Trying to Fix My Son’s PC, Keeps Crashing During Games

Effective Strategies for Troubleshooting Gaming Crashes on a Windows PC

Understanding and resolving gaming-related crashes can be challenging, especially if you’re not a tech expert. Recently, a user shared their experience with a pre-built gaming PC encountering stability issues during intensive gaming sessions. Below, we compile a comprehensive guide to diagnosing and addressing similar problems, based on this real-world scenario.

Scenario Overview

The user’s PC, purchased from iBUYPOWER in 2021, began crashing randomly during demanding games such as Skyrim, The Witcher 3, and Splinter Cell: Blacklist. These crashes typically occurred after 15-30 minutes of gameplay, without any specific error messages. Attempts to resolve the issue included driver rollbacks and system tweaks, but the problem persisted.

Key Details of the System

Operating System: Windows 11 (version 24H2)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B560 DS3H AC-Y1 (BIOS version F4; attempts to update to F15b and F14 failed)
CPU: Intel Core i7-11700F (11th generation, 2.5 GHz)
RAM: 16 GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
Graphics Driver: Updated to latest (576.80), then rolled back to earlier version (511.79)

Troubleshooting Steps and Insights

Adjusting Graphics Settings
Disabling Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling: Turning this feature off temporarily stabilized some games, allowing longer gameplay without crashes. However, crashes resumed with certain titles like Splinter Cell: Blacklist after about an hour.
Updating BIOS
Attempted BIOS Update: The user downloaded the latest BIOS version from Gigabyte’s official website, prepared a USB drive, and attempted to upgrade via Q-Flash.
Encountered Errors: During the BIOS update, an “Invalid BIOS read” error occurred around 25% completion. Post-failure, the system displayed a “BOOT read” error but continued to boot Windows normally once acknowledged.
Further Attempts: Using earlier BIOS versions also failed to update, leaving the system with BIOS F4.
Driver Management
Graphics Drivers: Multiple versions tested—latest and older—did not resolve the crashes, indicating the issue may not be directly related to GPU drivers.
Game Launchers and Optimization Settings
The problematic games were launched via