[SOLVED] PC switches back to desktop during game play

[tomseurocat]

I have two games that I play consistently. They are Madden 08 PC and Madden 19 PC. During gameplay, it can be right in the middle of plays or between this happens, the PC will switch to the desktop with the game still running in the background. I then need to alt+tab to get back to the game. This is very irritating since it can, and has meant, giving up a big play. More importantly, I record these game for youtube and it really messes things up if it happens to be a big play and half of the play is missing...argh! My set up is the following:
MSI x370 MOBO
Ryzen 7 1700 CPU with stock cooler
16 GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 1050 SC 2GB GPU
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSD
EVGA 600B PSU
At first I thought it was something in my downloads folder or one of the two other SSD's that I have connected to the system. I disconnected everything so that all I was running was the Samsung M.2 drive and the game(s) still did the random switch to the desktop. I have my downloads folder on one of the disconnected drives, so I know that is not the issue. I don't know what might be causing this now and I hope that someone can shed a little light on this. I don't see how this can be a GPU issue I have MSI afterburner for monitoring the vitals of my system and the GPU never gets overheated and doesn't get used more than 45%, but stranger things have happened. Does anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Co BIY]

Is it something like an email notification or App alert signalling priority to the desktop? I think the fix will be found in your Windows settings.

I would try turning off all notifications.

Have you tried using Windows 10's "Game Mode"? - it is supposed to prioritize game play over background processes.

 

[Doctor Rob]

Normally that is because of a message like skype message or MS teams message.. or stuff like that. it has nothing to do with your hardware.. OR you are accidentally pressing some shortcut.. or hitting the windows key.. etc.. it can be a lot of things.. I would suggest that you turn off anything that you do not need..

Being the game is NOT crashing and you can just alt tab back to it its just some program you have open that is causing the issue. (I get it when people message me on microsoft teams like when playing battlefield games.