers > Finish

  1. If you want to check the report for the verifier scam, launch the Windows PowerShell again and execute the “verifier /query” command.

7. Update, Roll back, or Get rid of the irksome System Drivers

Older versions of drivers are not ideal for the best and error-free performance of the computer. The three different methods to solve the Driver Power State Failure issue, when a faulty driver is responsible for this issue are by deleting and reinstalling the drivers, updating them, or rolling them back to the previous version.

These are the instructions you have to follow through the device manager:

  1. Press the Windows key and search for the Device Manager in the search bar and open the best result.
  2. On the Device Manager page, find the necessary segment among the devices on your computer and expand it. It may be the graphics driver (Display Adapters) or a disk driver (Disk Devices).
Display Adapters in Device Manager
  1. Right-click on the driver that could be the reason you have this issue and the pop-up menu appears with a list of options.
  2. Choose Properties from the context menu and go into the Driver tab.
Properties option in the Context menu for Display Adapter
  1. To remove and reinstall the driver, click Uninstall driver and do as the uninstaller states. You can download and install the latest driver from the hard disk or graphics card manufacturer’s website or an interface application. 
  2. If you want to get the latest version updates, select Update Driver. You can either update it with an existing update or search automatically for updates.
  3. To go back to the previous version of the driver, that was installed on the computer, select Rollback Driver
Display Adapter properties

Either way, you get a different version of the driver than the previous one and the system may function without the current driver.

8. Run an SFC Scan

System File Checker (SFC) is a Windows feature that is designed to scan the system files for damage and replace them. This will help fix the Driver Power State Failure error.

This is how you have to run this tool:

  1. Run Command Prompt as the system’s admin by looking for command prompt or cmd in the search bar and choosing Run as Administrator in the search results.
  2. Enter the sfc /scannow command and press Enter.
sfc /scannow command

The SFC scan takes quite some time to complete. Your computer will not have damaged system files after you reboot the system once this process ends. 

9. Run a DISM Scan

The Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) is a command utilized by the Windows PowerShell or Command Prompt to restore corrupt or missing files from your system. This command line can be used to fix the Driver Power State Failure on your Windows system.

  1. Run command prompt window with administrator exclusivities. As a system admin, users can make important changes in the system and set them as the default configuration.
  2. Use the following commands and run them one after another:
    1. DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth 

This command scans for issues in the system.

Scanhealth DISM command line
  1. DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

This command repairs the issues if they are detected by the Scanhealth command line.

Restorehealth DISM Command line

10. Make a few changes in the Registry Editor

This solution does not exactly need the Registry Editor to fix the Driver Power State Failure error. A simple command executed in the Command Prompt tool will help you change the configuration in the Registry Editor, without having to navigate through the directory maze.

This solution has to be carried out this way:

  1. Find the command prompt tool and right-click on it. 
  2. Select Run as Administrator. 
  3. Copy and Paste the following command line into the cmd window:

REG ADD “HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal\MSIServer” /VE /T REG_SZ /F /D “Service”

Registry Editor directory command
  1. Execute this by pressing Enter and then, copy-paste this command:
net start msiserver
Command to initiate the Windows Installer
  1. Run this command too and restart your computer. 

This should fix the Driver Power State Failure error on your Windows computer, by making little changes in the Registry Editor.  

11. Use the System Restoration utility

A System Restore point is a process of creating a checkpoint in your computer configuration, that you can load whenever the computer gets into serious trouble. This is not a solution to the Driver Power State Failure error but a step that you can take to go back to a state where this error did not exist.

These are the steps to make Restore points on Windows 10:

  1. Connect a USB drive containing an OS installation media (bootable device) and restart your computer.
  2. Go to the Troubleshoot settings and select Advanced Options.
  3. When you are inside the Advanced Options page, click on the System Restore option. As an alternative, users can also search for System Restore interface and open the best search result.
Search results for Restore Point
  1. Once inside the System Properties window, select the System Restore button which is under the System Protection tab.
System Properties window
  1. Set your restore point and select Next, located in the lower part of the System Restore window.
System Restore main dialog box
  1. If available, existing restore points and information can be seen.
  2. Click on the Finish button and then click Yes to close the window. 

If your system runs into trouble, you can go back to the saved restore point using the above steps. 

12. Disable the Antivirus temporarily

Your antivirus software can be causing factor for the Driver Power State Failure error in Windows 10, indirectly, by bothering the processes that can put an end to this issue. Deactivating this will help stop the Driver Power State Failure error in Windows 10.

Users can deactivate the antivirus software, with these steps:

  1. Open the Task Manager. (Ctrl + Shift + Esc). You can also try right-clicking on the taskbar and choosing Task Manager, Your third alternative is to select Ctrl + Alt + Del and then select the Task Manager option.
  2. Select More Details to display a list of all the system processes if you have a minimal window of the Task Manager.
Task Manager window
  1. Open the Startup tab and select the antivirus software. If you have more than one, you can select both of them.  
  2. This will enable the Disable button, which will stop the process activation during startup.
  3. Restart your computer. 

After these steps, You will not face the Driver Power State Failure again if your antivirus program was causing the problem. If your antivirus software has to be whitelisted, go back to the Startup tab in the Task Manager and re-enable it.

13 . Update the BIOS

Updating the motherboard is not something everyone knows or does. It can solve a lot of problems. This is quite risky and can go wrong anytime. We advise you to be careful.

These are the steps to update your BIOS:

  1. Download the latest BIOS update. This will be available on the motherboard manufacturer’s website. 
BIOS download webpage for ASRock motherboards

If you use a laptop, the brand website will have the laptop model’s exclusive BIOS versions on them. 

  1. Extract the compressed file to a folder on a USB drive.
  2. Connect the USB and restart it.
  3. Interrupt the boot process by pressing the F10, F12, or Del keys on your keyboard. The trigger key will vary based on the motherboard.
  4. Inside the BIOS menu, enter the Advanced tab and choose Start Flash to flash install the new BIOS update from the USB drive. 

If you have motherboard interfaces, it is easier to procure these updates.