220-1102 Practice Question: A technician is troubleshooting a Windows 10…

Answer choices

Why each option matters

Good practice is not just finding the correct option. The wrong answers often show the exact trap the exam wants you to fall into.

Answer analysis

Why the other options are wrong

Understanding why incorrect options are tempting is as important as knowing the correct answer.

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  The Windows installation is corrupted beyond repair by standard tools

  SFC and DISM are designed to repair corruption. Since they passed, a full corruption is unlikely. The issue is likely hardware or firmware related.

• ✗

  A third-party service configured to run during sleep is causing the crash

  Services are paused during sleep; a crash at the moment of transition is more typical of a driver or firmware failure than a service.

• ✗

  The computer is infected with a rootkit that interferes with power management

  Rootkits can cause stability issues, but the specific, consistent trigger of sleep mode and the failure of malware scans make this less likely than a hardware firmware issue.

Technical deep dive

How to think about this question

The DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE (0x0000009F) bug check indicates that a driver is in an inconsistent or invalid power state. While driver issues are often the first suspect, the scenario explicitly states that all power-related drivers have been updated, and SFC/DISM have found no issues with the Windows installation itself. This points away from a simple driver bug or OS corruption. The critical clue is the consistent trigger: the crash occurs *every time* the computer attempts to enter a sleep state, even when manually initiated. This consistency, coupled with updated drivers and a healthy OS, strongly suggests an underlying hardware-level problem that manifests during power state transitions (e.g., S3 or S4 sleep states). Hardware devices, especially those with their own embedded controllers or complex power management features (like network adapters, USB controllers, or even graphics cards), rely on firmware to manage their power states. If this firmware has a bug, it might fail to correctly respond to the operating system's commands to enter a low-power state, or it might fail to properly re-initialize when waking up. This can lead to the OS detecting an unresponsive or improperly behaving device during the power transition, resulting in the DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Unlike a simple driver bug, which might be fixed with an update, a firmware bug requires a firmware update from the hardware manufacturer or, failing that, replacement of the faulty hardware. This distinguishes it from OS corruption (ruled out by SFC/DISM), third-party services (which are typically paused during sleep transitions, not causing the transition itself to fail), or rootkits (which, while disruptive, are less likely to cause such a specific and consistent power state failure after standard troubleshooting).

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