Steam - games crash and lock pc

[notanameleft]

Hi! Would anyone be able to help with this problem?

I bought a new gaming laptop (schenker xmg p505) - with GTX 980M, i7, 8gb ram

I downloaded steam and installed a game from my library (the first STALKER), played for a couple of mins, all was well. Bought a couple of new games (ARMA II and then standalone DayZ) with the plan to play them over this weekend

But disaster - now when I launch these games after 5-10 seconds they lock up - and I mean completely, as in the only way out is to hold down the power button and restart windows

Some other points which might help narrow down what's causing the problem

1) i've been playing Elite Dangerous (not on steam) - runs at ultra level with no problems. I've also run a couple of low graphics intensive steam games (audiosurf and unturned) which work fine

2) I've spoken with nVidia tech support who talked me through a clean driver reinstall - did that but nothings changed

3) in case it was my antivirus (eset smart security) i completely uninstalled - but no difference

4) only had this laptop for a week - apart from eset, itunes and ms office i havent really installed anything else

PLEASE can someone help - i had this dream of returning to pc gaming for once in my life with a decent rig - wahhhh!!!! 😉

p.s. Thanks for reading!

 

[0AgentHani0]

Go to your steam folder and delete "AppCache" Folder and restart ur pc.

Have u tried reinstalling steam?

check this link below:-
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7169-TIAV-5361

Try any of the methods in that link and see if its working or not

 

[notanameleft]

Thanks for your quick reply - I've done a steam config flush and then reinstalled when that didnt work. Havent tried deleting appcache so will have a look at that

Thanks for the link you sent, i'll look through and see if any of those help. Will let you know the results!

 

[notanameleft]

There is a section in the steam troubleshooting re running two sound devices simultaneously. As far as I'm concerned i only have one sound device but in device manager it shows two:

* NVIDIA Virtual Audio Device (Wave Extensible) (WDM)
* Realtek High Definition Audio

Does this count as two and I need to disable one?

 

[notanameleft]

I overlooked something quite important - that I was using a docking station to connect to external monitor. Didnt realise that would have much effect but running on laptop only it seems to work now. Thanks for your help!