DWM (Desktop Window Manager) crashes during gaming

[bigfoot3798]

Since about two weeks back, I have frequent crashes playing various games, e.g. Modern Warfare II and Fortnite.

Suddenly during the game (can be after 1 minute or 30 minutes, but usually not longer than that) the screen goes black ("monitor cannot find any input") and the audio disappears. The graphic card is still running, the lights on it are turned on.

The only consistent event in the event log when this happens is this: "The Desktop Window Manager process has exited. (Process exit code: 0x0000042b, Restart count: 1, Primary display device ID: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti)"

Occasionally there might be another error just before it, for example "Faulting application name: XboxGameBarSpotify.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x63517b83" .. but this is not always the case. Usually, the DWM exit seems to happen on its own.

It seems to only happen in GPU intensive games, e.g. Fortnite and Modern Warfare II - not in for example Rocket League. However, this is not happening due to GPU overloading, the temperature is consistent at 70-72 degrees. The GPU power consumption is around 240 watts (and as mentioned, it is not a GPU shutdown - the GPU keeps running).

I have tried:

- Updating Windows 11 to the latest version (22 H2), with all the available KB's.

- Updating the graphic card driver to the latest one, as well as reverting to older ones that have worked previously before this problem started occurring.

- Reducing the frame rate in the games (this lowers GPU temp to about 68, but the DWM crash still occurs just as frequently).

- Stopping all unnecessary services (e.g. the XBox auth service)

- Trying both Full screen and Windowed Full screen in the games

There seems to be a lot of people having similar problems, in many cases it seems to have been resolved by updating the drivers for XBox controller - however since I do not have a controller I am not sure if this is applicable. Is there any way to install/update those drivers without actually having a controller?

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System specs:

Windows 11 Home (22H2, build 22621)

MB: Lenovo 3750

CPU: Intel i9-12900KF, 3187mhz, 16 cores

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (current driver: 527.37)

RAM: 32gb
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What would you suggest that I do here? As it is now, gaming is impossible on a brand new, high-spec, desktop computer :(

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Sounds more like an issue of your PSU not being able to handle your CPU + GPU under high loads; thus things start crashing. It looks like an unstable OS or Driver, but it could be something like RAM or PSU causing it for sure.

[emoticorpse]

If it is the PSU, a stress test should expose it.

Is it a desktop with that motherboard? Try re-installing the chipset drivers or whatever drivers from the website or model of your pc. Also check for updated drivers available from them. Since it's Lenovo, maybe they have some like specific driver they got right and Windows installs over?

Have you tried re-installing your vc-redistributables? Try disabling antivirus (doubt this is the cause though) ?

[bigfoot3798]

Thank you for the replies!

So, I downloaded OCCT and ran a stress test on the PSU with it - the first time it crashed after two minutes (same behavior as in the games) and the second time it ran for 20 minutes, after which I had to turn it off for other reasons. This is similar behavior to what I see in the games, sometimes it crashes quickly, sometimes after half an hour.

OCCT is a little different though, when first starting the stress test there is a huge spike in GPU power to 315 watts, after which it declines to around 210-215 and stays there for the rest of the test. During gaming the power consumption is always around 240 watts, but no huge spikes to 315 or anything like that. So I'm not sure what this proves, except that the crash only occurs when there's a lot of power consumption (but not necessarily any huge spike)?

I did uninstall all the VC-redistributables and update to all the newest drivers from Lenovos site, but no change.

It's a bit strange if it has something to do with the PSU, the computer is ~5 months old, has been working perfectly all the time - no new HW connected to it during this time, and no driver updates except for the graphic driver (which was updated, possibly around the time the crashes started, but reverting to the driver that was there before does not change anything).

How could I find out more about which drivers (or parts of the OS) that are involved here?

[Bad 💀 Motha]

So only the DWM is crashing, not the whole PC ?

Looking back to an earlier error you shared, have you disabled Xbox GameBar, Game Mode, and uninstall Spotify app from Microsoft Store app

[bigfoot3798]

Yes, it appears to be the DWM only, at least judging by the symptoms. What is actually written in the Event Log varies from crash to crash - sometimes it is very explicitly stated that dwm.exe crashed (and with other DWM events around it) ... sometimes there is no mention of DWM at all.

The symptom is always the same though - screen goes black, and about one second after that the audio goes silent. Then the monitor outputs a message saying "no input source found". The game appears to still be running though, the graphic card lights are on and the fans keep spinning at high speed.

I did uninstall Xbox GameBar, but now after a few reboots it is back - it seems it is reinstalled automatically. What do you mean by disabling it, just switch the "Open Xbox Game Bar..." off? I'll try with that and Game Mode switched off (Spotify has never been installed).

Besides that I've tried running in a clean boot (only Microsoft services running), turning off GSync, running in windowed mode .. but nothing seems to help.

[bigfoot3798]

Problem still occurs with Xbox GameBar and Game Mode switched off.

[Stankfoots]

I am having the same issue. The only difference being that simply starting Steam causes dwm.exe to crash and not restart. Computer still runs, but the display is black.

[eydrianf]

Are you using xbox controller? Update the firmware via the xbox companion app on the microsoft store for pc.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

If you have DWM.EXE just randomly crashing then you have malware/virus infection, faulty hardware or corrupted OS

[Lucero]

Still no fix?

[Lucero]

Literally on every website everyone just runs into dead ends.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I've been building PCs for 30+ years now and I've rarely seen this issue. It was more of an issue I saw in Vista and Win8 then anything.

[AmaiAmai]

Originally posted by Lucero:

Literally on every website everyone just runs into dead ends.

Only you know the issue, but one thing I would check is if disabling all the overlays fixes the issue. If your games also use Steam, try disabling the Steam Overlay and hardware acceleration.

The thing is, Chromium and Chromium-based browsers and apps like Steam, Chrome, Discord, OMEN gaming center, etc. are known to have issues when hardware acceleration is enabled. The issue has never been fixed and is present on both Nvidia and AMD GPUs.

I would check that first.

You can also post about the issue on MSDN:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us

For more technical answers and better help. Some issues can be a random driver for something as stupid as motherboard LED lighting -- it can't be known without a dump or information gained through other tools. I'd post there if you have an issue...

[deuce985]

Possibly PSU related or you need to reseat the GPU. I've seen PSU cause problems that are near impossible to troubleshoot pointing towards other hardware when it in fact was PSU causing rare problems and errors on other hardware making you think those were the culprits.

[Strife]

So i had same problem and this is what I tried.
1. reseat GPU
2. apply new thermal paste on GPU.
3. update drivers.
4. ran sfc /scannow
5. ran malwarebytes
6. Finally reinstalled windows

but none of them helped me.
Then after searching for too long I found the solution

1.) Disabled hardware accelerated GPU scheduling from settings (win10/11).
2.) Uninstall XboxGame Bar using this command.
a. Press Windows key + X and select "Windows PowerShell (Admin)".
b. Type the following command and press Enter: Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay | Remove-AppxPackage