Iris Xe causes Minecraft to crash

[KrimsonKatt]

Hello. Recently, whenever I play Minecraft the entire game crashes and sometimes Steam or even my entire PC along with it. (black screen of death.) Error messages say I need to update my graphics drivers, but my drivers are already updated to the latest version. I have tried everything to stop the crashes from installing earlier versions of my drivers to deleting certain files to using different Minecraft launchers. I've tried everything, but nothing works. I contacted the support page for the main Minecraft launcher I use, Badlion, and they said that the issue specifically was with my graphics card which happens to be Iris Xe, and not with the launcher or Minecraft. I have no idea what to do as I want to keep playing my favorite game, but I can't when the game keeps crashing my entire computer and causing black screens of death whenever I try to play, all thanks to this weird issue with my drivers. Please fix this issue as soon as possible. I would replace my graphics card, but I can't actually do that since I have a pre-built laptop and not a modifiable PC. Please help me!

[RobbieR_Intel]

Hello KrimsonKatt,

Thank you for reaching out and providing all the details. I can see that you've tried multiple troubleshooting steps.

Please generate an SSU report to help me further analyze important details on your system. To generate the SSU report, please refer to the article: How to get the Intel® System Support Utility Logs on Windows*. Please send us the generated SSU.txt file.

Kindly answer the following questions:

• To confirm, does the BSOD occur only while playing Minecraft, or have you noticed it happening with other games or software as well?
• Have you monitored your CPU, GPU, and RAM utilization while gaming to see if anything spikes right before the crash?
• Does the crash happen after a specific amount of gameplay, or is it random?
• Have you played Minecraft with lower graphic settings to see if the problem persists?
• Can you share the exact error message you're seeing before the crash?

We look forward for your response!

Best Regards,

Robbie R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[RobbieR_Intel]

Hello KrimsonKatt,

I wanted to check if you had the chance to review the questions I posted. Please let me know at your earliest convenience so that we can determine the best course of action to resolve this matter. 

Best regards,

Robbie R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[KrimsonKatt]

Hello. I did some of the things you asked and it turns out my graphics settings for Minecraft were too high and it ended up causing issues for my graphics card due to some weird incompatibility error between my graphics card, the launcher I was using, that mods I had installed, and Minecraft in general. When I changed Minecraft's graphics settings to "fast" rather than "fancy", the crashes largely stopped and now only happen very rarely. So as of now, the problem is now fixed! As for your other questions:

1: What I got when playing Minecraft wasn't a "BSOD" of "Blue Screen of Death", it was a "Black Screen of Death" where my entire computer screen goes black outside my mouse, which I cannot move, all inputs become unresponsive including Control+Alt+Delete, and all the UI like the start menu, bottom bar, and all problems go black. The only thing I can do at this point is restart my computer manually be pressing and holding the power button. This phenomenon is NOT a BSOD because the frowning windows face on a blue screen doesn't happen, my entire screen just goes black minus my mouse cursor which is immobile. Since I lowered the graphics settings on Minecraft, this no longer happens even when the game crashes, which has only happened once in the 30+ hours I've played since I lowered the settings.

2: The GPU, RAM, CPU, and framerate do not spike right before the crash. However, the game does freeze completely right before the game crashes. So far since I've lowered the settings the game has only crashed once and with none of the previous side effects liking closing steam and all related games or causing everything to go black.

3: The crashes seemed random. Sometimes I could play for upwards of 30 minutes without a crash, while other times the game crashed within only 2. Since I lowered the graphics settings the game only crashed once, and it was only soon after I loaded in while I was checking my minions in Hypixel Skyblock. I think it was right after I walked over a block where cobblestone used to be?

4: When playing with lower graphics settings the crashes basically never happen. Only one crash occured in 30 hours of gameplay, so safe to say the issue it fixed and all I needed to do was lower the graphics settings.

5: The Error message was something like "Intel Drivers are out of date. Please update them by following this link: link". The link led to a tutorial page on my launcher's website on how to update drivers, which I already did multiple times.

I did generate an SSU report, but I don't think it's needed anymore due to the problem already being fixed by lowering graphics settings. But just in case the SSU report is featured below. Thanks for the help!

[RobbieR_Intel]

Hello KrimsonKatt,

Thank you for keeping us updated. I'm glad that the issue has been resolved.

Since the issue is now fixed, I will now close this inquiry. 

If you need further assistance, please post a new question as this thread will no longer be monitored.

Best Regards,

Robbie R.

Intel Customer Support Technician