G73JH and weird STEAM issue.

Hello,

While ago I recieved my completely fresh G73JH, and I absolutely felt in love with this machine. First thing I did, was removing some ty asus software, then safely uninstaling stock radeon drivers and getting in the beta 8.74 ones.

Next thing I did was downloading and installing steam software. I simply couldn't wait to try all the games I've ordered, like Bad Company 2 or GTA 4.

The problem is... That steam is running flawlessly, but I just can't install anything. When I'm clicking 'install game', steam just shuts down. It freezes and I get standard win7 error mesage.

I'm running at i720m, 8gb, 5870, full hd and win7 64 pro software.

Could you help me with this issue? I have totally no idea what's wrong, everything is brand new, from hardware to software inside.

What might be wrong?

I deeply appreciate your feedback...

 

I would try the stuff I wrote below in order. Try to download games after each one and see what it does/report it back here. Please take a screen shot of the standard win7 error and post it up in here if this stuff doesn't work. You could also check your event log (ask if you don't know how to do this) and see if it tells you anything.

Are you running any anti-virus software, if so cut it off.

Turn your windows or any other firewall off.

Try uninstalling steam, make sure the directory is gone, reboot, then download and re-install steam (don't use the same .exe you first downloaded).

Try downloading something other then a game, like a trailer off of steam and see if it crashes doing that.

 

Is this another Creative issue with Steam?

 

I guess that's possible too.

 

So I tried all steps you wanted me to, and it didn't worked. Quite a few reinstalls and steam is still crashing when I'm trying to install games.. and demos. Videos are downloading fine.

The error can be visible here, don't worry, it's a safe place (my very own server).

http://no-such.org/error.jpg

Error message unofortunaley is in polish, but it simply means that steam stopped working and windows is looking for solution.

This is very depressing.

 

My advice to you?

Uninstall everything that has to do with Creative Labs.

I was having same issues - as soon as I would load steam, everything would freeze, and I would have to do a forced shutdown.

Since I have removed ALL Creative software, all problems are gone.

There are a few threads in these forums dealing with the same issue.

 

All right, I'm trying to get creative stuff out.

 

Man, it's late as heck there right now!

Can you go back to the other Steam window style instead of the Beta? I haven't tried this beta as the last one they had messed my junk ALLLL up. You might try reverting back to the default CCC and seeing if it helps your situation?

 

Oh it's not that late, my system clock isn't fixed yet, it's 16.45 at the moment

 

I am running the new steam window....... I believe it is no longer beta, but the full version.

And I am running it with no problems.

 

As of this past weekend it was still asking me if I wanted to try it on my new laptop (beta). It may be full release now but it hasn't forced me to install it on either my laptop or my gaming desktop. I think you're right though, it probably is his creative stuff. That is definitely a weird one.

 

So I wiped out all creative software and my problem still exist. On the screenshot below you can find currently installed software on my machine:

http://no-such.org/error2.jpg

I think I'll try to run any non-steam 3D game and see if it works or not. Since everything is new, I strongly believe that there's a solution to
my problem and with your kindness we can actually find it.

 

I would still try reverting back to the older ATI drivers as well, just to see if it's messing with it at all.

Oh, and this may sound silly... But did you restart after uninstalling the Creative sound stuff?

 

Yeah I'm restarting after everything ;-) All right, I'll go back to the old drivers and update in a moment.

 

Ok...it seems you do not have too much software installed on your computer yet.

Do you have discs to do a full system recovery?

If you do, I would advise you do a full system recovery, then uninstall creative software FIRST, before installing any other software.

As I said, this solution of uninstalling Creative software has worked for me and others, who were also having freezes when running Steam.

Other than this, I am really at a loss as what else to suggest.

 

Actually it might be 8.74 beta drivers problem, because just cause 2 installed from dvd seems to behave exactly the same way. So it looks that I can't run any 3D game atm.

I'm going back to 10.1 drivers and post the results later.

 

Erm... No matter what package I choose... 10.1, 10.3... It installs catalyst install manager and some transcode stuff ONLY. No display driver, looks like it does not detect my 5870m at all. There are two solutions possible -> I'm so tired after work that my brain is currently in terminal phase, or there's something very bad going on.

 

Maev........just do a full system recovery. This will set everything back to how the computer shipped.

You can then uninstall Creative software, and other software you do not need.

Then you can install Steam, and see whether it works, BEFORE you start messing with any beta drivers.

Just my suggestion.

 

Time to do a recovery or system restore to before you loaded the beta on it!

LoL, beat me to it Stubbornswiss!

 

All right, doing recovery now.

 

When I'm trying to initalize the recovery mode, I'm getting this kind of error:

Status: 0xc000000e

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible. I think that means I do not
have recovery partition.

I guess I need to reinstall Windows 7.

The question is, why the beta's are working for everyone, I did everything safe (with drive sweeper and so on), and stil it failed.

 

Maev.........SLOW DOWN!!!

If you do not have a recovery partition, you should be able to make recovery discs. Did you make these yet?

At this stage, I would definitely advise you try and do a system recovery first. That way, you are getting the machine back to a "reference point".

Looks to me you are now doing a whole lot of trial and error....... and we know this can lead to more problems.

 

Steam is just plain weird just like Valve is...

 

Thanks for your patience stubbronswiss and you are right, I'm a reckless a bit. Well let me straight up things now. I haven't done any recovery or reinstall yet, I'll create the disk in a second or two.

The thing is, that I managed to uninstall ati tray tools and steam works perfectly now, games are downloading and just cause 2 works flawlessly as well, on the beta drivers. It's totally jawdropping, but keep in mind that I came from Radeon 9800 era gaming. So I almost shat my pants, to be perfectly clear.

But.

There's another issue that flew on, I can't hear any sound at all. I think it might be related with creative stuff which went back right after reversing changes to the ones from few hours ago.

I'm not sure if the recovery or reinstall is needed at this point, I think I just need to deal with no sound issue.

What do you think? Thanks for your help and first of foremost - angelic patience.

EDIT: I fixed the sound issue, it was the fault of ati hdmi audio. Everything works great now. Not idea why. Seriously.

 

No problem at all. Glad to hear everything is working now.

Happy gaming!