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Windows 11 'Freeze' When Alt-Tabbing From Game

Anonymous
2022-05-09T18:31:36+00:00

Hey everyone,

I built a new PC about a month ago and just started running into an issue. I was playing a game (in this case, Valorant) and I went to alt-tab and as I tried to load my browser, my system 'froze.' I could still hear all the audio of the game, I could hear my friends in Discord and they could hear me as well. Even the in-game chat feature was apparently still working for me. However, my entire screen was 'frozen' where I couldn't click on anything in the taskbar (the icons were slightly highlighted as if they were frozen) and nothing would work. I would try resetting the GPU with Ctrl+Shift+Win+B and nothing would happen. The only way to get rid of the issue was to restart my computer with the power button.

I've since ran into this issue about 2 dozen times in the last week. I've tried rolling back my NVIDIA drivers, I've ran a memory check, virus scan (I literally don't do anything on this PC other than play games so virus is kind of out of the question), re-installed the game, etc. I really don't know what to do at this point. I checked the crash report and after a dozen times, the only 'error' that showed up was a "File Explorer" crash but that was after I spammed keyboard buttons after waiting for 15 minutes. What can I do?

Build:
i7-9700K

RTX 3070 TI

Corsair 32gb Vengeance RGB RAM

Gigabyte A4 MB

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-05-12T14:05:08+00:00

    Facing the same issues too. Random Alt + Tab from game and the system just froze. Audio still running and mouse cursor still working just can't click on anything.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-05-09T20:34:07+00:00

    Facing same issue, I even run games in Windowed mode, but still after random ALT+TAB, PC just froze and I can still hear sounds but nothing is working.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-05-29T20:08:27+00:00

    Hey, for everyone having the same issue: try to disable the "Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling" in the Windows settings. Here's an article for that.

    Don't know if it was that or a recent update (Windows/Drivers), but I'm no longer facing this issue for a few days now :)

    Credits to this reddit post

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-05-12T18:21:51+00:00

    I have the exact same issue like the thread op mentions. For me also with the game "VALORANT". First I couldn't really find what's the reason for this freeze, but tabbing out makes sense. It's really annoying. I made a full fresh clean install but even after that the problem persists.. Audio keeps running too and I can still talk through my mic. in Discord and even move the cursor sometimes but there is nothing I can do except holding the power button. So exactly the same issue metioned above.

    Software
    Windows 11 Pro (version 21H2)
    GeForce Game Ready-Driver version 512.59

    Build:
    AMD Ryzen 5 3600

    RTX 2070 SUPER

    Corsair 16gb Vengeance RGB RAM 3200MHz

    MSI B450 Tomahawk Max II

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-09-09T12:01:59+00:00

    Hey AlifHakel243, Can you find another way to fix it?

    I just turn off Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling but is still happen :(

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