Steam games keep freezing

[Parrothead]

Any game I play on my PC will freeze sporadically while I'm playing. First the sound cuts out, then the whole computer freezes for ~30 seconds-1 minute, then it will work fine. I just finished running CCleaner and defragging my hard drive and it still did it.

Just restarted my PC, haven't run anything yet.

Dxdiag says:
TL;DR

[AccountingDrone]

TLNR ...

I haven't been able to play Civ V since it patched like a week ago, the old will not load textures again, but I couldn't find anything untoward in the damned world wonder files which is what farked last time. *sigh* though I think my issue is in the mods, are you playing with any mods in your game?

[KhirasHY]

Also, does this happen with every steam game you try to play, or just one or two? If there are some that you have installed, but haven't played in a while, try playing those to see if the issue replicates itself after a while the same way. Alternatively, there are a few go-to steps you can try out with any game on steam, starting with the easiest:

1. Right click the game name in your Library.
2. In the menu that opens, select Properties.
3. Select the Local Files tab.
4. Click "Verify Integrity of Game Cache" on that tab.

This may take several seconds for smaller games (like The Binding of Isaac) or several minutes for large games (Civ 5, Total War, Call of Duty, etc). Many problems for a lot of Steam titles will come from updates where an important file was somehow missed or corrupted; some games even have issues on their initial installation where a file was missed, and the program won't work - this happened to Skyrim, for instance. Verifying integrity will cause the program to check every file, and re-download anything that appears incorrect, thus it will fix many problems automatically.

If you try that and it still does not fix the problem, you may refer to this link from the support forums as well:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...7169-TIAV-5361

(That includes a step for verifying the cache as well)

As always, if the problem occurred in coordination with a recent update of something outside of Steam and the game (such as new video/sound drivers, DX, etc), you may experiment with downgrading to a previous version to see if the problem still occurs. If not, you have identified the problem as relating to a driver issue. Alternatively, if you have not updated recently, you may want to get new drivers to see if that clears things up for you; a recent update in software may have caused an issue with outdated drivers that an update would fix.

In the worst case, it is a hardware issue (video card crapping out, etc), however you would be seeing the issue pop up in non-Steam games, and other applications. If not are not seeing the BSOD, this is less likely to be occurring, so it should not be a concern just yet. Also, reading your DXDiag, the computer itself wasn't able to see any glaring errors during the scan, so you likely are OK there.

Hopefully some of this helps.

Edit: thought of one more thing, make sure the games you're using are compatible with your version of Windows, something not every game on Steam says outright. For instance, Fallout 3 GOTY can be bought from Steam, but it does mention it is not compatible with Windows 7, and in practice I've noticed that it freezes for me a lot unless I go out and find the mods that people made to fix that. This could be your issue as well.

[Gizmo]

TLNR ...

I haven't been able to play Civ V since it patched like a week ago, the old will not load textures again, but I couldn't find anything untoward in the damned world wonder files which is what farked last time. *sigh* though I think my issue is in the mods, are you playing with any mods in your game?

Certain games require the mod files to be dated newer than the overall game application. Not sure if Civ V is one of those. Basically every time the game updates the mods would be discounted and not used.

[Parrothead]

I checked the game cache, and then uninstalled the local game files, and now I can't load anything. I get an unknown error.





Help?

[Aethian]

Bad bad bad! Ummm reinstall? ARG I don't know what I would be doing if I couldn't run my steam games. Maybe cursing loudly.

[Parrothead]

reinstall steam? because I'm trying to reinstall the games and they won't.

[Aethian]

Actually that might work. Go into the files for the games, uninstall them and the uninstall steam. Doing a full reinstall it might work.

[Parrothead]

Yay!!!! The games are downloading!!

[Chromatix]

If you verified the cache and *then* removed the game files, then of course it won't work. If anything, you should have done it the other way around.

[Parrothead]

Oh. Games are loaded now, though!

But I am having an issue with the sound cutting off at odd intervals now.

[EricKei]

Well, just in case you end up un/reinstalling Steam again, you CAN remove/reinstall Steam itself without affecting the game files themselves (tho it may remove data like playing time).

[KhirasHY]

Oh. Games are loaded now, though!

But I am having an issue with the sound cutting off at odd intervals now.

Only during games, or does it happen if you turn on youtube or netflix (or a non-Steam game)? Also, if you open the game directly through its shortcut, and not through Steam, does it still happen?

[Parrothead]

Only during games, and weather I open through Steam or use a shortcut.

[KhirasHY]

And is this only through Steam titles, or does it happen with every game on your PC? Double check your sound drivers and make 100% sure they are up to date, and check these two links as well...hopefully this helps.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...4911-EICN-7411
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...4310-ROFJ-4787 (2nd one if you're using a Mac)