Computer keeps taking me to desktop during gameplay

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

GRRRRRR!! I am SO sick of my damn comp taking me to desktop right in the middle of a game! If I'm playing Skyrim, it usually leaves my mouse cursor on the screen permanently, forcing me to exit and restart my game to get rid of it. This happens every day. Sometimes it happens 4 or 5 times a day.

I turned off my AV telling me when I get updates 'cause I thought that was it, but it doesn't seem to be an update thing. It always happens twice in a row. I'm playing a game, being happy, and then BAM! Desktop. I hurry up and click the screen on the bottom to bring it back up again ('cause if you're playing Mass Effect, the last thing you want is for that to happen right in the middle of a dogfight), and about 5-7 seconds later, BAM! Fuck**g desktop! That's another reason I thought it was an update thing. Most of the time I can see no reason whatsoever that I'm on the desktop. No messages of any kind. Even if I highlight icons to see what they're up to...it's not up to anything.

It seems that any message my comp gives me will do this too. If my printer wants to tell me that HP Photo Creations has a "special offer", BAM! Desktop. If my Photoshop has an update available, BAM! If I get any message from anything, BAM! Something's gotta give. :angry:

It's ruining game endings, battles, conversations, Skyrim SL anims, YouTube tutorials...everything.

Why in the world is this happening to me? How can I make the nightmare end?

Cynical Misanthrope · June 30, 2014

This happens to me as well, in SOME games. Skyrim is one of them and The Secret World is the other one. Only just on rarely occasions thou.

Make sure you don't have any "weird" process in the background running. Check the Task Manager for these.

June 30, 2014

Key association maybe? do you use any GUI overlays like rainmeter, windowblinds etc. do you use Raptr? like steam it has a key combo association which could interfere with a GUI Overlay or any other program of that type. I've had similar problems in the past and finally gave up on GUI overlays and replacers.

just throwing that out there, when it comes to windows it's like trying to find an electrical problem in a car with a probe light.

xgkf · June 30, 2014

My first suggestion would be to simply disable notifications from those and other programs.

Rayblue · June 30, 2014

Some programs that have themselves running on the System Tray can be configured not to load upon startup, or be closed. Shutting them off ensures that asides from not cutting off your playthrough, you also gain more memory.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

@H34d5h07:

TM says I'm running the game and nothing else.

@Mogie56:

I know nothing about GUI overlays, so...no? Never heard of the one's you mentioned. Heard of Raptr, but don't even know what that is.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

My first suggestion would be to simply disable notifications from those and other programs.

I thought I did. I have to manually right-click my programs not to check for updates. Thing is, I didn't have this problem until recently, and I always had auto-updating on for everything before. I only turned that off when this crap started happening.

As I said, sometimes these programs say they're not doing anything. Normally it'll say "downloading updates" or "installing updates", but that's not the problem anymore, or so it "seems".

xgkf · June 30, 2014

Look under the Processes tab, not Applications.

The processes listed there are all things that are running in the background (most of which are good/necessary, so don't flip out at how big the list is, lol).

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Some programs that have themselves running on the System Tray can be configured not to load upon startup, or be closed. Shutting them off ensures that asides from not cutting off your playthrough, you also gain more memory.

You know what? I'm about to just shut everything the fu*k off, and test, but to know it worked, I'd need to leave them off for a few hours. I'm not a fan of leaving Kaspersky, SuperAntSpyware and MalwareBytes off for any length of time, especially not hours. These programs never caused this before.

My printer had messages popping up about new features, and they were coming from my Startup folder, so I removed them, but I'll still get messages from it.

Sometimes I can see a reason (a bad reason, but a reason nonetheless) it happens, and sometimes I see no reason at all.

CoxcombCornking · June 30, 2014

I use GameBooster (free), and have it basically shut off every damn thing except for programs, etc. that the computer needs to run the frikkin game.

Turn it on. Turn it off.

It reads the CPU and Video card temperatures as well. (yeah, big deal)

Works for me, it takes no space, and it wasn't packed with malware, spyware, or whatever doucheware.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Look under the Processes tab, not Applications.

The processes listed there are all things that are running in the background (most of which are good/necessary, so don't flip out at how big the list is, lol).

Ummm...

Where the heck is it? It's always been there before. Did I press something that made it not there anymore? I hate anomalies!

Cynical Misanthrope · June 30, 2014

What xqkf said. Processes tab, not Applications.

// EDIT

Prolly something perverted stuff.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

I use GameBooster (free), and have it basically shut off every damn thing except for programs, etc. that the computer needs to run the frikkin game.

Turn it on. Turn it off.

It reads the CPU and Video card temperatures as well. (yeah, big deal)

Works for me, it takes no space, and it wasn't packed with malware, spyware, or whatever doucheware.

Sounds good to me!!

xgkf · June 30, 2014

O.o

That's odd. As an alternative, look under the Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools, and click on the "Resource Monitor" program.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

O.o

That's odd. As an alternative, look under the Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools, and click on the "Resource Monitor" program.

Processes:

Anything funny goin' on?

Lanfear · June 30, 2014

Ok try this; (don't worry, everything you do here can be reversed easily by... umm, by reversing it eezypeezy)

click on start menu

type in the search box: msconfig

click the startup tab

unclick every box except for keyboard and mouse programs

click apply and ok

disconnect from the internet (pull the wire from the pc)

EDIT: sry forgot; you need to restart your computer and it will start with all the programs you uncheck turned off

This turns off every program working in the background including your anti virus and firewall. Play your game and see if you get the ctd. If not then it is one of the programs fucking with you. So turn one on at a time and figure out which one it is.

