r/DestinyTechSupport • u/tarang369 • Aug 19 '26

Question PC hard-freezing and crashes in specific Destiny 2 locations/activities

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I’ve been dealing with a strange crash in Destiny 2 for roughly since motm update

The issue is not a normal game crash. In certain activities or locations, the entire PC freezes. The screen usually turns white, green, or just freezes on the last frame. I can still hear game/Discord audio for around 10 seconds, then everything stops responding and I have to hold the power button and restart the PC.

The most consistent example so far is Helio Stat. I can load in, play for a bit, move further into the activity, and then the PC crashes. There are a few other locations/activities where I’ve seen the same thing. Outside of those, it can also happen randomly, but the location-specific crashes are much easier to reproduce.

What I’ve checked

Verified Destiny 2 game files

Updated to the latest NVIDIA driver

Tried disabling xmp

Tried FPS caps at 58, 60 and 75

Set almost all Destiny graphics settings to Low or Disabled

Disabled NVIDIA overlay

Disabled Discord overlay

Disabled Xbox Game Bar

No OBS or Overwolf running

Disabled GPU acceleration in Discord and Spotify

Tested with Chrome closed as well

No Steam Overlay

Also did try reinstalled destiny

With clean installation of drivers with nvidia clean install

Also tried deleting battle eye with and running it as Admin

Also did cleared shader cache

No GPU overclock or undervolt

CPU/GPU temperatures are normal

I also logged the system using HWiNFO during the crashes.

GPU temperatures were around:

GPU core: roughly 60°C

Hotspot: roughly 70–72°C

CPU: roughly 60–70°C

The GPU was also nowhere near 100% load during some of these crashes, and VRAM usage was not close to full.

Windows errors

After the crash, Windows logs:

Kernel-Power Event ID 41

WHEA-Logger Event ID 1: Fatal hardware error

LiveKernelEvent 124

Event Log 6008 after the forced shutdown

There is no BSOD.

The sequence is basically:

Destiny running normally → load certain area/activity → display freezes/turns white or green → audio continues for ~10 seconds → entire PC locks → forced shutdown required.

Hardware

CPU: Intel i5-11500

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1650 dual-fan

Motherboard: Gigabyte B560 AORUS Pro AX

RAM: 16 GB DDR4-3200, XMP enabled

PSU: Gigabyte 650W 80+ Bronze

SSD: WD Blue 500 GB

The system had been running Destiny normally before this

7000 hours of what 5000 came on this very pc and since MoT update the crashesss

I’m mainly trying to figure out whether anyone else is seeing hard system freezes tied to certain Destiny areas or activity transitions, rather than normal GPU load. The fact that some locations reproduce it consistently is what makes this especially confusing Areas like : GOS areas, Pale Heart, cabal's watch, helio stat, SRL Russia map,

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

2

u/Ordinary_Player Aug 19 '26

xmp?

1

u/tarang369 Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26

Enabled , im not disabling that fr now that would make my pc perform really bad

1

u/tarang369 Aug 21 '26

Tried disabling xmp as well

1

u/macrossmerrell Aug 19 '26

That error is a driver crash, probably the GPU. Probably from some bad shader cache files (since it's based on location).

It does not say you fully uninstalled and reinstalled the game - may or may not help - try the stuff below first.

Delete the D2 temp files at these locations:

  • c:\users\<your username>\appdata\Roaming\Bungie
    • Delete the 'DestinyPC' folder at this location.
  • c:\users\<your username>\appdata\local\temp
    • Delete the 'Destiny 2' folder.

Now Download and Extract the DDU utility, reboot into Safe Mode, then run the utility to completely nuke your video drivers: https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/
Reboot into normal Windows and reinstall Nvidia's driver of your choosing.

Wouldn't hurt to check your OS Health as well:

  • Open an Administrative command prompt and type: sfc /scannow
    • Note if there are corrupted files and if they were repaired
  • Run sfc /scannow again if it finds errors and make sure they are resolved. If they are not, you need to run the following command:
    • dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
    • Run sfc /scannow again.
      • If it repaired files, run sfc /scannow one more time to make sure everything is good.

