Steam-hosted games crash.

[KaiserElectric]

So the situation here is that when I play a game hosted on Steam, the game will lock up and freeze after ten or so minutes of play and I'm forced to Ctrl+Alt+Del out of the game.

I have had problems with my video card before, and if that had been the case, I wouldn't have bothered to post a thread about it. However, there are three cases that lead me to believe that it may have nothing to do with my current video card problems.

1) Games outside of Steam (Minecraft on best settings, Civ 4, and Sins of a Solar Empire) function perfectly fine.

2) Both graphics-heavy (L4D2) and decidedly less intense (Puzzle Pirates) games cause the crash.

3) When my video card crashed games, it either shut the tower off or crashed the entire computer, not just the game itself.

In any case, I'm led to believe that this may not be a video card based problem and may relate to something else entirely. I already verified the integrity of the game cache, ran the game without Steam community enabled, and nothing solved the problem. Any assistance would be much appreciated.

 

[GoodGame]

So the situation here is that when I play a game hosted on Steam, the game will lock up and freeze after ten or so minutes of play and I'm forced to Ctrl+Alt+Del out of the game.

I have had problems with my video card before, and if that had been the case, I wouldn't have bothered to post a thread about it. However, there are three cases that lead me to believe that it may have nothing to do with my current video card problems.

1) Games outside of Steam (Minecraft on best settings, Civ 4, and Sins of a Solar Empire) function perfectly fine.

2) Both graphics-heavy (L4D2) and decidedly less intense (Puzzle Pirates) games cause the crash.

3) When my video card crashed games, it either shut the tower off or crashed the entire computer, not just the game itself.

In any case, I'm led to believe that this may not be a video card based problem and may relate to something else entirely. I already verified the integrity of the game cache, ran the game without Steam community enabled, and nothing solved the problem. Any assistance would be much appreciated.

You'd probably be better off asking at the Steam Support forums.


Offhand, I think you may try updating your video card drivers, since perhaps there is a conflict between Steam and the driver? You might also try uninstalling Steam, re-downloading it, and reinstalling it.

The most likely possibilities are that: 1. Your Steam installation is corrupt; 2. the Steam downloads of the game corrupted; or some sort of driver/port conflict.

 

[Maniacal]

Revalidate the files.

 

[KaiserElectric]

You'd probably be better off asking at the Steam Support forums.


Offhand, I think you may try updating your video card drivers, since perhaps there is a conflict between Steam and the driver? You might also try uninstalling Steam, re-downloading it, and reinstalling it.

The most likely possibilities are that: 1. Your Steam installation is corrupt; 2. the Steam downloads of the game corrupted; or some sort of driver/port conflict.

I'm really hesitant to update my drivers, seeing as the latest update for my card crashed my PC (along with others, so it's the fault of the company, not my PC). As for the Steam installation being corrupted, how do I go about fixing it?

Revalidate the files.

That was the first thing I tried. Tragically, it didn't work.