What is the reason and/or fix for UE5 (5.03 & 5.1) freezing my whole pc?

Alright, full system lockup happened again. This time it happened randomly when I left-clicked on a node in the MetaSound editor (maximized window).

So apparently doing a graphics driver full clean install (latest AMD version) and running chkdsk (with repair) on my SSDs didn’t help.

After four total lockups, all I’ve been able to narrow down so far is that:

  • It always happens while interacting with the Unreal Editor (UE5.1.1) itself - so far it hasn’t occurred in any other games or applications, or in packaged projects, or even in PIE mode (yet)
  • The system lock up is always the same phenomenon (frozen screen, input unresponsive, sound keeps playing, have to manually restart PC)
  • I have confirmed this editor log being output after every lockup: LogD3D12RHI: Warning: GPU timeout: A payload (0x0000080D3BD74600) on the [0x0000080D2A8D0A80, 3D] queue has not completed after 5.000000 seconds.

I guess next I’ll try the DefaultEngine.ini DX11 setting and see if that helps.
Edit: Changing to DX11 dramatically reduces my project’s framerate so unfortunately this isn’t an acceptable solution… Does anyone know a way to debug GPU crashes??

Edit: Looks like there are a lot of threads about GPU crashes in UE5. This one seems like it might be relevant so sharing it here: UE 5.1 gpu crashed or d3d device removed on AMD RX 6900 XT - #20 by SSLKGames - I’m going to try out this older driver version and see how it goes

This GPU memory leak report also seems like it could be quite relevant: GPU Dedicated Memory leak in DX12