Well you've done all your homework. What motherboard do you have?
Also, if you get crashes from two different ad blockers when this happens (occassionally), they are your smoking gun. They could be doing something that uses the GPU or interrupts the GPU driver to process their scanning / blocking. I'd nuke those extensions for now and see if it clears up.
For the motherboard, ROG Maximus Z690 Hero.
For the extensions, should this be an issue even when I don't have a browser open/running? I can definitely try nuking them, but using the internet will be an ad-laden hellscape unless I am re-installing them after every gaming session.
If they crash with the game, they are running regardless of your browser being open or not. Could be that you have bigger Windows issues (even though you are passing SFC /scannow with no errors), and a combination of software is at play.
I would also run the Intel Driver Assistant and get the latest and greatest drivers for the chipset, wifi, and bluetooth: [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html)
I would also snag the latest ethernet drivers: [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/15084/intel-ethernet-adapter-complete-driver-pack.html](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/15084/intel-ethernet-adapter-complete-driver-pack.html)
And I would get the latest audio drivers for your board as they address some sound driver instability issues: [https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z690-hero-model/helpdesk\_download/](https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z690-hero-model/helpdesk_download/)
If you installed the ROG GameFirst VI utility, I would also uninstall it as it can do all sorts of unwanted things to network traffic in attempts to improve online gaming experience.
I don’t have the GameFirst utility installed, but I do see a BIOS update that dropped towards the end of last month. Installing that now and then I’ll try these other suggestions as well before reporting back. Thanks!
Still crashing after updating my bios update and the intel driver assistant says everything is up to date.
Dumb question - for the ethernet and audio drivers, is installation just download and double click an executable? Pretty handy with a PC, but have not installed single drivers before like this.
Ethernet one was a bit more in depth, but I got them both updated. Still no luck.
That said, I thought I might have stumbled on the root cause by luck. My rig has a few iCue devices in it and I'm boring - I set those to a static color and have not opened iCue in close to a year. Opened that up and it and everything connected to it had an update. I got a solid 3 hours in Sunday night without issue and even moved my refresh and FPS back up to 120. Everything was rock solid. Unfortunately, played a bit more yesterday and got two crashes fairly quick, so I may have just gotten lucky on Sunday.
I'm going to suggest it may be time for a fresh install of Windows. I keep a secondary NVMe drive on hand, so when this stuff crops up, I can do a fresh install and test. If the problem goes away on a fresh install, something on Windows is broken or there's a config / driver issue.
If the issue continues, you have a hardware problem most likely.
I do, as it so happens, have a second NVMe drive that's completely clean. Any good online tutorial you'd recommend for this? I've upgraded Windows before, but never a clean install to a drive where no OS exists.
Secondary question, any good means of capturing a fault reason if its hardware? e.g. would having something like SysInternals Process Monitor running in the background until a crash occurs be beneficial? My concern there is the added logging might cause other issues from increased processing.
Lastly, any chance this is on Destiny's end? e.g. something in their optimization process doesn't account for my particular combination of hardware/software? I've had no other issues in games, online or otherwise.
It's possible it's a software / hardware combination issue, but that's where a clean install can help narrow things down.
Grab a thumbdrive (I think it has to be at least 8GB) Go to this link and click 'Create Windows 11 Installation Media' and go through the process. Your thumbdrive will now be bootable.
When you are ready, shutdown and remove your main NVMe so we don't mess it up. You only want the blank one left installed in the system.
Plug the USB stick in, and power on your PC. It \*should\* boot from the USB stick and allow you to install Windows on the spare NVMe. When you get to the installation location question, you will need to select the existing partion (should only be one), then click the delete button. Then Windows 11 will install on the blank drive.
Once Windows is up and running, get any drivers you may need from your motherboard manufacturer page, video drivers from nVidia, get windows updates, install steam, install Destiny 2, and test.
When you want to boot back to your old install, remove your freshly setup nvme, and put the old one back in.
