Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) while playing CS2?

[Sethioz]

update 26.feb.2024: as i already knew, this issue was directly related to cs2 and nothing else. i haven't changed anything on my PC since, but cs2 no longer crashes. it was purely because cs2 had some bad patches, just as i said it was.
but lot of people in comments nag and whine that it's PC issue, well eat your own words now, because i knew it from start that it was issue with cs2 and not my PC.
unlike most, i actually know how computers work on base level. if there was issue within my PC, i would know it and fix it.


does anyone else get BSOD while playing cs2? i've had it happen at least 5 times in past 3-4 weeks and it's starting to get on my nerves. cs2 uses only about 25-30% of my GPU and about 20% CPU, so clearly not overloading anything.

i have played starfield for 4-8 hours straight and it has my GPU almost always under 100% load, CPU is also 30-80% load and it has never had BSOD.
also played Far Cry 6 for 4-8 hours at a time and never had BSOD either, so clearly not because of faulty hardware as those games are much more resource intensive than cs2.

i also have cs2 on SSD, while far cry 6 is on slow hdd.

even viewer is saying "Event 41, Kernel-Power" which is as generic as it gets, it means that PC rebooted without cleanly shutting down.
weirdest thing, is that BSOD is literally just BLUE and no text on it. i've had BSOD before and it always has some kind of error code or driver name that caused it, but when i get BSOD in cs2, i get absolutely no error code or anything at all. entire screen goes 100% blue without anything else on screen.
what is this nonsense? i suspect it has something to do with VAC LIVE being too instrusive and trying to do stuff that it's not suppose to?

i really can't figure this one out, i'm afraid to run any logging tools as VAC might ban for it. for example i can't run process monitor as i'm afraid VAC might ban for it, otherwise i could analyze and debug the issue, so when it crashes, i could see what it tried to do just before the crash.

yesterday when i had BSOD, all my cs2 settings were lost aswell, which really made me angry. . i had to spend like an hour going thru settings again ... EVERYTHING was lost. all my video settings, audio, mouse sensitivity, keybinds and crosshair ...if this sh!t keeps happening, then most likely i'll just stop playing again.
i stopped playing csgo in 2016 due VAC issue, it kept kicking me and saying something like "VAC is not able to work on your computer properly" and i was on constant 7 day cooldown. very rarely reboot helped, but in most cases reboot didnt' help either, so i couldn't reconnect as it kicked me before i was able to reconnect.

this BSOD sounds like another critical problem, but before i rule out issue with PC, does anyone else have this aswell?
i just can't think of anything that could be causing it, because other games don't give me problems like this.

[Sethioz]

Forgot to add, that this started after an update which was about 1-2 weeks ago. before that update, cs2 used to randomly close without error message, i no longer get that, but now instead i get BSOD. it's not as often as the game crash / close (used to be once per 1-2 hour), but BSOD has happened 3 times in week (i play 4-8 hours a day).

and it is not happening with other games, i played far cry 6 for about 2 weeks, 4-8 hours a day and didn't get BSOD, so it's NOT hardware issue.

[Minecraft-Aim]

Search for "Driver Easy". Its an app that will check your drivers. You will have to install them manually (with the free edition), but it will at least download the new ones for you if you want.

I used it to update a lot of my drivers and I had way less crashes after it.

That beeing said: CS2 is still crashing quite frequently - pretty much the only game that crashes. I don't get a blue / green screen, but the game just freezes.

[Sethioz]

Originally posted by Minecraft-Aim:

Search for "Driver Easy". Its an app that will check your drivers. You will have to install them manually (with the free edition), but it will at least download the new ones for you if you want.

I used it to update a lot of my drivers and I had way less crashes after it.

That beeing said: CS2 is still crashing quite frequently - pretty much the only game that crashes. I don't get a blue / green screen, but the game just freezes.

HAHAHAHHA ... FACEPALM 1000x ... i'm PC expert and i would never use trash like that, this is source for all issues.

what part of "it is not my PC" you don't understand? did you even read?
please just stop insulting me by suggesting to make it worse. i know everything in my PC, i've been dealing with computers since 90s. those automatic driver tools are WORST idea ever, you don't ever use trash like that.

i was very clear about the part that i can play other games for 4-8 hours without BSOD ... how can you even suggest something like that? it's a cs2 problem and i asked if anyone else is having the same issue.

it makes my blood boil when people with extremely poor knowledge think that updates is answer to everything .. updates are your WORST ENEMY, not your friend.
don't believe everything you are told. i still have win xp on my old laptop and it's been working fine since early 2000s, no updates requires.
i never update my web browsers either, because there's no need for it ... can you tell me by providing code details on what updates even do? dont read some change log, i'm talking about using debugger and analyzing the code that runs, can you tell me what has changed in any single update of any program you are using?

