u/ZeRgo01

I bought a Sapphire Pulse RX 7900 XT about 2 years ago. About a month after purchasing it, I had my first AMD driver timeout/game crash. I didn't think much of it at the time, but over the following months the crashes gradually became more frequent.

At this point, the problem can become severe enough that my PC is practically unusable for gaming. Sometimes it will run perfectly for a week or even 2–3 weeks, and then suddenly I'll start getting repeated driver timeouts/freezes.

The most common hardware error I'm seeing in Windows Reliability Monitor is:

LiveKernelEvent — Code 141

The crashes happen primarily while gaming, but I've also had them happen immediately after Windows boots and reaches the desktop. When it happens during gaming, the display can freeze completely and sometimes I have to hard reboot the PC.

PC Specs

• GPU: Sapphire Pulse RX 7900 XT

• CPU: Ryzen 9 7950X

• RAM: 96GB G.Skill DDR5 — currently running at 5200 MT/s

• Motherboard: ASRock X870 Pro RS WiFi

• PSU: Corsair RM1000x 1000W

• Primary monitor: Alienware AW2723DF — 1440p / 240Hz

• Secondary monitor: 1080p / 240Hz

• Windows 11

Things I've already tried

I've spent a lot of time troubleshooting this and have tried:

• DDU and clean driver installations

• Older known-stable AMD drivers

• AMD Pro drivers

• Newest AMD drivers

• Driver-only installation without Adrenalin

• Gaming with only one monitor connected

• Running the secondary monitor at 60Hz

• Running both monitors at 240Hz

• Undervolting the GPU

• Completely stock BIOS settings

• Disabling MPO through the registry

• Disabling Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling

• Buying a new PSU

• Reseating the RAM

• Reseating the GPU

• Using separate PCIe power cables instead of daisy-chaining

• GPU/VRAM stress testing and error testing

• Monitoring GPU temperatures with HWiNFO — temperatures appear normal

I've also tested different RAM configurations/settings, including running at the lower 5200 MT/s speed.

Capture card

I previously had an Elgato capture card connected to my Nintendo Switch and the monitor setup. The idea was to be able to switch between my PC and Switch easily using the monitor's inputs.

I disconnected the capture card completely for an extended period because I suspected it might be contributing to the problem. It seemed like things improved for a while, but eventually I still experienced two AMD driver timeouts during PC gaming. Both times the PC completely froze and required a hard reboot.

What makes this confusing

The PC can sometimes be completely stable for 1–3 weeks, including gaming, and then suddenly start having repeated crashes again.

I've also had crashes with:

• One monitor

• Two monitors

• Different refresh rates

• Different AMD drivers

• HAGS enabled and disabled

• Capture card connected and disconnected

• Stock GPU settings

• Undervolted GPU

Stress tests haven't shown obvious GPU/VRAM errors, and temperatures are normal.

At this point I'm trying to determine whether I'm dealing with a failing 7900 XT, a motherboard/PCIe issue, a Windows/software issue, or something else entirely.

Has anyone experienced persistent LiveKernelEvent 141 errors with a 7900 XT that eventually turned out to be a specific hardware or software problem?