So just posting this here since I didn't come across the solution searching the forums before I fixed this:
I had my Pi wired to the standby power on an ATX power supply and I was always getting the lightning bolt power warning. Googling led me to believe it was just one of the risks of using the standby line but turns out the problem was something else.. the wire I was using. I had hacked off the micro USB connector on one end of a cable and the wires were just not up to the task. I ordered some micro USB ends and soldered on some thicker wire and problem solved!
Also note, on a different build I had problems in the past powering the pi4 through the GPIO pins I was able to solve that again by buying a usb-c connector and attaching to that instead... so seems like buying usb ends and soldering is the way to go.