...yeah didn't think so, while I analyze and debug everything, most updates nowdays are nothing more than making things LARGER and more resource hungry, by adding some animated effects and images .. which are absolutely NOT necessary.

are you even aware what driver is or how it works? nvidia "driver" package is like 900mb ... that's NOT driver ..
driver is a small 100kb - 1mb file, that tells your computer how to communicate with hardware. in other words, driver just connects software <> hardware.
driver is NOT some huge package that takes over 100mb space.

please first learn what driver even is and how it works.
i'm minimalistic person and i don't like all this flashy animated garbage that they call "updates" these days. i don't like some GIGANTIC text, like all known websites nowdays are SO GIGANTIC, why? i swear in 100 years they will have 1 letter per page .. or no, they removed page numbers aswell, nowdays the infinite scroll is the new trend .. on my youtube channel if i want to browse older videos, i have to spend about 30-60 minutes on scrolling down ... what kind of nonsense is this? and then they call it "making it modern" .. modern just means GIGANTIC, resource hungry and ineffective.

i like minimalistic things that work. no animated garbage, no large icons, no gigantic text, just simple things that do what they are suppose to and nothing more.

in order for me to update nvidia drivers, i have to download their dumb 900mb package, then extract it, take that 200kb file and udpate the driver via device manager. done! no need to run that massive 900mb package that they call "driver".

everything nowdays is made so overly complex and unnecessary .. that's why so many games and other programs have so many problems, because they put so much unnecessary garbage in them. just keep things simple and minimalistic and it works much better and requires less resources to run.

[Minecraft-Aim]

Ohh yeah. I'm just a software developer (with the highest ms certifications you can get) with over 20yrs of experience in this industry. I probably don't know how drivers work, cause I only wrote a dozen of them.

Not updating is the clear solution and updates are just there to use up more space and eat resources. Its really not important how the hardware communicates with the os and driver updates are there to introduce more bugs and wont fix them. Thats how it works!

I bet you analyzed and debugged everything, cause I can clearly tell how you are an pc expert, cause all pc experts that can analyze and debug their problems themselfs go to the CS2 discussion forums to ask about their crashes.

Sorry that I tried to help you, I didn't knew how much of an pc expert you are.

GL with your problem, mr. pc expert.

[Sethioz]

Originally posted by Minecraft-Aim:

Ohh yeah. I'm just a software developer (with the highest ms certifications you can get) with over 20yrs of experience in this industry. I probably don't know how drivers work, cause I only wrote a dozen of them.

Not updating is the clear solution and updates are just there to use up more space and eat resources. Its really not important how the hardware communicates with the os and driver updates are there to introduce more bugs and wont fix them. Thats how it works!

I bet you analyzed and debugged everything, cause I can clearly tell how you are an pc expert, cause all pc experts that can analyze and debug their problems themselfs go to the CS2 discussion forums to ask about their crashes.

Sorry that I tried to help you, I didn't knew how much of an pc expert you are.

GL with your problem, mr. pc expert.

why don't you do some research on me before posting your insults. i can't post any specific links as it would be against steam policy (regarding hacking and debugging).

now you're going offtopic. ignored you. i don't need your insults and i didn't ask for help, i asked if anyone else has the same issue.
and no, i'm not going to analyze or debug cs2 as it would probably result in VAC ban, i'm not willing to risk my account.
i blocked you, not interested in further offtopic arguements.

[Minecraft-Aim]

Originally posted by Sethioz:

why don't you do some research on me before posting your insults. i can't post any specific links as it would be against steam policy (regarding hacking and debugging).

now you're going offtopic. ignored you. i don't need your insults and i didn't ask for help, i asked if anyone else has the same issue.
and no, i'm not going to analyze or debug cs2 as it would probably result in VAC ban, i'm not willing to risk my account.
i blocked you, not interested in further offtopic arguements.

Yeah I should have researched you cause everybody knows "Sethioz the big pc expert".
Everything you wrote so far makes so much sense. I didn't knew how much of an pc expert you are. You're so expert you would use your main account for debugging, I see.
You're so expert: I bet Valve would even make an exception, once they find out how much of an expert you are. I'm really sorry Mr. PC expert, I won't bother you anymore. You're too much of an expert. Everybody can tell your expertise on this topic.

