PCSX2 freezes upon trying to boot anything

I had been using version 1.6 and it worked just fine. Didn't use if for a while and ran into some controller issues so I thought I'd get the newest version. I'm now running 2.2.0 (got it from the pcsx2 website), but it freezes as soon as I try to boot anything. Different games (which all did run in 1.6), ISO and disc, not even the BIOS will work. This feels like something that would be a common issue, but I can't find anything recent. I did a few things already, but so far nothing helped.

• All settings are left at default (which I thought would be the safest bet) besides:
  • I tried just disabling Audio and it did nothing
  • I tried ever renderer manually
• everything is in paths that PCSX2 should be able to read and write in
• the program is executed as administrator
• updated all my stuff according to the setup guide

I'm a little stumped here. I'd just go back to 1.6, but then I'd do trouble shooting for the controller issues anyway, so might as well get the current build running.

I doubt it has anything to do with my specs, but rules are rules:

i7 9700k
RTX 4070S
16GB DDR4 RAM
Windows 10 Pro 22H2