[SOLVED] Games keep minimizing randomly (Windows 7)

[Archon of the Valley]

SPECS:

• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit
• Motherboard: MSI 760GMA-P34(FX) (MS-7641)
• CPU: AMD FX-8320 8-core, ~3.5GHz
• RAM: 16GB Corsair DDR3 (2x8GB)
• GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 980
• PSU: Rosewill 750w (can't recall the make, off-hand)

Hi, lately I've been having an issue where games (in general, not just on a specific platform) will keep minimizing, which won't let me even play the game. First, it happened on The Elder Scrolls Online. Then, Metro: Exodus. Now, it's happening with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The only fix I've found is to reboot. This wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that it takes almost 10 minutes for my system to load all of its processes and such (and the fact that it's super inconvenient).

When this happens, it only seems to impact certain games. I don't see any unusual processes in Task Manager, I haven't had any changes in hardware other than a new USB keyboard and I don't see anything in the manual that implies that any specific key presses might be doing this. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium, I have up-to-date display drivers and the keyboard is just a cheap gaming keyboard, but it seems to work other than this problem (if, indeed, it is the one causing the problem in the first place).

I did get a crash on the last attempt, this was the XML info from the log in Event Viewer:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
  <Provider Name="Application Error" />
  <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID>
  <Level>2</Level>
  <Task>100</Task>
  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2020-06-26T11:10:46.000000000Z" />
  <EventRecordID>2111774</EventRecordID>
  <Channel>Application</Channel>
  <Computer>MissionControl</Computer>
  <Security />
  </System>
<EventData>
  <Data>DXHRDC.exe</Data>
  <Data>2.0.66.0</Data>
  <Data>52840914</Data>
  <Data>DXHRDC.exe</Data>
  <Data>2.0.66.0</Data>
  <Data>52840914</Data>
  <Data>c0000005</Data>
  <Data>0033dba7</Data>
  <Data>7c90</Data>
  <Data>01d64baa67f89ab0</Data>
  <Data>E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Deus Ex Human Revolution Director's Cut\DXHRDC.exe</Data>
  <Data>E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Deus Ex Human Revolution Director's Cut\DXHRDC.exe</Data>
  <Data>aebe4a44-b79d-11ea-97d6-448a5b20b825</Data>
  </EventData>
  </Event>

Aside from that, I can't seem to find any other errors logged that are related to this issue. I do know that my graphics driver crashed at some point since the last time I booted, as I did get a momentary black screen like I usually do whenever that happens, but I'm not entirely positive if that has to do with it or not. Event Viewer says "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered." I get this error once in a while (I have been for a while, even on previous driver versions) and it causes some games to have problems with lower framerates until I reboot, so I suppose it's possibly part of it, but I can't be sure. I also do have minor overclocking due to MSI Afterburner but I haven't messed with those settings in years, so I can't imagine that's the problem. Anyways, the XML for this particular error is as follows:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
  <Provider Name="Display" />
  <EventID Qualifiers="0">4101</EventID>
  <Level>3</Level>
  <Task>0</Task>
  <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
  <TimeCreated SystemTime="2020-06-25T05:56:36.000000000Z" />
  <EventRecordID>995601</EventRecordID>
  <Channel>System</Channel>
  <Computer>MissionControl</Computer>
  <Security />
  </System>
<EventData>
  <Data>nvlddmkm</Data>
  <Data />
  </EventData>
  </Event>

I'm honestly not sure what else to do. It's completely random in that it happens without explanation and it only seems to happen to specific games. I can't even get into the settings to change the game so that I can switch to windowed vs. fullscreen because it just minimizes as soon as I see the game screen.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do to try to figure this out? If it is this keyboard, I'd really prefer to not have to send this keyboard back and find a new one, as I'm enjoying it so far and it didn't break the bank. This is just infuriating and I really don't like having to reboot every time I want to play specific games. I appreciate any and all advice!

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Hi, I have an update for this: I rebooted my PC and don't believe I got any sort of driver crash, yet I went to load The Elder Scrolls Online and now I'm getting this issue again.

This is frustrating. I can't even play games because I keep having to reboot just to play them without the stupid thing minimizing all the time. I don't know what else to do. If it didn't take so long to reboot, it wouldn't be a big deal but it's a MASSIVE inconvenience to have to constantly reboot just to play games...

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Okay, update 2:

I unplugged the keyboard, replugged it in and it still gave me the issue. However, while the game was minimized, I right-clicked on it in the taskbar, clicked on ESO.exe and now it seems to be working. However, switching back to fullscreen from borderless windowed screwed it up again and I had to re-launch once more. This doesn't make any sense.

