Question Crashing while gaming, no BSOD, automatic reboot ?

[kwasow]

Hi,

I've built my first PC in August 2024 and have only been running Linux up until this point with no issues - both day-to-day tasks, my development workflow and gaming. Last week I moved my Linux install to a new, larger SSD and installed Windows 11 on the old one to try playing CS2 on FaceIT. Unfortunately, the game keeps crashing, sometimes just a few minutes after I start playing, sometimes only after an hour of gaming. When the crash occurs, the screen becomes black and the audio loops for about 5–10 seconds. Then the PC reboots automatically.

So just to make it clear - I've been playing CS2 (150-200fps), Cyberpunk 2077 (100-150fps) and some other games on Linux without issues, but the PC keeps crashing on Windows. The SSD itself should be good, as I've been running Linux off of it for a few months without issues.

Specs

• GPU: Biostar Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB GDDR6
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7600
• Motherboard: MSI PRO B650M-A WIFI
• PSU: Seasonic G12 GC 750W
• RAM: 2x32GB Goodram IRDM 6000MHz
• SSD1: Samsung EVO 980 1TB (Linux)
• SSD2: Goodram PX500 512GB (Windows)
• Monitor: AOC Q24G2A/BK (1440p@165Hz, DisplayPort)

Windows install details

• Fresh Windows 11 install
• Installed Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Audio and Chipset drivers from MSI
• Installed GPU drivers from AMD

What I've tried

• Checked event viewer, but nothing appears there - only a Critical event 41, that to my understanding is an effect of the crash, not the cause
• I've looked for minidumps under C:\Windows\Minidumps, but that directory is not present
• I've taken a log from hwinfo, to check if voltages or temps exceed expected values (link)
  • I thought maybe the SSDis overheating, since the Windows SSD is placed directly behind the GPU, but it looks okay to me
  • Voltages and temps on other components look okay
  • The system has 2 SSDs - the first one (cooler) is the Linux SSD and the second one (reaching 70C) is Windows
  • The log starts just before I launch CS2 and ends when the PC crashes.

Is there anything I'm missing here? What else can I try to debug the issue?

 

[ubuysa]

Can you please download the SysnativeBSODCollectionApp and save it to the Desktop. Then run it and upload the resulting zip file to a cloud service with a link to it here. The SysnativeBSODCollectionApp collects all the available troubleshooting data and will make diagnosing your problem much easier. It DOES NOT collect any personally identifying data. It's used by several highly respected Windows help forums (including this one). I'm a senior BSOD analyst on the Sysnative forum where this tool came from, so I know it to be safe.

You can of course look at what's in the zip file before you upload it, most of the files are txt files. Please don't change or delete anything though. If you want a description of what each file contains you'll find that here.

 

[kwasow]

Thank you for your reply. I've run the Sysnative tool and attached the results. For some reason, I can't get the tracert report to generate (it fails after taking too long). Let me know if there is anything I can do to generate that if it's necessary - I tried running tracert manually, but it also timed out.

Edit: The last crash was at 15:33 (2024/12/30). I have not been playing any game since then.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18tGHH8glsJNcraeojEHsgJGsy22jlQsf/view?usp=sharing

Edit2: Here is a report collected directly after the crash, happening at 22:19 (2024/12/30):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gEyGpOmkawwlQkKPeIHEB3jT2-hy4Klw/view?usp=sharing

 

[ubuysa]

You've not been having BSODs but the crashes are due to live kernel events, these are critical failures from which Windows is able to recover, though they cause a crash to the desktop. I can see these in the dxdiag.txt file (at the bottom if you're interested). These should have written dumps, they'll be in a sub-folder of C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports, probably in the Watchdog folder. Check in all sub-folders of LiverKernelReports and upload all dumps that you find.

The bugchecks for these live kernel events are either 0x1A8, 0x1B8, or 0x1CC. The first two are both related to a failure of the graphics subsystem, the third is a kernel timeout and is almost certainly related to the other two.

I can see that the drivers for both the iGPU and dGPU were recently updated, I'm guessing you did that in response to these crashes(?) and since they're still happening the drivers were not the cause. That leaves the graphics card, and whilst I appreciate that it runs the game under Linux, it's likely that the Windows graphics drivers and the Linux graphics drivers use the card in slightly different ways. I don't know whether that might be a FaceIT issue or whether it's the way the game runs on Windows, but from what I can see the crashes certainly seems to be graphics related.

I may know more once the dumps are uploaded, but, if the game will run at all on the iGPU, try removing the graphics card and seeing whether you still get BSODs just on the iGPU.

 

[kwasow]

Thank you for your assistance. It turned out to be a driver issue that went away after downgrading. I should have remembered to check that before posting here.