Steam Overlay causes entire PC to freeze and black screen when used while gaming

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Tea Garden 22 maj @ 17:44

New update as of October 14th

Nvidia employee explained[www.nvidia.com], the final solution is multi-faceted and will include three fixes:

1. NVIDIA's next Game Ready Driver, will include a fix for an edge case where an application may crash when switching into RealTime threaded priority. As of now, Game Ready & Studio Driver 581.57 includes fix for "Steam overlay may cause game stability issues [5521892]"

2. Valve will also be moving the overlay software down in priority in a future Steam update.

3. NVIDIA will be assisting in the Quality of Service (QoS) for the Steam overlay in their next driver branch.

New update as of August 18th

Nvidia employees received the necessary dump files. They stated that, in their words: "It appears this is caused from the Steam Webhelper running in realtime thread priority."

It's my understanding that they are currently working on identifying the specific causes and will be looking to resolve it. In the meantime, they have advised using a workaround by either disabling the Steam overlay or disabling hardware acceleration in Steam.

Workaround provided by Valve

Launch Steam with the -disable-overlay-gpu-pri option. If you do not know how to launch Steam with options, then visit this guide

UPD: this workaround works not for everyone, so it is better to disable GPU acceleration for steam web views

As the title of the topic suggests, this is a critical issue that appeared less than a week ago. I initially noticed this while playing CS2, I always look through my teammates' profiles when preparing for a match, and during this I got a complete system freeze, no any key combination worked and even the mouse cursor froze, after which the entire image disappeared and the screen turned black without the possibility of recovery, but at the same time I can hear all the sounds. And only rebooting via the button on the PC case helps.

I created a topic on the CS2 forum where I received answers from several people with different hardware about the same issue: https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/730/discussions/0/594023708174121698/

What I have managed to understand during this time:

1. This does not happen always. For example it may not happen during the preparation for the match, but if you use the overlay during the game, you can still encounter a complete freeze of the computer and a subsequent black screen

2. The Discord overlay for some reason can save from this, I was not able to reproduce this with the Discord overlay enabled (most likely the Nvidia overlay can also "fix" this)

3. Probably this is not related to the Nvidia drivers, because I am not using the latest driver version (576.02), and I did not update the drivers before this started. And also people with a different driver version wrote about same issue.

4. According to the answer of a person from the forum, this happens not only with CS2, but also with other games

5. After rebooting the computer, I see a lot of "nvlddmkm" errors in the Event Log, which directly indicate the loss of image and a driver failure

6. This is due to Steam update and possibly some conflict with Windows 11 24H2

Initially, I did not understand that this issue was widespread and tried to exclude the problem with my computer: all my games work fine, the temperatures of the GPU/CPU are good, tests in OCCT also passed without any errors, and I was also able to easily reproduce this on another computer in the same game (CS2).

I just hope this issue will be noticed and fixed as soon as possible, because it seems to me that this is a rather critical bug.

Update

For those who installed the update KB5058499 for Windows 11 24H2, please let me know if this issue is fixed after the update

Several people confirmed that the KB5058499 update did not solve this issue, also using Windows 10 instead of Windows 11 24H2 also does not solve it. Therefore, this is the fault of the Steam Client, Valve needs to notice all of us.

Update 2:

I received a new response from Steam support, where they told me that they forwarded my report to the developers and that we all should follow the updates. However, for some reason they will reproduce this issue in CS2, probably because I said that I initially noticed this issue in this game, I don't know but ok.

Brief info for those who are new here so that people don't have to reread a lot of pages

It is the Steam Overlay that crashes the driver, which is why the screen freezes and then there is a black screen without losing the monitor signal, this is what "nvlddmkm" errors means in this case.
If it was the driver's fault, people with a driver that came out in 2022 wouldn't write that they have the same issue. If it was on the Windows side, people wouldn't be writing that they have Windows 10 and the same issue started happening at the same time as users of the latest Windows 11 24H2 (And I want to remind that Windows 10 hasn't received any updates other than security updates for a long time). Therefore, this is the fault of the Steam client update for May 20 (or most likely the previous update before May 20).

