Steam games causing blue screen of death. GOG games don't. What gives ?

[stu72762]

Why when only running games downloaded from Steam does my PC crash to blue screen of death ? GOG games don't have this issue...what gives ? I've reinstalled Windows 10 and all related drivers...including GPU (GTX 1080) drivers to latest versions. I've 2 drives with separate Win10 installs too...with separate Steam installs...one drive I just reinstalled Win10 and GForce Experience with latest drivers...both instances Steam games keep crashing my PC. When I run GOG games on either...no problem what so ever. Did Steam release some new patch/update lately ? What gives ?

[Cathulhu]

What does the bluescreen say? What are your full system specs?

[Crazy Tiger]

When my HDD was starting to fail, the only program that crashed my PC was Chrome. I could run all games without issue. 2,5 months later the computer didn't boot anymore cause the HDD died.

It's a symptom, which often can be related to hardware or an issue with drivers. What's the error?

[stu72762]

8700k, EVGA gtx 1080 SC2, Gigabyte z370m, 32gb 3733mhz CL17 ram, Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250gb my gaming drive...have 2nd Samsung 850 Pro with Win10 installed as my work drive...have a dual boot option...both run Win10. It's just Steam downloaded games that are failing. Witcher III downloaded from GOG runs clean at ultra settings. Just downloaded Far Cry New Dawn from Steam and it's bombing in gameplay and benchmarks. Tried downloading free trial of SOTTR from Steam and it too was bombing on gameplay and benchmarks.

[stu72762]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

When my HDD was starting to fail, the only program that crashed my PC was Chrome. I could run all games without issue. 2,5 months later the computer didn't boot anymore cause the HDD died.

It's a symptom, which often can be related to hardware or an issue with drivers. What's the error?

Funny you should point that out cause I'm paranoid such that I actually have 2 drives in my PC that both have Win10 installed. I have "dual boot" such that I have to choose which drive to boot from when I power on my desktop. When one drive/os sh!ts the bed...I can always immediately boot into the other to keep me going till I resolve the issue with the other. One OS is on the Samsung 970 EVO Plus and the other is on a Samsung 850 Pro. One is my gaming OS/drive and the other my work OS/drive in reality. That said I have Steam installed on both...and the Steam games give me blue screen of death on both installations...which seems to rule out a dying drive unless both decided to die at exact same time. Should have mentioned I have Witcher III installed on both downloaded from GOG...it works flawlessly on both drives.

[stu72762]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

What does the bluescreen say? What are your full system specs?

I don't recall what it says...I'm at work at the moment...will try again when I get home.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by stu72762:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

When my HDD was starting to fail, the only program that crashed my PC was Chrome. I could run all games without issue. 2,5 months later the computer didn't boot anymore cause the HDD died.

It's a symptom, which often can be related to hardware or an issue with drivers. What's the error?

Funny you should point that out cause I'm paranoid such that I actually have 2 drives in my PC that both have Win10 installed. I have "dual boot" such that I have to choose which drive to boot from when I power on my desktop. When one drive/os sh!ts the bed...I can always immediately boot into the other to keep me going till I resolve the issue with the other. One OS is on the Samsung 970 EVO Plus and the other is on a Samsung 850 Pro. One is my gaming OS/drive and the other my work OS/drive in reality. That said I have Steam installed on both...and the Steam games give me blue screen of death on both installations...which seems to rule out a dying drive unless both decided to die at exact same time. Should have mentioned I have Witcher III installed on both downloaded from GOG...it works flawlessly on both drives.

That likely rules out an HDD issue, yes. That's good. Doesn't entirely mean hardware is ruled out. Could still be an issue somewhere, though it's more likely in the driver department.

We do need to know what the blue screen error is. That'll help narrow things down.

[stu72762]

Ok, so it died saying "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGE_AREA" or something to that effect...didn't have time to write it down. Anyone seen that one ?

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by stu72762:

Ok, so it died saying "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGE_AREA" or something to that effect...didn't have time to write it down. Anyone seen that one ?

Yup, that's one of the more general "pain in the arse" errors that don't exactly say what it is to any degree of much help.

It is likely anything from the drivers spoken of here, or antivirus blocking stuff, or hardware failure, so really we're in no better a picture than before.

We can however, do a small bit of elimination here. Have you tried booting Windows into Safe mode with networking then running Steam and any game? I know that might cause issues due to it being safe mode, but at least try this.

If you see the problem go away then it is likely some software causing the issue. If it doesn't then we're kind of back at square one somewhat.

[Abs]

I haven't had the blue screen of death in close to twenty years. So I'm not a expert on them. But I was told that windows 10 do not give you those anymore. Is it truly bsod?

[Abs]

I guess so, just not as devastating as back in the day.
When a random Blue Screen of Death message appears, and you still have access to the desktop, then the problem is likely to be a driver or missing a critical update. It could also be an issue with an app you installed recently or a specific driver or system update.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by stu72762:

Ok, so it died saying "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGE_AREA" or something to that effect...didn't have time to write it down. Anyone seen that one ?

You need the dll file that caused the fualt, thats generally viewable in the event viewer after a bsod

[stu72762]

Ok since earlier I've gotten also the IRQL and "system service failure" BSOD. I've been able to run the benchmark tool in Far Cry New Dawn a couple times without it dying. Just played the game for maybe 15 minutes before it went BSOD just now.

[stu72762]

Ok last error was "DRIVER_IRQL..."

[rawWwRrr]

Without having hands on the system, I am guessing one of three things, or a combination of them:

1) Your system is unstable due to overclocking settings in the EFI/BIOS.
2) You have a bad driver somewhere.
3) Your RAM is either not fully set in their slots, bad slots, or the chips themselves are going bad.

[† ROGUE †]

Is everything on ur pc properly plugged ? And check ur pc temperatures