RX 7800XT + Win11 — system hangs (Kernel-Power 41) after hours with display off, only 26.3.1 driver is stable, EVERY version after it breaks
Body:
Hi all, hoping someone else has hit this — it's oddly specific but very consistent.
Setup:
GPU: RX 7800XT
CPU: i5-13500
RAM: 32GB
Storage: NVMe SN770 2TB
PSU: Corsair RM850
Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming B760-Plus WiFi D4
OS: Windows 11 25H2
Displays: 2 monitors connected via DisplayPort
The problem:
If I leave the PC on with the monitors powered off (display sleep, not system sleep) for a few hours, the system hard-hangs completely — no BSOD, no minidump, just a frozen system that needs a manual hard reset. Event Viewer shows a Critical Kernel-Power, Event ID 41 (unexpected reboot, not a clean shutdown) right after. Following that, Windows won't boot properly — I have to go into Safe Mode, run DDU to strip the AMD driver, and reinstall from scratch to get back to a working state.
Key finding: AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.3.1 is 100% stable — I can leave the display off for as long as I want, no crash, ever. Every single driver version released after 26.3.1 reproduces this exact crash within a few hours of the display going to sleep. Tested multiple versions in between, not just jumping to latest — same result every time.
What I've ruled out / tried:
PSU is not the culprit (Corsair RM850, stable on 26.3.1 under identical conditions)
Disabled Zero RPM — no change
Installed "Driver Only" (no Adrenalin software) — same crash
Disabled ALL PCIe ASPM variants in BIOS (Native ASPM, PCH-PCIe, DMI Link ASPM Control, PEG-ASPM, DMI ASPM, DMI Gen3 ASPM) + PCIe Clock Gating — no change
Tested with only a single monitor connected (unplugged the second DisplayPort) — same crash, so it's not a multi-monitor-specific issue
No hybrid iGPU conflict confirmed (monitors connected directly to the dGPU, not the motherboard)
No minidump generated on crash — this is a true hard hang, not a bugcheck, so standard crash-dump tools can't capture it.
Not the same as the well-known 26.6.2 Code-43-on-install bug — that one's Windows 10 specific and happens right after install. Mine happens on Windows 11, only after hours of display-off idle, and has been present across every version since 26.3.1 (including current 26.6.4).
Has anyone else seen this exact pattern — display-off idle hard hang, RX 7800XT, Win11? Trying to figure out if this is a known regression AMD just hasn't documented, or if I've got something unusual going on. Have already submitted this to AMD's Bug Report Tool.