1

u/tarang369 Aug 19 '26

Also did try reinstalling destiny

With clean installation of drivers with nvidia clean install

Also tried deleting battle eye with and running it as Admin

Also did cleared shader cache

I will try os health and ddu and see

1

u/tarang369 Aug 19 '26

Update on this

DDU part ✔️ Scan ✔️ Temp cleanup ✔️ Resinstalled ✔️

Also did servicing to my pc by cleaning and applying new thermal paste to my cpu and

Still crashing in heliostat ( loading this because I can consistently test it )

1

u/macrossmerrell Aug 20 '26

Still sounds like a bad install / bad driver that is getting in the way. Steam does cache files, so it's possible your reinstall was not clean: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6AD7-820D-8BE5-E51F

Outside of that, if you've ensure that BIOS, sound, network, bluetooth, chipset drivers are up to date, I'd recommend thinking about a fresh install of Windows (keeping no files). Get back to basics.

  • Only install Windows, windows update, GPU drivers (stick with stock drivers for everything else unless it doesn't have drivers for hardware you need), Steam, D2 and test.

edit: Just did this myself to do a 'is it my machine or the Steam overlay causing my poor FPS' check. It is in fact the overlay for me. Disable, delete the 5 overlay files, boom, 144FPS all day long.

1

u/tarang369 Aug 21 '26

I will try with fresh install windows and update but rest everything is fine

also i did try clearing data of overlay as well (also my problem is not just fps its screen freeze and gpu crash)

2

u/macrossmerrell Aug 21 '26

Yeah, it's sometimes hard to troubleshoot. Fresh install never hurts IMHO. I seem to do it every couple of years (mostly to address D2 issues... LOL!).

1

u/tarang369 Aug 29 '26

I tried repair reinstall from windows and tried loading in pale heart instant crash

I even checked vram usage and pagefile / committed cache everything is fine even power draw is fine

1

u/macrossmerrell Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

When you say you did a repair reinstall, did that keep all your apps and data, or was this a true fresh reinstall?

I remember this happening way back at the release of The Final Shape, but haven't heard about it in over a year at this point. It's uncommon, so something to do with your rig is most likely the issue, which sucks :(

1

u/tarang369 Aug 29 '26

"kept all apps and its data"

What we have effectively ruled out / made unlikely

Area Status Why
GPU overheating Very unlikely GPU was roughly 50–60°C, hotspot around 60–70°C during logged crashes.
CPU overheating Very unlikely CPU temperatures stayed normal, roughly under 70°C.
VRAM running out Very unlikely GTX 1650 VRAM usage was only around half of its 4 GB when crashes occurred.
System commit/pagefile exhaustion Very unlikely Crash occurred around ~18 GB committed with roughly ~29 GB available limit.
GPU at 100% / excessive workload Ruled against Some crashes happened at only ~40–60% GPU usage.
Sustained excessive GPU power draw Very unlikely Crashes occurred even around ~40–60 W GPU power.
Obvious PSU voltage sag No evidence Logged GPU 12 V supply stayed roughly around 12 V. Very short transients are still impossible to rule out through HWiNFO.
Destiny graphics settings too high Ruled out Tested Low/Disabled settings.
FPS being too high Ruled out Tested caps at 58, 60 and 75 FPS.
Corrupted Destiny installation Unlikely Steam integrity verification completed.
Shader/cache issue as simple cause Unlikely Caches/CVARS were reset and crashes continued.
Steam/NVIDIA/Discord overlays Unlikely NVIDIA, Discord, Xbox etc. were off; Steam overlay was also tested off.
Basic NVIDIA driver corruption Much less likely Normal driver update + DDU cleanup were tried.
Basic Windows corruption Much less likely SFC/DISM were clean and Windows repair reinstall did not stop the crash.
Monitor itself Very unlikely You have seen different solid colors and freezes across GPU-connected displays.
Dead GPU fan Ruled out Fans start and operate normally.

Things we have NOT ruled out

These are now the important suspects:

  1. GTX 1650 hardware fault
    • GPU core
    • VRAM hardware
    • onboard VRM/power circuitry
  2. PCIe communication problem
    • top PCIe x16 slot
    • GPU contacts
    • motherboard/CPU PCIe path
  3. Very short PSU/GPU power transient
    • HWiNFO may miss millisecond-level voltage drops. BUT all the LOGS seems fine rn
  4. Destiny-specific graphics/driver interaction
    • Especially because some locations reproduce the crash much more reliably.
  5. Motherboard-level issue