hl2.exe has stopped working

Since last FNF, I've been screwed with this crash. Something must have happened at one of the recent updates that's causing issues for my computer. It seems like every time I get on and kill someone, the game dies for me. I was able to idle on a server for a half-hour with no issue, but once I joined our server, I crashed out in less than 30 seconds. What a headache.

Hopefully Valve fixes this before week's end, I've seen other people on their forums complaining about the same thing. I'm running Vista 32 with an ATI HD4850 video card. Maybe I'll upgrade to an Nvidia card w/ Windows 7 sooner rather than later?

You could try a complete uninstall and reinstall and see what happens...
Have you defragged your TF2 files lately? That would by my first try...

I'll try the defrag, that seems simple enough. Uninstall / Reinstall...is there an easy way to do that through Steam?

I'll probably be updating the video card, OS and RAM anyways...it's cheap enough and will allow me to play BF3 Still sucks that I'll likely be down this Friday if something hasn't changed.

I've been getting constant crashes since this past Halloween event, hence why I haven't been playing lately.

I join a server.... CRASH.
I change my class.......CRASH.
I change my loadout......CRASH.
I kill someone.....CRASH.
I activate Uber.......CRASH.
The map changes.......CRASH.

I've updated my video card drivers, defragged and verified my files, lowered my graphics settings, turned off dual core rendering, turned off steam cloud and I still can't play for more than 30 mins without hl2.exe crashing.

I'm using nVidia, and if you are too Carl, we're not alone. There's a huge thread on the Steam forums who are having the same problems.

Not really surprised by all this though, VALVe have a tenancy to break more sh!t than they fix when it comes to updating their games. Hopefully they'll spend less time on the cosmetic bullsh!t and more time fixing their broken game.

There was an update today that may have fixed things. I was able to tear it up as demoman for about 5 minutes on a 32-player server without crashing. I also lowered my texture settings to medium and turned down some of that shite I don't even understand (anisotropic and AA settings).

Installing Windows 7 this weekend and bringing my RAM up to 8GB so hopefully that'll make life good again. Hey Blood, try it again tonight after installing that patch.

Now, if it turns out that this didn't fix it, I...well, I don't know what I'll do. But I'll be pissed.