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Steam Link "freezes" in menus
I've got my Steam Link connected via a wired connection using Ethernet over Powerline. It's really, REALLY responsive when playing games. I finished Portal and Portal 2 with it, and Fallout 3 works great. However fairly often (probably once every 2-3 times I play games), the picture freezes when I'm in an in-game menu.

This happened in Portal. Pressing Start to save or load a previous game would cause the picture to freeze until I pressed Start again to return to the game. Then the picture would instantly resume. Half Life 2 was the same,

In Fallout 3, opening Pip-Boy works, but looting boxes and enemies freezes the picture, plus pressing Start to save or load a game freezes the screen. The audio still runs, and I can navigate menus "blind", but as soon as I exit the menu, the picture returns.

And it's not a temporary thing either. I can pause the game, wait 5+ minutes, and the image still won't unfreeze. If I press the Home button (I'm using an Xbox 360 wireless controller), the picture immediately unfreezes when the Steam Overlay pops up.

Other times when I play games, everything works brilliantly. I can navigate menus, and everything is 100% responsive.

Any clues as to what's going on?

EDIT: I'm running Windows 10, 64 bit, 16gb RAM, AMD Radeon 6700 series card (drivers up to date). No antivirus (except Windows Defender), nothing that I can see that would cause this kind of thing to happen. Haven't tried WiFi connection yet, but not very hopeful for that.
Last edited by Grayda; Jan 4, 2017 @ 7:42am
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
william A.
Jan 3, 2017 @ 1:04am 
that is strange i owned a steam link and i never had seen a thing like that before
#1
Grayda
Jan 3, 2017 @ 7:00pm 
I wonder if it has something to do with the "Streaming desktop" option in Steam Link -- that Steam Link thinks that menus and such are "the desktop"? Not sure why it only happens once every 2-3 times, but I'll switch on the desktop streaming option and see if that fixes it.

EDIT: Nope, didn't make a bit of difference. Started the game, menus didn't work. Quit the game and went back in, the menus worked. Exited, went back in again, menus worked, then steadily got worse.

Turned on performance overlay. Got told slow network (no surprises there, given my EoP adapter is fairly slow), but the graph chugged away happily like always.

Not sure what to try from here, except running stuff as administrator and quitting various background processes.
Last edited by Grayda; Jan 4, 2017 @ 7:06am
#2
Grayda
Jan 8, 2017 @ 7:52am 
I think it might have something to do with the resolution.. maybe. I dropped my resolution down from 1920x1080 and got marginally better results.

I would have thought that dropping the res would have made a difference to the game, and not the menu.

On top of all this, I've now discovered that the image freezes when loading Big Picture, unless I drop the resolution. I'll see the start of the "bubbles" animation that appears, then it'll freeze there, with the audio continuing in the background.

In the next few months we'll hopefully be getting NBN (Australia's Benny Hill-esque attempt at fast internet) and with that will come a new modem. So perhaps that'll help.

But I'd still like a solutionn, or at least to know WHY it's doing what it's doing.
#3
takuan
Jan 8, 2017 @ 8:55am 
My steamlink freezes every half minute for 2 seconds - only via (gbit) ethernet. Connected via wlan there ist no freezing. I think there ist some steamlink problem with the ethernet connections or a compatibility issue with my ethernet switch, Try wireless if you get enough speed or try to change the ethernet cable or switch.
Last edited by takuan; Jan 8, 2017 @ 8:57am
#4
Striggle Sal
Aug 30, 2025 @ 11:36am 
EDIT: It's an AMD Driver issue. Updating the graphics drivers to the latest version worked. I believe we're using 25.3.1 at the time of this comment fixed it!

Hey man I know this is an 8 year old thread at this point but did you ever come to a solution?

It's the strangest thing. When I stream to the Steam Link from my pc it's never had any issues, but all of a sudden my gf tries to stream from hers and she has the exact same problem you did. Whenever there's a menu or "pop up" in game the stream freezes and only the stream because the game itself is fine on her pc in the other room.

To add to this she also uses an AMD card, while I have an NVIDIA, so it may be from that? I believe she uses the AMD RX 7900 GRE

Tried multiple solutions like disabling hardware encoding in steam settings, and disabling Hardware Accelerated Graphics Scheduling in Windows with no luck.
Last edited by Striggle Sal; Sep 1, 2025 @ 12:56pm
#5
Coffee
Aug 31, 2025 @ 1:53pm 
Originally posted by Striggle Sal:
Hey man I know this is an 8 year old thread at this point but did you ever come to a solution?

It's the strangest thing. When I stream to the Steam Link from my pc it's never had any issues, but all of a sudden my gf tries to stream from hers and she has the exact same problem you did. Whenever there's a menu or "pop up" in game the stream freezes and only the stream because the game itself is fine on her pc in the other room.

To add to this she also uses an AMD card, while I have an NVIDIA, so it may be from that? I believe she uses the AMD RX 7900 GRE

Tried multiple solutions like disabling hardware encoding in steam settings, and disabling Hardware Accelerated Graphics Scheduling in Windows with no luck.

Encoding is fine. The one causing such issue is the decoding. Had same issue when I used my physical steam link again recently for fun. You need to adjust settings in it too, not just for the host pc on windows. This apply to physical OR software of steam link.
#6
Striggle Sal
Sep 1, 2025 @ 12:56pm 
Originally posted by Coffee:
Originally posted by Striggle Sal:
Hey man I know this is an 8 year old thread at this point but did you ever come to a solution?

It's the strangest thing. When I stream to the Steam Link from my pc it's never had any issues, but all of a sudden my gf tries to stream from hers and she has the exact same problem you did. Whenever there's a menu or "pop up" in game the stream freezes and only the stream because the game itself is fine on her pc in the other room.

To add to this she also uses an AMD card, while I have an NVIDIA, so it may be from that? I believe she uses the AMD RX 7900 GRE

Tried multiple solutions like disabling hardware encoding in steam settings, and disabling Hardware Accelerated Graphics Scheduling in Windows with no luck.

Encoding is fine. The one causing such issue is the decoding. Had same issue when I used my physical steam link again recently for fun. You need to adjust settings in it too, not just for the host pc on windows. This apply to physical OR software of steam link.


I actually ended up finding the solution after about an hour of googling. It was indeed due to AMD's graphics software. Updating the graphics drivers to the latest version. I believe we're using 25.3.1 at the time of this comment fixed it!
#7
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Steam Link > General Discussions > Topic Details
Date Posted: Jan 2, 2017 @ 10:53pm
Posts: 7
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