The PC freezes during Steam game launches. I don't understand what's happening.
The PC freezes during Steam game launches. I don't understand what's happening.
Hello, I'm trying to understand what might be happening with my PC when certain games launch unexpectedly. I think I can handle most troubleshooting steps, but nothing seems to clarify what's happening. What occurs: When specific games start, the screen turns black (sometimes briefly showing a faint dark green), audio stops, and both peripherals and the GPU/case fans shut down as if the system has powered off. The monitor also displays a "No signal" message. This happens through both HDMI/DisplayPort outputs and directly from the motherboard. The crashes happen consistently, not just during startup, and only occur when playing certain titles or running benchmarks at specific settings. What triggered this? - Satisfactory - We Who Are About to Die - Super Auto Pets - Unigine Superposition benchmark at 1080p Extreme or higher I've tried: - Reinstalling Steam - Reinstalling drivers - Using a driver uninstall tool and then reinstalling - Performing a factory reset on Windows - Checking power supply and cooling issues. No issues were found. I took the PC to a repair shop, where they checked hardware and stress-tested everything. Everything seemed fine except for a "driver mapping issue." They suggested moving games between drives and launching them from there (switching from HDD to SSD). I tested RAM sticks one by one, re-seated the GPU, and looked for physical damage. No hardware problems were found. The GPU is an RX 6600, CPU a Ryzen 7 5700G. Both were installed in September, and the problem appeared only about a month and a half after installation. Windows 11 was running normally until it suddenly stopped working one day. I haven't made any recent changes, but I can't recall anything unusual. It might have been a Windows update or something similar, though other users report similar issues. I'm really confused—why does it work well for lower-end benchmarks but fail on high-end ones? Shouldn't I see lower FPS at the higher setting? The games use different engines, so performance shouldn't be the main issue. If it's a hardware problem, why does it happen with the same games but not others? What else should I check? Thanks for any advice.
It seems the adjustments you made are quite effective. If someone didn’t include a proper bios or driver and isn’t informed about stability issues with your hardware setup, running an app that asks for resources from a non-existent location will likely lead to a crash. Some games need these updates, while others don’t check for board stability beforehand.
None of them mention stability directly, but I'm going to give this a shot anyway. It is an MSI X470 Gaming Plus, which is a bit older than the GPU/CPU, so it makes sense that this could be an issue. Will update with results.
Update: no dice. Updated to the most recent BIOS and still running into the same issue. Now that I think about it more, that also wouldn't explain Unigine crashing/not crashing at different settings either. Could it still be a PSU issue even if I have adequate power? One of my thoughts is maybe it's something like the size of the impulse/initial power draw could be doing something? Like if the startup is slower the power draw ramps up more smoothly? This is beyond my level of understanding about electrical systems so maybe a dumb thought, but just spitballing.
WD Green Series SATA-III, 240 GB storage with 146 GB available. The HDD D: drive is a 3TB SATA III model, though the manufacturer name is unclear.