Freezing in every game, occasionally causing total system lockup

[DivideTheZero]

Hello, I've been having this problem ever since I got the Deck. Every game at some point, will lockup and I'll be forced to either quit the game, or occasionally force shut down the system. Possibly hardware issue?

The freezing occurs at seemingly random times, but *usually* within the first 15 minutes of launching a game. The game will freeze, the screen will go black for a sec, then when it comes back the game will be completely unresponsive. Audio still plays, and I can usually use the overlay and exit the game. Sometimes the overlay will also be unresponsive, and I have to force shut down the system. (Note: In these scenarios, I can still hear the overlay, I just can't see it)

This freeze occurs in *every single game I have tested*. H:ZD, Control, Hitman 3, No Man's Sky, Half Life 2, ME: Legendary, etc.

It appears like the GPU is crashing or resetting. Graphics settings and intensity appear to have zero impact on the issue. Happens just as often on low presets as on high presets.

So far I have tried re-imaging the deck, and opted into the beta branch. No change.

[Rokler]

引用自 Vthyarilops：

引用自 Rokler：

I don't know how I feel about that to be honest. Seeing everyones issues and this common error in the logs, theres gotta be a connection. Unless every deck has this error but a few friends can't seem to find it.

I messaged valve because I had this error in the log, I have no issues with my steam deck and haven't experienced any crashing/freezing, the pinned post got me paranoid though

I just asked if they can confirm if the Steam Deck has the Texas Instruments component and this was their response

"Hello,

Steam Support is unable to speculate which model contains certain components. As previously mentioned this issue is being tracked.

I am sorry we have no further troubleshooting for you at this time.

Steam Support
Daniel"

So they're giving out conflicting information

[Vthyarilops]

引用自 Rokler：

引用自 Vthyarilops：

I messaged valve because I had this error in the log, I have no issues with my steam deck and haven't experienced any crashing/freezing, the pinned post got me paranoid though

I just asked if they can confirm if the Steam Deck has the Texas Instruments component and this was their response

"Hello,

Steam Support is unable to speculate which model contains certain components. As previously mentioned this issue is being tracked.

I am sorry we have no further troubleshooting for you at this time.

Steam Support
Daniel"

So they're giving out conflicting information

They said it wasn't present in my device, so it might depend on when the batch was made or something, idk I just think the pinned comment is misleading and making people panic for no reason, correlation doesn't mean causation, I trust Valve support more than some random steam user.

[Dumb Bitch Leon]

引用自 Vthyarilops：

They said it wasn't present in my device, so it might depend on when the batch was made or something, idk I just think the pinned comment is misleading and making people panic for no reason, correlation doesn't mean causation, I trust Valve support more than some random steam user.

While I agree that no one seems to know for certainty what is causing the issue, I do find it sketchy on Valve's end that they haven't publicly announced (at least to my knowledge) that they're at least aware of this obviously common issue and are working on it. It makes me feel like us consumers are on our own, and it makes me trust them less, for now anyway.

[Tricia]

I am having this issue on my new steam deck :( contacted valve, hope they can fix it

[SaberBlaze]

引用自 Vthyarilops：

They said it wasn't present in my device, so it might depend on when the batch was made or something, idk I just think the pinned comment is misleading and making people panic for no reason, correlation doesn't mean causation, I trust Valve support more than some random steam user.

Keep in mind that Steam support, as is the case with most product supports, tend to follow a general script or set of steps to answer questions and don't actually have in-depth knowledge of a particular product. As far the this power module is concerned, the only thing for sure that all users of this gpu freeze/reset bug have in common is the logs showing that the gpu was reset. The error logs will show that that it times out and will proceed to reset the gpu. The power module stuff may or may not show up in decks that don't have this gpu freeze issue so it might not be the best indicator. Personally I would use the gpu reset error in the logs as your indicator for this.

[Vthyarilops]

引用自 SaberBlaze：

引用自 Vthyarilops：

They said it wasn't present in my device, so it might depend on when the batch was made or something, idk I just think the pinned comment is misleading and making people panic for no reason, correlation doesn't mean causation, I trust Valve support more than some random steam user.

Keep in mind that Steam support, as is the case with most product supports, tend to follow a general script or set of steps to answer questions and don't actually have in-depth knowledge of a particular product. As far the this power module is concerned, the only thing for sure that all users of this gpu freeze/reset bug have in common is the logs showing that the gpu was reset. The error logs will show that that it times out and will proceed to reset the gpu. The power module stuff may or may not show up in decks that don't have this gpu freeze issue so it might not be the best indicator. Personally I would use the gpu reset error in the logs as your indicator for this.

It took about a month to get a response from support (they had to escalate it to engineering), I also had an i2c error about the opt3001 ambient light sensor and the response was:

"The opt3001 probe message is expected. While that ALS sensor is supported by our kernel, it is not installed on production units. The Deck uses the ltrf216a sensor."