[Renos]

Originally posted by Sethioz:

does anyone else get BSOD while playing cs2? i've had it happen at least 5 times in past 3-4 weeks and it's starting to get on my nerves. cs2 uses only about 25-30% of my GPU and about 20% CPU, so clearly not overloading anything.

i have played starfield for 4-8 hours straight and it has my GPU almost always under 100% load, CPU is also 30-80% load and it has never had BSOD.
also played Far Cry 6 for 4-8 hours at a time and never had BSOD either, so clearly not because of faulty hardware as those games are much more resource intensive than cs2.

i also have cs2 on SSD, while far cry 6 is on slow hdd.

even viewer is saying "Event 41, Kernel-Power" which is as generic as it gets, it means that PC rebooted without cleanly shutting down.
weirdest thing, is that BSOD is literally just BLUE and no text on it. i've had BSOD before and it always has some kind of error code or driver name that caused it, but when i get BSOD in cs2, i get absolutely no error code or anything at all. entire screen goes 100% blue without anything else on screen.
what is this nonsense? i suspect it has something to do with VAC LIVE being too instrusive and trying to do stuff that it's not suppose to?

i really can't figure this one out, i'm afraid to run any logging tools as VAC might ban for it. for example i can't run process monitor as i'm afraid VAC might ban for it, otherwise i could analyze and debug the issue, so when it crashes, i could see what it tried to do just before the crash.

yesterday when i had BSOD, all my cs2 settings were lost aswell, which really made me angry. . i had to spend like an hour going thru settings again ... EVERYTHING was lost. all my video settings, audio, mouse sensitivity, keybinds and crosshair ...if this sh!t keeps happening, then most likely i'll just stop playing again.
i stopped playing csgo in 2016 due VAC issue, it kept kicking me and saying something like "VAC is not able to work on your computer properly" and i was on constant 7 day cooldown. very rarely reboot helped, but in most cases reboot didnt' help either, so i couldn't reconnect as it kicked me before i was able to reconnect.

this BSOD sounds like another critical problem, but before i rule out issue with PC, does anyone else have this aswell?
i just can't think of anything that could be causing it, because other games don't give me problems like this.

Wait is it a completely blue screen with no text or anything?

[Minecraft-Aim]

Originally posted by Eld3r:

Originally posted by Minecraft-Aim:

Yeah I should have researched you cause everybody knows "Sethioz the big pc expert".
Everything you wrote so far makes so much sense. I didn't knew how much of an pc expert you are. You're so expert you would use your main account for debugging, I see.
You're so expert: I bet Valve would even make an exception, once they find out how much of an expert you are. I'm really sorry Mr. PC expert, I won't bother you anymore. You're too much of an expert. Everybody can tell your expertise on this topic.

tbf, tools like driver easy are mostly snake oil

sure, use them to detect possible out-dated drivers but then be careful when doing the actual updates

There are many bad ones out there. I recommended "Driver Easy" cause I know that its legit.
The drivers that it downloads are 1:1 (I did a couple md5 checks) the same that you'll get from the offical support websites.

[Sethioz]

Originally posted by Renos:

Originally posted by Sethioz:

does anyone else get BSOD while playing cs2? i've had it happen at least 5 times in past 3-4 weeks and it's starting to get on my nerves. cs2 uses only about 25-30% of my GPU and about 20% CPU, so clearly not overloading anything.

i have played starfield for 4-8 hours straight and it has my GPU almost always under 100% load, CPU is also 30-80% load and it has never had BSOD.
also played Far Cry 6 for 4-8 hours at a time and never had BSOD either, so clearly not because of faulty hardware as those games are much more resource intensive than cs2.

i also have cs2 on SSD, while far cry 6 is on slow hdd.

even viewer is saying "Event 41, Kernel-Power" which is as generic as it gets, it means that PC rebooted without cleanly shutting down.
weirdest thing, is that BSOD is literally just BLUE and no text on it. i've had BSOD before and it always has some kind of error code or driver name that caused it, but when i get BSOD in cs2, i get absolutely no error code or anything at all. entire screen goes 100% blue without anything else on screen.
what is this nonsense? i suspect it has something to do with VAC LIVE being too instrusive and trying to do stuff that it's not suppose to?

i really can't figure this one out, i'm afraid to run any logging tools as VAC might ban for it. for example i can't run process monitor as i'm afraid VAC might ban for it, otherwise i could analyze and debug the issue, so when it crashes, i could see what it tried to do just before the crash.

yesterday when i had BSOD, all my cs2 settings were lost aswell, which really made me angry. . i had to spend like an hour going thru settings again ... EVERYTHING was lost. all my video settings, audio, mouse sensitivity, keybinds and crosshair ...if this sh!t keeps happening, then most likely i'll just stop playing again.
i stopped playing csgo in 2016 due VAC issue, it kept kicking me and saying something like "VAC is not able to work on your computer properly" and i was on constant 7 day cooldown. very rarely reboot helped, but in most cases reboot didnt' help either, so i couldn't reconnect as it kicked me before i was able to reconnect.

this BSOD sounds like another critical problem, but before i rule out issue with PC, does anyone else have this aswell?
i just can't think of anything that could be causing it, because other games don't give me problems like this.