I've been reading that the ForegroundLockTimeout registry key can be edited to possibly solve this issue. They said the value needs to be 0x30d40 but mine is 0x001ed818. Should I edit it to 0x30d40?

 

[RBuczynski]

Errors connected with sudden stop of graphic drivers happened to me few times with older gtx (750) in newer Deus Ex on Win7. It was most likely due to too much graphical options (despite playing on low in FHD), but that doesn't look like the case here. Also - even with full aero, your 980 should handle it nicely - I'v noticed that some games simply force windows to go back to simple aero, when they do fullscreen.
Maybe graphical driver is the issue here? Have you tried to wipe existing drivers and install different number? Win 10 learned me in the hard way not to trust drivers update made by windows update or to simply install newest, because newest is always the best (plot twist - it often isn't).
I also assume, that taking so long to properly reboot is just because you had hdd? Try to defrag system files in boot mode (before system launches explorer.exe, starts using pagefile.sys etc, it always helped me for some time, back in the days when I had hdd as os drive).

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Do you mean, have I uninstalled my current drivers and then reinstalled the newest ones? I haven't but that's because I usually just manually install my graphics drivers every so often. I don't always go with the utmost newest.

Hmm how do I defrag the system files in boot mode? I'm not familiar with how that works but I can give it a go in the near future. If it'd possibly help me extend the life of this drive just a little longer, then that's all good by me haha

 

[RBuczynski]

I'm not entirely familiar either - I'm using perfectdisk12, but there's an option either from cmd or defrag applet. If you could search that on the internet, it won't hurt imo. Try that for instance, since I do not believe in prifomdefrag. https://docs.microsoft.com/pl-pl/sysinternals/downloads/pagedefrag
Basically - all we have to do, was to follow the damn train...eee...follow the damn instruction to defrag pagefile and hiberfil.sys.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

I looked up PerfectDisk and see that it's paid, but it has a free trial. Should I just download the free trial and run that, then?

Is there any specific problem with Piriform's Defraggler?

Oh, so I should download PageDefrag and use it to try to fix the issue? I was reading it and it says that it runs after chkdsk... that takes a million years on my PC. Is it required for me to run chkdsk?

Speaking of speed, how long should such a defrag take? I'm guessing it would be far quicker than a full defrag since it's only defragging system files but I want to be sure as I don't want it to run on boot unless I know approximately how long it should take.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

New update: I rebooted to test this, now fullscreen games won't work at all. They all just minimize the instant that I start them. This is no longer just frustrating, it's making me get a little worried. I have loads of fullscreen games and I can't play them now and nobody seems to have any answers. I'm going to try to install the most recent driver update since I usually wait a bit before installing them but I'm not getting my hopes up.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Another update: I installed the latest drivers, clean install and everything, and I've had absolutely zero luck.

Please help, I'm pretty desperate at this point. I've already pretty much missed a once-a-year event that I wanted to take part in because of this issue and it's just really frustrating.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

It's the weirdest thing... while ESO won't work, I was able to get Deus Ex: Human Revolution working. I launched it direct via the executable, in administrator mode but I tried this with ESO and it didn't help. I'm not complaining that I got Deus Ex working, but this is just baffling me and I hope someone can recommend things to help with this because I am just downright dumbfounded.

EDIT: Aaaand like that, it came back. No logic, no rhyme, no reason. I alt-tabbed for just a split second and came back, it started minimizing again. This is causing me so much stress that it HAS to be unhealthy.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Alright, I think I've fixed this issue... for some reason, CrystalDiskInfo was causing the problem. I found out what the problem was through a useful tool I saw recommended on a Steam thread called "Focus" by Happydroid. You run it before you run whatever program is causing a problem and if it minimizes, the tool tells you what minimized it.

For whatever reason, CrystalDiskInfo was listed. I closed the program and re-ran both ESO and Deus Ex, both of them seem to be working. That is massively weird, I never had that issue before and I haven't messed with any settings or anything recently. Oh well, chalk it up to another PC oddity that seems to only affect me, for whatever reason.

 

[vv211]

@JakobFel what version of crystaldiskinfo are you on? I just started having this same issue after updating to version 8.7.0. Prior to this I was running 7.7.0 and had no problems

Also, I discovered that this only happens when resident mode is checked, AND resident style is set to hide, AND it's been closed/hidden to the system tray

It does not matter if you're running 64 bit or 32 bit mode


p.s. sorry to necro

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Hey, I'm using 8.6.2, that does seem to be the issue for me. I've never had an application do this and that really doesn't make much sense, honestly, but I guess it's just a fluke lol