And I can confirm that my ambient light sensor works, so I believe the i2c errors are actually harmless and tend to believe support in that the ina2xx isn't present, the GPU reset errors on the other hand seem to indicate some issue with the GPU whether it be a physical issue or an issue with Mesa/AMDGPU which luckily I didn't have

[ALE5510]

I am also having this problem. i tried clearing gpu cache, turning off steam deck completely via bios. It seems, and I stress, IT SEEMS to work in my case. I also disabled the fan control but re-enabled it to contain consumption and noise.

[Kaps]

引用自 ALE5510：

I am also having this problem. i tried clearing gpu cache, turning off steam deck completely via bios. It seems, and I stress, IT SEEMS to work in my case. I also disabled the fan control but re-enabled it to contain consumption and noise.

You shouldn’t have to do any of this. My second deck after the RMA for the issues discussed in this thread, doesn’t require any tweaking or tricks to work fine without crashes or overheating.

[ALE5510]

引用自 Kaps：

引用自 ALE5510：

I am also having this problem. i tried clearing gpu cache, turning off steam deck completely via bios. It seems, and I stress, IT SEEMS to work in my case. I also disabled the fan control but re-enabled it to contain consumption and noise.

You shouldn’t have to do any of this. My second deck after the RMA for the issues discussed in this thread, doesn’t require any tweaking or tricks to work fine without crashes or overheating.

in fact I'm quite perplexed why it's working... it's since I wrote this message that I haven't had this problem anymore. I just shut down steam deck in the bios and restarted and it hasn't given me the problem since. I don't know, I keep trying with other games besides the one that always aimed for the problem (car mechanic simulator 2019).

P.S.
I state that I was using an unstable version of the system installed some time ago to be able to play Forza Horizon 5 because the stable version caused problems when launching the game. i kept it for a while until it gave me the problem...so i switched to the stable version but the problem persisted. I did a full shutdown via bios and now it works. I really don't know what to say... I don't know if it needed a hard reset going from an alpha version to a stable one...

[Kennymatic]

引用自 GOLDEN COIN$：

Did anyone on Windows ever had this GPU reset problem though?

So I was getting a lot of these GPU Reset crashes while trying to play Forza Horizon 5. Usually it would crash as soon as I started a race event. So I decided to install Windows 11 and after about 3 days so far there have been no more crashes. I was also experiencing a lot of crashes in Circuit Superstars and those have also gone away.

[Papa Ganoush]

引用自 TheRoguePianist：

Hello, I've been having this problem ever since I got the Deck. Every game at some point, will lockup and I'll be forced to either quit the game, or occasionally force shut down the system. Possibly hardware issue?

The freezing occurs at seemingly random times, but *usually* within the first 15 minutes of launching a game. The game will freeze, the screen will go black for a sec, then when it comes back the game will be completely unresponsive. Audio still plays, and I can usually use the overlay and exit the game. Sometimes the overlay will also be unresponsive, and I have to force shut down the system. (Note: In these scenarios, I can still hear the overlay, I just can't see it)

This freeze occurs in *every single game I have tested*. H:ZD, Control, Hitman 3, No Man's Sky, Half Life 2, ME: Legendary, etc.

It appears like the GPU is crashing or resetting. Graphics settings and intensity appear to have zero impact on the issue. Happens just as often on low presets as on high presets.

So far I have tried re-imaging the deck, and opted into the beta branch. No change.

[GOLDEN COIN$]

引用自 Kennymatic：

So I was getting a lot of these GPU Reset crashes while trying to play Forza Horizon 5. Usually it would crash as soon as I started a race event. So I decided to install Windows 11 and after about 3 days so far there have been no more crashes. I was also experiencing a lot of crashes in Circuit Superstars and those have also gone away.

Interesting. I tried to search, but haven't found any reports on this problem from Windows users. Maybe it's a software issue after all.

[Kennymatic]

引用自 GOLDEN COIN$：

Interesting. I tried to search, but haven't found any reports on this problem from Windows users. Maybe it's a software issue after all.

I ended up RMAing my unit. After re-imaging with SteamOS and trying FH5 again the crashes started almost instantly. The main concern was a game like Circuit Superstars didn't run cleanly. So I opted to send it back for peace of mind. Replacement will be here on May 1st so we'll see how it goes.

I was curious about it being a software issue so I ended up putting Linux (Pop!_OS) on one of my laptops to test. Forza Horizon 5 crashed even faster there but Circuit Superstars ran fine.

[anna]

I sent my deck in for an RMA but it's back and still giving me grief. I use this thing mainly for emulated games and now I'm so darn fed up I'm considering looking into a completely different device. It sucks because I have a 14-day trip coming up and this busted deck is just sitting there, mocking me. I'll probably just use it for videos or anything else but literally what it's meant for. I've been wrestling with this issue for three whole months now, on and off and I'm officially throwing in the towel. It's with a heavy heart that I'm saying goodbye to my deck, and passing on my headache to someone else. Peace out, deck!

[Dumb Bitch Leon]

Thought I'd share an update. I sent my second Deck in for an RMA because of the same issue. I'm on my third Deck now, and I finally have one that seems to work for the time being.

I still think the way Steam is handling this issue (if they are at all) is trashy.