The only other thing I can think of is that it could be a CODEC problem. Are you getting and window popping up saying: Active Movie Window or something like that?

If so I can give you instructions how to fix that problem

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Ok try this; (don't worry, everything you do here can be reversed easily by... umm, by reversing it eezypeezy)

click on start menu

type in the search box: msconfig

click the startup tab

unclick every box except for keyboard and mouse programs

click apply and ok

disconnect from the internet (pull the wire from the pc)

This turns off every program working in the background including your anti virus and firewall. Play your game and see if you get the ctd. If not then it is one of the programs fucking with you. So turn one on at a time and figure out which one it is.

The only other thing I can think of is that it could be a CODEC problem. Are you getting and window popping up saying: Active Movie Window or something like that?

If so I can give you instructions how to fix that problem

It's not a CTD, it's just like alt+tab, but thanks. I'll use this as a last resort.

No windows popping up about movies etc.

Cynical Misanthrope · June 30, 2014

To be honest, I can not find anything that looks sucpicous. Most stuff does look legit.

Lanfear · June 30, 2014

Listen, it has to be a process running in the background or you have a virus. MSCONFIG is the way you turn every process off so nothing is running in the background. Follow my instructions and restart your computer and play your game.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Listen, it has to be a process running in the background or you have a virus. MSCONFIG is the way you turn every process off so nothing is running in the background. Follow my instructions and restart your computer and play your game.

I'll try it soon, but not right away. This sounds like a 30 hour process. Remember, I usually have to play a game for an hour or 2 (or 3) before it sends me to desktop, so turning off everything and checking, then turning one thing on and playing for hours, then another thing and play for hours...that'll take an entire day.

I thank you for the help, but as I said, this'll be a last resort.

However, now that I'm looking at it does anyone recognize these?:

Andrea RT Filters Service - Andrea Electronics Corporation - Running
CryptoStorage control service - Infowatch - Running
FlexNet Licensing Service64 - Flexera Software LLC - Stopped
mental ray Satellite for Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 64-bit - Unknown - Running --> (mental ray Satellite!?)
MSI_ODD_Service - Micro-Star Int'l Co., Ltd. - Running
SoftThinks Agent Service - SoftThinks SAS - Running

These are the only ones I don't like. Anyone know wtf?

xgkf · June 30, 2014

No idea, but I'm 99% sure every one of them can be safely disabled.

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Only one way to find out. I'll go on a disabling frenzy tomorrow. This has to end.

Why are computers so damn tedious? Why do problems just happen, with no warning? Mods are enough of a troubleshooting time consumer, but this is bullshit.

Rogue_Kitsune · June 30, 2014

Not sure I'd completely agree with that; I just did a few quick searches on these - they all sound harmless, but at least a couple of them probably should be kept running.

Andrea RT Filters Service
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/Andrea_RT_Filters_Service-26327.html

Microphone related; should be harmless.

CryptoStorage control service
http://forum.kaspersky.com/lofiversion/index.php/t192894.html

Apparently related to Kaspersky; might actually be semi-important.

FlexNet Licensing Service64
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=131566
https://forums.adobe.com/message/2051289

A licensing thing from Adobe; sounds like it might not be the best bit of code out there, but its not malicious, and I don't think it should be related to your problem.

mental ray Satellite for Autodesk 3ds Max 2014

Has something to do with 3DS Max; I'm not familar with it, but it should be harmless.

MSI_ODD_Service
http://www.shouldiremoveit.com/MSI-ODD-Monitor-33796-program.aspx

Apparently its a driver for the CD drive? I dunno why it'd need it's own program, but, apparently its harmless. Couldn't hurt to try disabling it... but if your CD drive suddenly stops working, you should probably turn this back on, then.

SoftThinks Agent Service
http://www.shouldiblockit.com/sftservice.exe-14710.aspx

Part of a data-backup and recovery program, possibly from Dell; should be harmless. If you're not using any backup or recovery program, you can probably disable this; if you are, though, you should probably leave this on, if only just to be on the safe side.

Edit: I totally agree about troubleshooting being a pain in the ass. I went on a binge upgrading my desktop maybe a month or two ago... it took me a couple hours just to figure out that the new motherboard I'd bought didn't support Windows Vista. Had to upgrade to 7... and then it took me another couple hours to get everything working the way I wanted it to again (ironically, it took me longer to get Firefox back to looking the way I wanted it to than it did to restore the Windows taskbar to normal!) The joys of computers, eh?

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Thank you for your investigation. Definitely appreciate it. Things are starting to make at least a little bit of sense now.

All things considered, I may have a (gulp) virus. the things I listed are the only suspicious looking processes I saw. then again, a virus can be named whatever, so something not suspicious could be a wolf in sheeps clothing. (what's up with that term? sheep don't wear clothes ).

This whole thing gets solved tomorrow. I can't deal with more work today. Just need to relax for an hour or 2, and get some sleep. Unfortunately, that ain't gonna happen. Gotta go to Nexus and investigate lots of MO stuff right now. God I'm tired...

AwfulArchdemon · June 30, 2014

Thank you everyone for your help! Everyone responds so quickly. LL has the best support anywhere, I swear!

I'll jump on all this tomorrow. Can't read my 55" monitor anymore tonight without going blind. :cool:

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