Steam freezes my PC

[Memolio]

Hi, today I opened CSGO, and it froze a couple seconds after. I thought it was related to my GPU and I almost♥♥♥♥♥♥myself... The screen just completely freezes, no weird sounds, no error messages, it just completely freezes and I have to hard reset the rig. I've started making tests, here's what I've discovered:

+ It's not related directly to drivers, BIOS or registry. I've cleaned everything up, uninstalled and made fresh reinstalls of NVIDIA drivers and Steam.

+ It's not hardware related. Checked everything was correctly in place. Unplugged everything but my mouse and keyboard. I did tests with Forza Horizon 3, Escape from Tarkov, BF1 and Diablo III. Everything runs as normal. No problems whatsoever.

+ It just happens when I make Steam go online. I can play Steam games in ofline mode without problems.

+ I don't have to do anything at all to trigger the problem. PC just freezes after 20 to 30 seconds of being logged in on Steam.

+ It's not related to antivirus or firewalls since I have none.

+ I did a fresh reinstall of Windows a couple weeks back. My drives are good. I can run files and games from both of them without any problems.

+ I haven't changed or installed/uninstalled anything in the past month or so. I've never had this problem before.


Is there something I'm missing? Its been a hell of a day.


UPDATE 1

With tests of other people and myself, we can deduce the problem only affects single targeted Steam accounts while using the Steam client in online mode. Using the affected account in offline mode or using an altogether different account doesn't hard-freeze the system.

SOLUTION UPDATE

Thanks to Dim4k, we found a solution for many of us on this thread, it was ASUS AI SUITE what caused the problems. Altough I've been using it for years, something with it just caused Steam to crash. So

Solution: Uninstall ASUS AI SUITE. Problems should be gone. If you're missing the utility because of the fan control tool, download the stand-alone ASUS FanXpert program, it doesn't trigger any crashes.

You can download it from here: http://asus-fan-xpert.en.lo4d.com
(the file is named ASUS AI SUITE but it just let you install FanXpert)

[Zekiran]

What version of Windows are you using? And how is your internet? Router been restarted any time recently?

Windows 10's newest update has broken some things for people, you might check around threads about that.

[Washell]

Try reinstalling the network drivers for your motherboard.

Second, had any thunderstorms recently? Long ethernet cables have a habit of shorting out the network card/portion of the motherboard in high electric fields.

Lastly, I'm wondering what will happen if you put a big load on the network. Try to run a speedtest and see what happens. If nothing happens, try downloading something big for a sustained load.

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Router been restarted any time recently?

There's only one feasible path (I can think of) for a router to crash a PC (overvoltage on the cable), at which stage it should be kicked in the trash, not restarted.

Originally posted by AYY GG:

+ It's not related to antivirus or firewalls since I have none.

People running without those shouldn't be surprised of running into weird issues.

[Zekiran]

(( Actually I don't run either of them myself, but then I consider myself a bit more experienced. I don't click stupid stuff, etc, and play safe when I'm downloading things. And run malware detection when I think there's an issue. ))

And true, a router would cause freezing in the game, but not really up through the rest of the system.

[Washell]

Occasionally, an ad provider gets hit and you'll get malware infecting ads on major websites, although it's been a few years since that last happened.

Also occasionally, there's a vulnerability that doesn't require any user stupidity to infect.

Both are often still caught by either a firewall or the heuristics in av tools.

Admittedly, these kinds are rare. Yet at the same time, such one shot bugs tend to be aggressively monetized. If you get hit, you have a real problem.

Given that the additional load of even something as moderately effective as the default windows firewall and av tools is negligible, it seems silly to turn them off.

[C1nTra 🎅]

Same here, since last night Windows 10 update, everytime i run Steam, my Computer freeze, already reinstall all drivers and same.

Dont even have to open any game, just Steam, few secs after computer freeze.

Already run anti virus and anti malware and computer clean.

Any tips or ideias?

[ReBoot]

How long does your system stay frozen? I ask because i sometimes get something similar and it takes minutes for the system to reboot itself.

[C1nTra 🎅]

Frozen until you force computer reboot by shuting down and turn in again...

Work 100% until the update of Windowns, i try to search the thread on Reditt but didnt found it unfortualy.

[Memolio]

Hi everyone, thanks for your replies.

I don't think I need to reinstall network drivers since I'm using an external usb plug and play antenna. Can't connect via cable since my modem is kinda far from the room my PC is in. Have been using this rig for about 4 years without any problem. Also, I can download stuff at full speed and playback 4K on any browser without this happening.

My PC doesn't respond at all when it freezes thanks to Steam. Mouse doesn't move, sound stops and hardware buttons don't respond, neither from my case or from my motherboard. I have to keep pressend either of both for 5 seconds to turn off the system.

It must be this W10 update you're talking about. I downloaded it last night and it was asking me to restart which I didn't. When my PC froze the first time amd I rebooted my system, it finished installing the update.
Funny thing is I hadn't power off my PC in about 3 days? And all this time I had Steam running, as soon as I opened CSGO it froze and now I don't even have to open a game for my PC to freeze when steam goes online. Will check later if I can roll back to a previous W10 build and report what happens.

[ReBoot]

How long have you given your PC time when it froze?

[Memolio]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

How long have you given your PC time when it froze?

Almost two hours or so? I didn't took time but after several times it froze and after doing all the driver cleaning and update and all the stuff I read online, I just gave up the last time it happened and left my PC unattended, when I came back it still was a rock.

[ReBoot]

Ok, that's bad. Such stuff typically only happens when hardware is actually defective. Or if there's some sort of a weird incompatibility, I had something like that a couple years ago when my mainboard didn't like my graphics card. Reverting to the previous W10 version would be interesting indeed.

[VirtualGentlemen]

Hello! I currently experience the exact same problem. Open up steam, wait 1-3 minutes, everything freezez. I updated Windows 10 today as well. I also updated everything else to hopefully fix this, including but not limited to my bios, steam itself, graphics card driver, ect...

My current guess is it's either windows 10's fault, or Steam is currently broken since the new Windows update and has to be updated by Valve. But we all know how Valve time works...

[MaMMuT]

Hey! i have the same problem! then i clear download cache and updated to the new nvidia driver! it worked for me :)

[King Bunny I]

Hi!
I also have the same problem: 1-2 minutes after starting steam, my computer freezes and I have to restart it. I tried to uninstall updates but it didn't work.
I also tried updating my video and audio drivers, bios and chipset drivers.
Last but not least I reinstalled Steam and cleared download cache.

Yesterday I had no problem with the steam app, but since Windows installed this update I cannot get Steam to work.

I hope someone will fix this issue soon.

[C1nTra 🎅]

This morning i had no problems, this started after windowns restart to install updates. So its nothing to do with hardware or drivers (double checked all)

Guess we need to wait for Microsoft or Steam send new update to fix this for users...