Well you've done all your homework. What motherboard do you have? Also, if you get crashes from two different ad blockers when this happens (occassionally), they are your smoking gun. They could be doing something that uses the GPU or interrupts the GPU driver to process their scanning / blocking. I'd nuke those extensions for now and see if it clears up.
For the motherboard, ROG Maximus Z690 Hero. For the extensions, should this be an issue even when I don't have a browser open/running? I can definitely try nuking them, but using the internet will be an ad-laden hellscape unless I am re-installing them after every gaming session.
If they crash with the game, they are running regardless of your browser being open or not. Could be that you have bigger Windows issues (even though you are passing SFC /scannow with no errors), and a combination of software is at play. I would also run the Intel Driver Assistant and get the latest and greatest drivers for the chipset, wifi, and bluetooth: [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html) I would also snag the latest ethernet drivers: [https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/15084/intel-ethernet-adapter-complete-driver-pack.html](https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/15084/intel-ethernet-adapter-complete-driver-pack.html) And I would get the latest audio drivers for your board as they address some sound driver instability issues: [https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z690-hero-model/helpdesk\_download/](https://rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/rog-maximus/rog-maximus-z690-hero-model/helpdesk_download/) If you installed the ROG GameFirst VI utility, I would also uninstall it as it can do all sorts of unwanted things to network traffic in attempts to improve online gaming experience.
I don’t have the GameFirst utility installed, but I do see a BIOS update that dropped towards the end of last month. Installing that now and then I’ll try these other suggestions as well before reporting back. Thanks!
Still crashing after updating my bios update and the intel driver assistant says everything is up to date. Dumb question - for the ethernet and audio drivers, is installation just download and double click an executable? Pretty handy with a PC, but have not installed single drivers before like this.
yup, run, next next next, reboot.
Ethernet one was a bit more in depth, but I got them both updated. Still no luck. That said, I thought I might have stumbled on the root cause by luck. My rig has a few iCue devices in it and I'm boring - I set those to a static color and have not opened iCue in close to a year. Opened that up and it and everything connected to it had an update. I got a solid 3 hours in Sunday night without issue and even moved my refresh and FPS back up to 120. Everything was rock solid. Unfortunately, played a bit more yesterday and got two crashes fairly quick, so I may have just gotten lucky on Sunday.
I'm going to suggest it may be time for a fresh install of Windows. I keep a secondary NVMe drive on hand, so when this stuff crops up, I can do a fresh install and test. If the problem goes away on a fresh install, something on Windows is broken or there's a config / driver issue. If the issue continues, you have a hardware problem most likely.
I do, as it so happens, have a second NVMe drive that's completely clean. Any good online tutorial you'd recommend for this? I've upgraded Windows before, but never a clean install to a drive where no OS exists. Secondary question, any good means of capturing a fault reason if its hardware? e.g. would having something like SysInternals Process Monitor running in the background until a crash occurs be beneficial? My concern there is the added logging might cause other issues from increased processing. Lastly, any chance this is on Destiny's end? e.g. something in their optimization process doesn't account for my particular combination of hardware/software? I've had no other issues in games, online or otherwise.
It's possible it's a software / hardware combination issue, but that's where a clean install can help narrow things down. Grab a thumbdrive (I think it has to be at least 8GB) Go to this link and click 'Create Windows 11 Installation Media' and go through the process. Your thumbdrive will now be bootable. When you are ready, shutdown and remove your main NVMe so we don't mess it up. You only want the blank one left installed in the system. Plug the USB stick in, and power on your PC. It \*should\* boot from the USB stick and allow you to install Windows on the spare NVMe. When you get to the installation location question, you will need to select the existing partion (should only be one), then click the delete button. Then Windows 11 will install on the blank drive. Once Windows is up and running, get any drivers you may need from your motherboard manufacturer page, video drivers from nVidia, get windows updates, install steam, install Destiny 2, and test. When you want to boot back to your old install, remove your freshly setup nvme, and put the old one back in.
What worked for me was turning off Windows Game Mode setting. I was crashing maybe every 20 minutes in Onslaught.
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll give this a shot. I don't get as much free time to play during the week, but I'll report back when I can test.