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Windows PC Errors

How to Fix DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE BSOD (0x9F)

By ErrorFix · Updated October 21, 2026 · 9 min read

Error 0x9FPlain English: a driver missed its deadline while your PC was sleeping, waking, or shutting down — like an employee who never clocks out and holds up the whole closing routine. The usual suspects are Wi-Fi, USB, and display drivers.
Quick answer: 0x9F means a driver failed to finish a power transition in time. Run powercfg /energy to identify the bad driver, update or roll back that driver, stop Windows from cutting power to devices, and turn off fast startup. Step-by-step below.

What error 0x9F means

Every time your PC sleeps, hibernates, wakes up, or shuts down, Windows sends every device driver a power-change request: spin this down, power that up, do it now. Each driver gets a strict deadline to finish its part. DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE is what happens when one driver doesn't finish in time. Windows doesn't wait politely — it blue-screens to prevent the device from being left in a half-powered, unpredictable state.

The telling detail is the timing. If the crash always happens while the PC is going to sleep, waking from sleep, or shutting down, but never during normal use, that's the classic 0x9F fingerprint. The hardware itself is almost never broken — this is a software timing problem between Windows' power manager and a driver that is buggy, outdated, or fighting with aggressive power-saving settings. That's good news: it means the fix is almost always a driver or a setting, not a repair bill.

Common causes

How to fix error 0x9F — step by step

Work through these fixes in order. The first three resolve the majority of real-world cases.

  1. Run the power efficiency report to find the bad driver. Open Terminal as administrator, type powercfg /energy, and press Enter. After 60 seconds Windows saves an energy-report.html file showing exactly which drivers have errors or block power transitions. Open the report in your browser and note any driver named under Errors.
  2. Update or roll back the suspect drivers. Press Win + X, open Device Manager, and expand Network adapters, Display adapters, and Universal Serial Bus controllers. Right-click the adapter named in the energy report, choose Update driver, then Search automatically for drivers. If the blue screen started right after a driver update, use Properties, then the Driver tab, then Roll Back Driver instead.
  3. Stop Windows from cutting power to devices. In Device Manager, right-click your network adapter and USB Root Hubs, open Properties, go to the Power Management tab, and uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.” Then open Power Options, click Change plan settings, then Change advanced power settings, and set PCI Express Link State Power Management to Off and USB selective suspend setting to Disabled.
  4. Turn off fast startup. Open Control Panel, go to Hardware and Sound, then Power Options, then click “Choose what the power buttons do.” Click “Change settings that are currently unavailable,” uncheck “Turn on fast startup,” and save the changes. Fast startup mixes shutdown with hibernation and is a classic trigger for 0x9F.
  5. Update the BIOS and chipset drivers. Visit your motherboard or laptop manufacturer's support page, find your exact model, and download the latest BIOS and chipset drivers. Install the chipset drivers first, then flash the BIOS exactly as the manufacturer instructs, never interrupting it. New firmware often fixes how devices handle power-state transitions.
  6. Repair system files and disable hibernation. Open Terminal as administrator and run sfc /scannow, then DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth, restarting after both finish. If the crash happens on sleep or hibernate, also run powercfg /hibernate off to disable hibernation entirely and test whether the blue screens stop.
  7. Confirm the driver from the crash dump. Install WinDbg Preview from the Microsoft Store, open the latest minidump from the Minidump folder under your Windows directory, and run the command !analyze -v. The output names the faulting driver module, which tells you exactly which driver to update, roll back, or uninstall.

Did this fix it? Quick checklist

If crashes continue after all seven steps, disconnect every non-essential USB device and any docking station, then test sleep and shutdown again. If the crashes stop, reconnect devices one at a time until the blue screen returns — the last device reconnected ships with the problem driver. External hardware is the hidden cause in a surprising share of stubborn 0x9F cases, and its driver rarely gets updated through Windows Update, so check the device maker's own support page for a fresh driver.

Frequently asked questions

What does DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE mean?

It means a device driver failed to complete a power-state transition within the allowed time. When your PC sleeps, hibernates, wakes, or shuts down, every driver gets a deadline to power its device down or up. If one driver hangs past that deadline, Windows stops everything with a blue screen rather than risk the device in a half-powered state.

Why does 0x9F happen after sleep or shutdown?

Because sleep, hibernation, wake, and shutdown are exactly the moments when drivers must switch power states. A driver that is buggy, outdated, or fighting with aggressive power-saving settings works fine during normal use but hangs when asked to power down or wake up, which is why the crash lines up with those moments.

Which drivers cause 0x9F most often?

Network adapters, especially Wi-Fi and Ethernet drivers, are the most common culprits, followed by USB controllers, display drivers, and storage or chipset drivers. External hardware matters too: docking stations, USB hubs, and certain peripherals ship with drivers that mishandle power transitions.

Can 0x9F damage my hardware?

The blue screen itself is protective, not destructive, and your files are as safe as with any unexpected shutdown. The underlying cause deserves attention anyway: a driver that mishandles power can corrupt open files during repeated crashes, so fix the driver rather than living with the crashes.

How do I find the exact driver causing 0x9F?

Two built-in paths give you the answer. The quick one is powercfg /energy, which produces a report flagging drivers with power errors. The precise one is reading the minidump with WinDbg and running !analyze -v, which names the faulting driver module directly in the output.

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