My games keep minimizing randomly!

[Veltrix]

Help I am so annoyed and my PC has been plagued with this minimizing problem! This doesn't happen to just games also this happens to chrome and internet explorer! I have no antivirus program, just uninstalled Mcafee because that's what everyone else said in other forums but still keeps minimizing, I just did a clean up of all temp files and cleaned up all my missing DLL and fixed any registry errors but still no avail!! I have windows 7 64-bit with 8GB of ram so I don't have any ram issues. I think I've said enough but here are my specs and setup to make things a bit more clearer.

CPU: I7 2600K

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3

Video Card: EVGA GTX 560 Ti 448 classified ultra with 1280mb of video memory

Cooling: A noctua cooler forgot the name but I check and my temps are always at 60*C

PSU: OCZ ZX 850W 80 plus gold

Case: Zalman Z11 Plus w/ 2 USB 3.0

RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 1333Mhz 2x4GB ram

OS: Windows Home Premium 64-bit

My set-up is one BenQ GW2750 monitor as my main and a LG Flatron E2241 as my secondary monitor, I'm thinking the two monitors are overworking my graphics card but having the second monitor I used afterburner to check my card and it ran at a good 72-76*C and the memory usage was always at 1086mb average.

Can someone please help me with this minimizing problems, sometimes its really bad because when I pop the game back its broken or a huge error load to the games engine so I have to restart it and so its really annoying right now!

[Oby]

When problem started? (after new hardware, new software, etc)

[DvD92]

Do you have itunes installed? Happened to me a couple of times when itunes searches for an update.

[DvD92]

Try to manually update Itunes. If that dont't work try to reinstall it.

Although This problem might have nothing to do with itunes.

I did not try to reinstall, I just uninstalled it, because I have an mac and no use for it on my windows machine.

[Veltrix]

Try to manually update Itunes. If that dont't work try to reinstall it.

Although This problem might have nothing to do with itunes.

I did not try to reinstall, I just uninstalled it, because I have an mac and no use for it on my windows machine.

Oh I see but I have iTunes shut off, and never caused me any problems before even in my old PC never had a problem, well with the registry and DLL fixed it occurs less frequently now but still its annoying.

[ilyfrankh]

Do you have Xfire installed/running?

[Veltrix]

Do you have Xfire installed/running?

Nope never heard of it so don't have it and I double checked!

[BogRoll]

I've been having the same problem. I didn't upgrade any hardware or install any major new software, it just started to randomly minimize. All of my drivers are up to date and my system is stable. I haven't been able to find a solution yet.

[Veltrix]

I've been having the same problem. I didn't upgrade any hardware or install any major new software, it just started to randomly minimize. All of my drivers are up to date and my system is stable. I haven't been able to find a solution yet.

So far cleaning out the registry's and DLL's using a free program called CCleaner seems to reduce the minimizing problem and has become less frequent but it is still present and it been so annoying! I am flight simmer and when I leave a plane on autopilot on a long flight in the game damn it, it minimizes and the game automatically pauses and I am so pissed at that!!

[Oby]

Have you running latest GPU drivers? Also you can try scan PC with Malwarebytes.

One way how to pinpoint what causes problem is to use Process Monitor. Run it and right after game/app minimizes open process monitor and stop monitoring (file->Capture Events or use Ctrl+E). Then look at what was the latest running processes. You can use it many times to pinpoint what processes are always running right before app/game minimizes.

[Barodil]

Could your problem be Windows Aero? Mine randomly turned off and at the same time i got to desktop. Now I've set it up to deactivate automatically when I start my games (Optin for the .exe).

[DvD92]

Could your problem be Windows Aero? Mine randomly turned off and at the same time i got to desktop. Now I've set it up to deactivate automatically when I start my games (Optin for the .exe).

This^

Try right clicking on the games ".exe" go to the "compatability" tab and hook the "disable visual themes" and run the game, see if that helps :)

[DvD92]

Try right clicking on the games ".exe" enter "properties" go to the "compatability" tab and hook the "disable visual themes" and run the game, see if that helps

[Veltrix]

Try right clicking on the games ".exe" enter "properties" go to the "compatability" tab and hook the "disable visual themes" and run the game, see if that helps

Oh I never tried that but I will give that a try hopefully it works! and thanks for helping me out!

[Veltrix]

Have you running latest GPU drivers? Also you can try scan PC with Malwarebytes.