Senast ändrad av Tea Garden; 14 okt @ 14:36

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Ursprungligen skrivet av jmccaskey:

Ursprungligen skrivet av jmccaskey:
One last note, NVIDIA told us the driver fix for the crash when GPU priority changes would ship in 590.x drivers, but then in 581.57 they put a change note saying a crash is fixed. We are unable to completely confirm if they shipped all their fixes earlier than planned, or if they only shipped some part of them. So it's possible there may be some further improvement when 590.x drivers ship.

Ok, we reached out to NVIDIA and heard back they did port the full fix back to 581.57. So if you get updated to 581.57 drivers this issue should finally be resolved for NVIDIA users.

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Atriox 13 sep @ 6:47

Ursprungligen skrivet av Neme:
Ursprungligen skrivet av TheKronalt:
Is this still happening after the latest Steam update? I haven't used Steam overlay for months and I realized how important such a simple UI and web browser are.

I'm hoping so.. Tempted to try playing a steam game... but i will wait a few more days or so for others to reply before i turn mine back on and play something.. been a good month or so since playing something ...

got fed up having to reboot the PC to get my screen back to normal...

If and when i do... I shall report back my results

Why would you stop this issue from playing games? Just don't use the overlay or disable GPU acceleration.

#1471

Neme 13 sep @ 6:50

Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Neme:

I'm hoping so.. Tempted to try playing a steam game... but i will wait a few more days or so for others to reply before i turn mine back on and play something.. been a good month or so since playing something ...

got fed up having to reboot the PC to get my screen back to normal...

If and when i do... I shall report back my results
Why would you stop this issue from playing games? Just don't use the overlay or disable GPU acceleration.

Because I tried both and it was still happening at random

#1472

Bad 💀 Motha 13 sep @ 6:58

Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Neme:

I'm hoping so.. Tempted to try playing a steam game... but i will wait a few more days or so for others to reply before i turn mine back on and play something.. been a good month or so since playing something ...

got fed up having to reboot the PC to get my screen back to normal...

If and when i do... I shall report back my results
Why would you stop this issue from playing games? Just don't use the overlay or disable GPU acceleration.

Again, doing tbat doesn't fix the issue or prevent it. It still happens even on older PCs running Win10 with pre RTX 50 drivers

My method fixes it. It's just an annoying method because you have to repeat it every time after Steam is up and running

Senast ändrad av Bad 💀 Motha; 13 sep @ 7:00

#1473

Atriox 13 sep @ 8:11

Ursprungligen skrivet av Neme:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Why would you stop this issue from playing games? Just don't use the overlay or disable GPU acceleration.

Because I tried both and it was still happening at random

It doesn't sound like this issue is your issue then.

You either didn't disable gpu acceleration, or didn't turn off the overlay as a whole, because the issue only occurs when using the overlay, which isn't exactly required to play games in general.

#1474

Atriox 13 sep @ 8:12

Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Why would you stop this issue from playing games? Just don't use the overlay or disable GPU acceleration.

Again, doing tbat doesn't fix the issue or prevent it. It still happens even on older PCs running Win10 with pre RTX 50 drivers

My method fixes it. It's just an annoying method because you have to repeat it every time after Steam is up and running

I'd advise people to either upgrade to windows 11 or their gpu driver then if that is the case

#1475

sgt_rageous 13 sep @ 8:13

Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

Again, doing tbat doesn't fix the issue or prevent it. It still happens even on older PCs running Win10 with pre RTX 50 drivers

My method fixes it. It's just an annoying method because you have to repeat it every time after Steam is up and running
I'd advise people to either upgrade to windows 11 or their gpu driver then if that is the case

whatever you do do not upgrade to windows 11.

#1476

Euphytose 13 sep @ 8:26

Ursprungligen skrivet av sgt_rageous:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
I'd advise people to either upgrade to windows 11 or their gpu driver then if that is the case
whatever you do do not upgrade to windows 11.

