I've been using my desktop without any issues throughout the day for things like studying, using Chrome, Discord, and Battle.net on Windows 11. But when I try to call a friend on Discord, launch Steam, and then start playing games like Dungeons 4 (this has also happened with World of Warcraft), my monitors freeze and the sound cuts out after a few seconds. The only way to restart my PC is by holding down the power button, and sometimes it doesn't even turn back on properly. I've disconnected the power to drain the system and that seems to help. I've tried updating drivers and everything checks out fine, but this only happens randomly when I start a game. For instance, I played ARK for hours with no problems. My PC doesn't feel warm and everything's operating within normal parameters. I'm really at a loss here.
3 Answers
It sounds like this might be a case of connection issues with the games you’re trying to play. Right now, some online gaming services are experiencing outages that could cause freezing, especially when launching multiplayer games. I’d recommend checking Down Detector for any reported issues. That said, if the problem has been ongoing for over a week, it might not be the root cause in your case.
It’s good to hear you've already run disk checks and stress tested your hardware. Sometimes, disabling hardware acceleration in apps like Discord can help alleviate issues. You mentioned you did that, and it worked temporarily. Since the freezing happens randomly, it might be worth trying to run the games in windowed mode to see if that helps identify the triggers.
You could also look into your system's BIOS settings. However, be careful with any changes, as incorrect adjustments can lead to data loss. It's essential to back up your data before making significant changes. If nothing else works, consider checking for any Windows updates or performing a clean boot to rule out any software conflicts.
Thanks for the suggestion! I checked, and it doesn’t seem like it’s an outage issue, unfortunately.