One way how to pinpoint what causes problem is to use Process Monitor. Run it and right after game/app minimizes open process monitor and stop monitoring (file->Capture Events or use Ctrl+E). Then look at what was the latest running processes. You can use it many times to pinpoint what processes are always running right before app/game minimizes.

I did try that because on another forum I found something like that and when I tried it I saw DLL and registries loading but it had an error and couldn't be found. So that's why I fixed them and restores all the error's and still it keeps happening! and oh yes I do have nVidia's latest driver. There ForceWare 310.70 always update there drivers.

[BogRoll]

Hey Veltrix,

I think I managed to solve the problem on my machine, I tried two things, one worked and another not so much. The first thing that I tried was to install a program called Razer Game Booster, it's designed to turn specific features in Windows off when you launch a game but it also has a diagnostic tool that will scan your system and show up any errors that your system has encountered. I tried running the program and it returned a few errors but the time stamps were wrong so I wasn't sure if those instances were causing my games to minimize.

What I did next was to play my games for a few hours, what a hard afternoon that was haha, until it minimized and straight after I wen't into Windows Event Viewer > Windows Logs >Application, and there I found an error which was being caused by a background process that was a part of AutoCAD, some downloader client nonsense. I got rid of it because I never ever needed the feature and the minimizing has stopped. I've no doubt that you'll have some different issue but this way of troubleshooting worked for me.

Best of luck with it mate.

[Raj8396]

I had that kinda problem, turned out there was a background program that was causing it. I don't have any idea what else can cause that, hope it helps

[Oby]

I also think that the problem is caused by some background software which is stealing focus and that's why I earlier suggested to use process monitor to detect which program is running just before game/browser minimizes.

[Oby]

Have you running latest GPU drivers? Also you can try scan PC with Malwarebytes.

One way how to pinpoint what causes problem is to use Process Monitor. Run it and right after game/app minimizes open process monitor and stop monitoring (file->Capture Events or use Ctrl+E). Then look at what was the latest running processes. You can use it many times to pinpoint what processes are always running right before app/game minimizes.

Look more back in the list because dll and registry entries don't load by themselves.

[Veltrix]

Hey Veltrix,

I think I managed to solve the problem on my machine, I tried two things, one worked and another not so much. The first thing that I tried was to install a program called Razer Game Booster, it's designed to turn specific features in Windows off when you launch a game but it also has a diagnostic tool that will scan your system and show up any errors that your system has encountered. I tried running the program and it returned a few errors but the time stamps were wrong so I wasn't sure if those instances were causing my games to minimize.

What I did next was to play my games for a few hours, what a hard afternoon that was haha, until it minimized and straight after I wen't into Windows Event Viewer > Windows Logs >Application, and there I found an error which was being caused by a background process that was a part of AutoCAD, some downloader client nonsense. I got rid of it because I never ever needed the feature and the minimizing has stopped. I've no doubt that you'll have some different issue but this way of troubleshooting worked for me.

Best of luck with it mate.

Wow thank you soooo much!!!! I finally found the error by doing that event viewer! I was playing Minecraft and it minimized and using that event viewer I found the service/program bonjour, an updater for apple programs to have error =.=.... no wonder its apple hahaha so I'm going to uninstall it and hope for the best and thanks so much for the help!!!

[Veltrix]

I had that kinda problem, turned out there was a background program that was causing it. I don't have any idea what else can cause that, hope it helps

Yes I found it was an updater from Apple called bonjour and it was corrupted or had an error uninstalled and no more minimizing!

[Veltrix]

I also think that the problem is caused by some background software which is stealing focus and that's why I earlier suggested to use process monitor to detect which program is running just before game/browser minimizes.

Yup it was a program that was trying to tell me to update or was trying to do an update but had an error so I uninstalled it and fixed everything!

[dgtL]

I have a triple monitor setup and I have major problems with this in BF3. Its not a program that is causing it it is when the game lets my mouse temporarily leave the main monitor and i click while its on the other screens. Ive found some things that have helped a little but im going nvidia surround on my new build so hopefully it wont be an issue.

[gamez]

hello

 

please dont lock this topic just because it was created some months ago...

 

i have the same problem, and searched for this program "razer game booster" as adviced by rogboll and confirmed by verltrix.

 

they said they have used the option "Windows Event Viewer > Windows Logs >Application" but i haven't found this option.

 

so i have tested "process explorer" as adviced by oby.

but process explorer logs thousands and thousands events during one or two seconds... i wonder how oby has found the right process among all these thousands events that were running at the same time...

 

 

[gamez]

if only rogboll, veltrix or oby could see this topic... ^^