Acer Swift SF314-42 Crashing randomly, usually while asleep.

My laptop is crashing randomly, usually while asleep. I've tried some recommended fixes but nothing has worked so far. Wondering if anyone has any insight into what the problem might be/how to fix it? Thanks in advance!

Background:

Acer Swift SF314-42
Windows 11

Problem:

Laptop crashes randomly while asleep or hibernating; when turned on all apps are closed.
Laptop freezes randomly in use; screen hangs and force restart required.
Error logs provided below

Attempted fixes:

Did complete factory reset and reinstall of Windows.
Checked for new Windows updates and ran Windows update troubleshooter.
Updated device drivers.
Ran as administrator: chkdsk /r, DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth, sfc /scannow. Upon restarting after these, a disk check/fix was run which took a while.
Turned off Fast Restart.

Error logs:
All occurring within about 1 minute of a crash. Loosely ordered by "significance" - plenty of other logs but most didn't seem relevant.

Critical: Event 41, Kernel-Power : The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Error: Event 15, HAL: The iommu has detected an error. (repeated)
Error: Event 1001, BugCheck: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was....
Error: Event 6008, EventLog: The previous system shutdown at xx:xx:xx on ‎xx/‎xx/‎202x was unexpected.
Error: Event 10010, DistributedCOM: The server {XXX-XXX...} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.
Warning: Event 219, Kernel-PnP: The driver \Driver\WUDFRd failed to load for the device USB\XXXXX.
Warning: Event 6155, LSA (LsaSrv): LSA package is not signed as expected. This can cause unexpected behaviour with Credential Guard.
Information: Event 521, Kernel-Power: Active battery count change.
Information: Event 105, Kernel-Power: Power source change.

Related issues:

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/618212/acer-swift-3-sf314-57-random-restart-kernel-power

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

Accepted answers

All comments

Pariston

Is this the Ryzen 5500u variant?

Puraw

My guess is a conflicted Power Plan Setting either in Advanced or Acer custom Power Plan with the new S0 Modern Standby protocol in Windows11. How that can lead to a crash I don't know. Disable Fast Startup and set open/close lid actions to Do Nothing and Sleep mode. Check the adapter, battery condition and try using Balanced Power Plan, reset the Balanced plan to factory defaults. Boot to Safe Mode and use that for a while in sleep mode to see if you can replicate the crashing.

billsey

It also could be a corrupted or infected OS. Several of your errors are expected to show up if you have powered off due to a frozen system.

sdunnim

Thanks all for the replies, apologies for the slow response I wasn't getting notified.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1230037#Comment_1230037

It's the Ryzen 5 4500u variant, with Radeon graphics.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1230081#Comment_1230081

Thanks for those suggestions, will give them all a try.

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1230681#Comment_1230681

I did a clean reinstall of Windows so hoping this isn't the issue. If it is, what other steps should I take to address that?

billsey

I assume you are running Windows 10 or 11? The OS reinstall should have cleared up any software issues… Does the chkdsk take a long time if you run it a second time? You may be getting corrupted files on writes if the disk is failing, though you can usually see errors with a SMART scan.

sdunnim

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1232748#Comment_1232748

Yep, Windows 10. Just ran chkdsk /r again and it did take a little while, although I don't think as long as the first time. I had to restart for it to run, and it said "Fixing C:", although that might be usual I'm not sure…

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1230081#Comment_1230081

Tried using the balanced plan with defaults, and turning off Fast Startup. No option for open lid action, but close lid was already set to sleep. Still got a crash :(.

I also tried booting in safe mode as suggested. I didn't directly experience a crash over the course of about a week, however when I restarted (taking me out of safe mode), there was another Critical: Event 41, Kernel-Power in the logs. There were also a bunch of previous errors that had occurred during safe mode, of the following format:

Error: Event 10005, DistributedCOM: DCOM got error "1084" attempting to start the service XXXXX with arguments "Unavailable" in order to run the server: XXXXX.

Another thing I thought of - a while ago I used this laptop to install Linux on an external hard drive, and have booted this laptop with it a couple of times since. I can't remember the details but I think it involved some fiddling with partitions. I did check under Disk Management and I only have the Acer C: partition, along with an EFI System Partition and Recovery Partition.

Thanks again for the help, and apologies again for the slow reply, it's been a while since I had time to try these suggestions.

billsey

So, which service was failing there? It might be the third party app that's causing the crashes…

sdunnim

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1239470#Comment_1239470

A few random ones - for example: TokenBroker, UdkUserSvc_2fd61, and camsvc.

Also to note, this evening is the first time I've taken it out of safe mode for a week and it's already had an Event 41 crash!

billsey

OK, time to look seriously at what has been installed or connected that didn't come with the factory build. You can use System Configuration (hit the Windows key, then start typing msconfig and it will come up) to disable specific apps until it's stable again, then enable them one at a time until the crashes are back.

sdunnim

Okay thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a go at that and report back if I eventually find anything!

sdunnim

Okay I've been a bit (a lot) stupid... couldn't see any obvious services in System Configuration that would cause the issue (mostly from Microsoft, one from Valve and a few AMD related). So I just disabled ALL of them (planning to do a binary search, turning back on half at a time) and restarted my laptop for the changes to take effect.

UNFORTUNATELY - one of the services must have been my fingerprint reader, and another one for my PIN entry. Now I can't sign in to my laptop at all....

Any idea how I can fix this?

billsey

Heheh, does the keyboard and mouse work at all on the login screen? You should be able to choose a password login…

sdunnim

They do, unfortunately password login wasn't available, just PIN and fingerprint! Have just set off a windows reinstall from the Troubleshooting screen.