After the Steam update earlier this week, I've had a number of issues with both Steam, Steam Workshop, and Skyrim.

Initially, Steam wouldn't move past the 'connecting to account' box when I attempted to start it. To fix this, I forced an update by renaming my clientregistry.blob. That didn't help, so I then reinstalled steam after moving my steam.exe and steamapps file and folder. That fixed that problem, more or less, although I am getting slow account connections (sometimes up to fifteen minutes).

The next problem was that Workshop has become erratic. Sometimes it doesn't come up, other times it is slow to come up. When attempting to install a mod by subscribing to it, the install can take several hours or more, whereas previously it would take seconds to minutes.

However, the major problem is with Skryim itself.

Originally, before the steam update, my game was relatively stable, with only occasionaly crashes or freezes, and most of those I would put down to either certain mods or connection issues.

Post-steam update, my game loads, and then runs for several minutes, then collapses to the desktop. This is consistent regardless of area, action, etc. I have uninstalled my mods (complete uninstall, not just unsubscribe), I have reduced my graphics, I have turned off background programs....nothing has helped.

I've noted that this problem is occurring for some people in Skyrim, and a number of other games as well. I am convinced that it has been caused by the steam update earlier this week, but I can't think of a solution, or a specific cause. I have contacted Steam Support and am waiting for an answer/suggestions from them.

My thoughts are that it could be memory related, although the crashes are too consistent over the time frame of up to five minutes, and aren't related to in-game location or any action that is going on. In fact, if I bring up the save game menu and simply leave it idle, the game still ctd's.

Does anyone have any ideas as to the cause, or any suggested solutions? (Please don't come up simply with 'drivers' or 'graphics' etc...my drivers are up to date, and as I've said I've tested various graphics settings).

Thank you.