Wait is it a completely blue screen with no text or anything?

yeah, nothing on it at all. never seen this before. it doesn't auto-reboot either, in case of normal BSOD, pc auto-reboots after 5-10 seconds, but not with that.

[Minecraft-Aim]

Originally posted by Eld3r:

Originally posted by Minecraft-Aim:

There are many bad ones out there. I recommended "Driver Easy" cause I know that its legit.
The drivers that it downloads are 1:1 (I did a couple md5 checks) the same that you'll get from the offical support websites.

it just shows the same old intel updates that are not needed and not worth risking

i have run the intel validation tool and it does not show those drivers as needing updates

True. You can skip all the Intel BS. If look up them up manually you will find that there are indeed newer versions available - despite the fact that the intel tool isn't showing them. But none of them does really anything that would be in any way important for a normal usecase.
Most important are chipset and bus drivers (mainboard stuff).

[Sethioz]

Originally posted by Eld3r:

Originally posted by Minecraft-Aim:

True. You can skip all the Intel BS. If look up them up manually you will find that there are indeed newer versions available - despite the fact that the intel tool isn't showing them. But none of them does really anything that would be in any way important for a normal usecase.
Most important are chipset and bus drivers (mainboard stuff).

i did look them up manually

they dont apply to my hardware so if i update them it would only be so tools like this one think the drivers are up to date when no value was added

or worse case, something is broken that was working previously

like you guys, i have been doing this for a long time and my experience is those tools can do more harm than good

same, those tools do more harm than good. those tools are for beginners who don't know what drivers are or how to update them.
like my sound driver, why would i update it? it plays sound, there is NOTHING to update, why would I?
also some think that CPU needs drivers ... NOPE, it doesn't.
RAM doesn't need drivers either.

anyone using auto-updates or auto-update tools, is definetely NOT an PC expert.

[🍕🍟🍔 🍕🍟🍔]

use whocrashed

[Minecraft-Aim]

Originally posted by Sethioz:

Originally posted by Eld3r:

i did look them up manually

they dont apply to my hardware so if i update them it would only be so tools like this one think the drivers are up to date when no value was added

or worse case, something is broken that was working previously

like you guys, i have been doing this for a long time and my experience is those tools can do more harm than good

same, those tools do more harm than good. those tools are for beginners who don't know what drivers are or how to update them.
like my sound driver, why would i update it? it plays sound, there is NOTHING to update, why would I?
also some think that CPU needs drivers ... NOPE, it doesn't.
RAM doesn't need drivers either.

anyone using auto-updates or auto-update tools, is definetely NOT an PC expert.

So essentially those tools are for you.

[Renos]

Originally posted by Sethioz:

Originally posted by Renos:

Wait is it a completely blue screen with no text or anything?

yeah, nothing on it at all. never seen this before. it doesn't auto-reboot either, in case of normal BSOD, pc auto-reboots after 5-10 seconds, but not with that.

Ok so this isnt actually a bluescreen. But more likely a very fatal gpu crash.

[Sethioz]

Originally posted by Eld3r:

Originally posted by Banana:

use whocrashed

it seems he didnt get information about the crash on the screen so that tool may not help

there is a little part of me that wonders, since op didnt get any information about the crash, that the blue screen might not be an actual blue screen

maybe the system has malware?

i see some people got jokes ... I'm PC expert and i've been doing this since 90s.
there's not a single file on my PC that i'm not aware of.
my entire drive is even encrypted with truecrypt, this is how paranoid i am about protecting my PC (no i'm not refering to that truecrypt prevents viruses, but it prevents unauthoriazed access if PC is physically compromised).

you people suggest the most ridicoulous things .. there's nothing wrong with my PC.

if this was malware, why would it only trigger during cs2?? you're talking no sense at all
probably because you didn't read what i said, which means you only have 10% of the info or less, of what i said.

what is it with people and their inability to read more than 2 lines of text and then judging based on that?
if this was malware, it would randomly happen at any given time, in any game or even outside of game, but it ONLY happens in cs2 and AFTER an update. .. which i already explained, but you didn't have patience to read more than 2 lines of text and clearly missed that.

Originally posted by Renos:

Originally posted by Sethioz:

yeah, nothing on it at all. never seen this before. it doesn't auto-reboot either, in case of normal BSOD, pc auto-reboots after 5-10 seconds, but not with that.

Ok so this isnt actually a bluescreen. But more likely a very fatal gpu crash.

if that's true, why is it happening only in cs2, that only uses 25-30% of my GPU? while other games use close to 70-80%?
it could be GPU crash, but caused by cs2 and not due faulty hardware or drivers.