You'll have to eventually, you're just delaying the inevitable.

Also W11's start menu is miles better than W10's.

Edit: As for the overlay not being required to play games, it depends on the game.

Some games absolutely require it because their invite system relies exclusively on it.

Senast ändrad av Euphytose; 13 sep @ 8:28

#1477

Atriox 13 sep @ 8:48

Ursprungligen skrivet av Euphytose:
Ursprungligen skrivet av sgt_rageous:
whatever you do do not upgrade to windows 11.

You'll have to eventually, you're just delaying the inevitable.

Also W11's start menu is miles better than W10's.

Edit: As for the overlay not being required to play games, it depends on the game.

Some games absolutely require it because their invite system relies exclusively on it.

Well if they're playing games with those limitations, they'll just have to play something else until the issue as a whole is fixed. There's no point not playing anything whatsoever unless you only play that particular type of game.

#1478

Cocoa 13 sep @ 9:43

I have the same issue, only recently started happening.

#1479

bidulless 13 sep @ 9:49

hello

probably a stupidity but it cost nothing to try :
- try to turn auto hdr off under window 11
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/use-auto-hdr-for-better-gaming-in-windows-0cce8402-3de5-4512-a742-e027ca7aa79c

#1480

#Bunnyfengmin 13 sep @ 10:26

Ursprungligen skrivet av sgt_rageous:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
I'd advise people to either upgrade to windows 11 or their gpu driver then if that is the case
whatever you do do not upgrade to windows 11.

i second this lol

#1481

Bad 💀 Motha 13 sep @ 10:42

Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Bad 💀 Motha:

Again, doing tbat doesn't fix the issue or prevent it. It still happens even on older PCs running Win10 with pre RTX 50 drivers

My method fixes it. It's just an annoying method because you have to repeat it every time after Steam is up and running
I'd advise people to either upgrade to windows 11 or their gpu driver then if that is the case

Upgrade to what? Trash?

#1482

Dom 13 sep @ 11:18

Ursprungligen skrivet av Atriox:
Ursprungligen skrivet av Neme:

Because I tried both and it was still happening at random
It doesn't sound like this issue is your issue then.

You either didn't disable gpu acceleration, or didn't turn off the overlay as a whole, because the issue only occurs when using the overlay, which isn't exactly required to play games in general.

Since this appears to be a software/driver bug (more specifically with runtime priority in Windows GPU scheduling), disabling GPU acceleration does not get rid of the problem. It just makes it very unlikely to occur.

The less processes you have on your PC "occupying" GPU, the less likely it seems that the problem gets triggered, so if you disable Steam from using GPU, that significantly reduces the likelihood that you'll run into problems. But the game still uses GPU obviously, and several other background processes can do the same.

I've had this happen to me (the exact same symptoms described in this thread) with GPU acceleration disabled when I was making a graphically rapid action (quickly switching). But talking about less than once a month in frequency here, when prior to disabling Steam GPU acceleration it happened almost everyday.

Senast ändrad av Dom; 13 sep @ 11:19

#1483

Czuczu 13 sep @ 13:46

It just have happened to me now while playing "R.E.P.O." and It's not the first time though counting other games while quick opening/closing steam overlay to write. Too bad there is no proper solution....
btw I'm on win 11 (23H2) with newest Nvidia drivers

#1484

Euphytose 13 sep @ 23:22

Ursprungligen skrivet av Czuczu:
It just have happened to me now while playing "R.E.P.O." and It's not the first time though counting other games while quick opening/closing steam overlay to write. Too bad there is no proper solution....
btw I'm on win 11 (23H2) with newest Nvidia drivers

There is a solution.

Turn off hardware accel.

Since I did that, months ago, it hasn't happened again.

I can open and close the overlay 50 times in a row without issue.

It's slightly less responsive but barely noticeable, and much better than having to hard shutdown the PC.

#1485

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