Steam causing PC to crash in Windows 11

Steam is one of the popular gaming platforms for gamers. It has a large pool of both free-to-play and paid games. If Steam stops working or you experience issues with Steam Client, it can create trouble because you cannot play any Steam games until you fix the issue. In this article, we will talk about one such issue with the Steam Client. If Steam is causing your PC to crash in Windows 11, use the fixes provided in this article to resolve the problem.

Fix Steam causing PC to crash in Windows 11

According to the reports, the PC crashes whenever users launch the Steam Client or a Steam game. So, if Steam is causing your PC to crash in Windows 11, the following fixes will help you resolve the issue.

Monitor your PC temperature
Monitor your RAM usage
Check your RAM health
Run the chkdsk scan
Disable Steam Overlay
Clear Steam cache files
Troubleshoot in a Clean Boot state
Reinstall your graphics card driver
Use the Driver Verifier
Uninstall and reinstall the affected game or Steam Client

Let’s see all these fixes in detail.

1] Monitor your PC temperature

This is the first thing that you should do to troubleshoot this problem. If your computer crashes sometime after launching a Steam game, we suggest you monitor your PC temperature. High PC temperature can cause a PC to crash and sometimes a BSOD error. You can use free temperature monitor software for CPU and GPU.

2] Monitor your RAM usage

We also suggest you monitor your RAM usage after you launch the Steam Client or a Steam game. The problem can be caused due to a memory leak. Memory Leak happens when a program incorrectly manages the computer memory. A Memory Leak can degrade the system’s performance and cause frequent freezing or crashing issues. If Steam or any Steam game is causing the memory leak, some of its files might have been corrupted. In this case, you need to uninstall the affected application and download and install its latest patch from the official website.

3] Check your RAM health

One possible cause of this issue is the bad RAM. Frequent crashing issues are one of the signs of faulty RAM. We suggest you test the health of your RAM. This will let you know whether the problem is associated with it. You can use the built-in tool in Windows, Memory Diagnostic Tool. If you have more than one RAM stick, one of them might be faulty.

4] Run the chkdsk scan

Hard disk errors can also cause applications to fail. Running the chkdsk scan can fix the problem if the issue occurs due to hard disk errors.

5] Disable Steam Overlay

Sometimes Steam Overlay causes issues. We suggest you disable Steam Overlay to check if it is the culprit. If a Steam game is crashing your PC, you can try this fix. Disable Steam Overlay before launching the game and then see if this fixes the problem.

6] Clear Steam cache files

Clear Steam cache files and see if it helps. Open the Run box, type the following and hit Enter:

steam://flushconfig

This will delete your Steam download cache and log you out. Restart Steam and see.

7] Troubleshoot in a Clean Boot state

A problematic background application or service might be the culprit of this problem. To check this, you have to troubleshoot in a Clean Boot state. Once, you enter the Clean Boot state, launch Steam or a Steam game and see if it crashes your system. If the issue does not occur in the Clean Boot state, you need to identify which application or service is creating a conflict with Steam and causing your system to crash.

Enable some of the third-party background applications and services and restart your system. Now launch Steam to see if the issue reappears, In this way, you can identify the culprit. Once you find the culprit, uninstall it and install its latest version from the official website.

8] Reinstall your graphics card driver

Graphics card plays an important role when it comes to playing video games on a Windows computer. A corrupted graphics card driver can also cause your system to crash. We suggest you reinstall your graphics card driver by completely uninstalling it. You can use the DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to completely remove your GPU driver.

9] Use the Driver Verifier

By default, Windows blocks the installation of unsigned drivers because this can pose a security threat and also cause issues on a computer. However, you can disable the Driver Signature Enforcement to install the unsigned drivers on your system. We suggest you use the Driver Verifier Manager on your system to detect if there are any unsigned drivers.

In addition to this, we also suggest you check the status of drivers in the Device Manager. If any driver shows a warning sign, uninstall it and restart your PC.

10] Uninstall and reinstall the affected game or Steam Client

If the problem occurs with only a particular Steam game and despite trying the above fixes, the problem still occurs. There might be some corrupted files of the game. Uninstalling and reinstalling the affected game can help. We also suggest you uninstall and reinstall the Steam Client.

That’s it.

Why are my Steam games crashing on Windows 11?

There can be many reasons why the Steam games keep crashing on your Windows 11 PC. Some of these include corrupted graphics card drivers, corrupted game files, overclocked GPU or CPU, conflicting background applications, etc.

Is Windows 11 not stable for gaming?

Windows 11 is stable for gaming. Gaming issues depend on many factors. The most important factor for a smooth gaming experience is supported hardware. Therefore, before purchasing a game, it is important to read its system requirements.