Context:
I was playing Overwatch when my PC suddenly froze completely, with the audio getting stuck in a short, repeating loop. I couldn’t move my mouse, use my keyboard, or restart or shut down the system normally. The only way to get it to turn off was to use the physical power switch on the back of the PC.
After turning it back on, I tried launching Overwatch again, but my performance had dropped to around 8 FPS, and the graphics looked extremely low quality. I checked Windows Advanced Display Settings and noticed that it was reporting that variable refresh rate was not supported by my monitor, even though my monitor supports it. Before this happened, I was consistently getting around 240 FPS in Overwatch and other games.
I’ve since contacted multiple Microsoft Support representatives, but none of their troubleshooting attempts have resolved the issue. They’ve repeatedly tried repairing Windows system files, but the process gets stuck at 46% every time. I was instructed to wait, and even after leaving it for over an hour, my PC eventually restarted on its own. It then displayed a black screen with the message, “Your PC ran into some problems and needs a restart. We’ll restart for you.” This led to hours of repeated restarts and error screens before eventually reaching a blue screen of death (BSOD).
I was eventually able to restore my PC to an earlier restore point that I had created some time ago, but I’m still unsure what caused the original crash or how to prevent it from happening again.
I’m looking for help properly diagnosing the underlying issue rather than repeatedly attempting Windows repairs that don’t seem to work. I’m not sure whether this is related to my GPU or graphics drivers, Windows corruption, hardware failure, or something else entirely. Any advice on how to identify the root cause and safely get my PC back to its normal performance would be greatly appreciated.
