You logged into Valorant, excited to get into a ranked game… you wait for a match to be fixed, and after a few seconds, a match has been found. You are in the Agent Selection screen, and you immediately locked into your favourite agent – for me, it is Omen, and when you heard the ‘locked in’ sound effect (a deep clacking), and then suddenly, your screen turn black… the background music is still playing. The voices and sound of messages still can be heard. Unfortunately for you… you can do nothing. There is nothing appearing on your monitor, and after a while, you get kicked back into your Windows desktop with a pop-up window “Graphics driver crashed. Make sure your graphics drivers are up to date“. (TLDR version at the bottom)
This has been my experience for a year. I have tried EVERY available fix to address this problem. It was frustrating because I have actually lost an ‘alternate’ account for excessive AFKs (Away From Keyboard) – the penalty is 100 years. It is ridiculous. I should put the screenshot here but it is really not worth it. At this point, you SHOULD search on YouTube some of the common fixes – some of them would be as follows:
- Update Graphics Drivers
Check for the latest drivers from the graphics card manufacturer’s website (e.g., NVIDIA, AMD, Intel).
Install the latest driver version, as this can include bug fixes and optimizations for newer games.
Consider using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) to completely remove old drivers before reinstalling new ones. This can help if previous driver updates left remnants that cause conflicts. - Roll Back Driver Update
If the issue started after a recent driver update, consider rolling back to a previous stable version of the driver.
This can be done through the Device Manager:
Open Device Manager, find your display adapter, right-click, and choose Properties.
Go to the Driver tab and select Roll Back Driver. - Adjust In-Game Settings
Lowering graphics settings such as resolution, texture quality, or turning off features like anti-aliasing can reduce the load on your GPU.
If the crash is due to overloading the GPU, this might stabilize the performance.
You can also enable V-Sync to prevent the GPU from overworking by capping the frame rate to the refresh rate of your monitor. - Check for Windows Updates
Sometimes, Windows updates include important graphics driver compatibility updates.
Go to Settings > Update & Security > Check for updates and install any pending updates. - Disable Overclocking
If you have overclocked your GPU or CPU, try returning it to its default clock speeds.
Overclocking can cause instability in games, especially if the overclock is not perfectly stable. - Check for Temperature Issues
Monitor your GPU temperatures using tools like HWMonitor or MSI Afterburner.
If your GPU is running hot (typically above 85°C), the driver may crash as a protective measure.
Ensure that your PC has proper ventilation and that the GPU fans are functioning correctly.
Clean out any dust from your GPU and case. - Change Power Management Settings
Adjust your power management settings in the graphics control panel:
For NVIDIA: Open the NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D settings > Change Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance.
For AMD: Open the AMD Radeon Settings > Graphics > Change Power Efficiency settings. - Verify Game Files / Reinstall the Game
Corrupted game files can sometimes cause crashes. Use the game client’s verify integrity feature (e.g., Steam, Epic Games).
If verifying does not work, try reinstalling the game. - Update DirectX and Visual C++ Redistributables
Ensure that DirectX and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables are up-to-date, as these are critical for game functionality.
You can download the latest versions directly from the Microsoft website. - Reinstall Graphics Drivers in Safe Mode
If regular driver installation doesn’t work, you can use Safe Mode to install drivers.
Boot into Safe Mode, uninstall current drivers using DDU, then install the latest drivers.
I actually tried all of these and more – watched all types of Youtube videos that specifically names Valorant as the main game where crashes happen. And nothing works.
One thing did work: The funny thing is – a random comment on Reddit said that the problem was resolved when the user unplugged the charger from the laptop. And you know what? For the first time in months, I did not crashed at the “Agent Select” screen! However, here is the problem – I have already lowered all the graphic settings to the lowest possible and yet running on battery would only allow me to play a full match before I needed to charge the laptop again. It was not good enough for me. Whenever I start charging the laptop, there is a 50-50 chance of crashing! I tried limiting the charge level to 50-55% (a feature that Lenovo Vantage allows). But that did not help much as well. There was a time when I could actually go through a day’s gaming without a single crash (very, very rare) but the unpredictability was really traumatic. Whenever there was a crash, it would take me 2 full minutes to restart the laptop (force shutdown) and to login into the Riot Servers. I blamed Riot for this at first – as there were just so many players having such a problem – and there was a season in the previous Acts where the number of players who suddenly went AFK or had connection problems at the start of matches were ridiculously high. But as time went on – I suspected the problem was in the graphics card… specifically the laptop model.
I did more research and found that this specific model – Ideapad Gaming 3 with GTX1650ti had many overheating problems. The unplugging of the power adapter confirmed this. Even though I have adjusted the power plan from Windows and from NVIDIA’s driver app, the problem was not software but hardware. It had no ability to run its original clock speed without overheating and forcing a crash. The only way I could verify this is to lower down the graphics card core clocks. And here is the wonderful software that allows for that – MSI AFTERBURNER! This free app is a MUST HAVE. I tested lowering the core clocks by 300Mhz and memory clock by 100Mhz and voila… it worked! I hit the sweet spot for my machine. No more crashes AT ALL.
Things to note: every machine problem is different even though it may have the same hardware within. This is just how things are in the computer world. I tried a soft 100Mhz underclocking and it still crashed. Tune it until you have a good balance of performance and stability. The best thing about MSI Afterburner is the ability to apply these profile at startup. I had two crashes that were caused by my own mistakes – after hibernation you need to reapply the underclock profiles as it resets to default after waking up. Yes… set Afterburner to auto start.
TLDR: Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 with GTX1650ti is prone to graphics card problems/defects after some time. If the common fixes doesn’t work in preventing graphics driver crashes, try MSI AFTERBURNER and underclock your core clock by multiples of 100Mhz. Problem Solved!
