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?

------
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
------

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]

Also would not hurt to change the default OS TDR related settings.
Win8 and later sets the GPU TDR Timeouts way too low by default.
You can download and run as admin; the TDR Manipulator tool from wagnardsoft.com (the makers of DDU)

Xbox GameBar shouldn't cause you any Gaming issues. And if so you can just disable it via WINKEY+I > Gaming

Also there is Game Mode to consider; which can actually hinder some games. It brings FPS to a crawl for whatever reason in games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

[Realshadow]

Dwm.exe load my graphics and I can’t click any application with my mouse anyone can fix this problem please help me to fix this issue

[Hypnotech03]

Anyone else had any other solutions for this problem?

[_I_]

Hypnotech03님이 먼저 게시:

Anyone else had any other solutions for this problem?

make your own thread

its most likely psu or drivers
get the correct drivers from the mobo mfg or oem sites and amd/nvidia/intel

what psu, brand/model/age?

[Iron Knights]

The one thing that bothers me in the new intel Architecture is the E-Cores very low stock speed. Jumping in this case from 3.2 - 5.2 Ghz is a huge spike and may cause exactly what you experience. You can turn off the E-Cores in Bios. Don't worry, no game on the market uses 8 cores to date. The other thing is turn off Turbo mode, more CPU stability.

[Psych]

I can say that I had a similar issue with a RTX 3080. I reloaded the OS tried a bunch of other fixes, seemed to randomly crash on a game I played, I sent it back for a refund, and put in my old GTX 1080ti after, and haven't had an issue since. I'm also currently having a similar issue with an RTX 3090ti, but only on 2 games I play, the other 100+ play flawlessly. I'm gearing toward it being a bad card, but will do another post if it fits, on what I've done so far to trouble shoot, just for reference.

[Psych]

DWM.EXE crashes in SOME games only, What I've done so far.

Specs
Aorus Z390 Master Mainboard
Intel i9-9900k (recently changed thermal paste)
G.Skill 32gb F4-3600C16-16GTZNC
Aorus 3090 ti Xtreme air cooled
Samsung 970 EVO 512gb OS Drive
Samsung 970 EVO 1tb temp drive
Sebrant Rocket 4.0 Plus 4TB Gaming drive
Corsair 1500 watt PSU


Faulting application name: dwm.exe, version: 10.0.19041.4355, time stamp: 0x6564cf4e
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.4522, time stamp: 0xf7a99bd4
Exception code: 0xe0464645
Fault offset: 0x000000000012d332
Faulting process id: 0x2464
Faulting application start time: 0x01dacaf8add3664c
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\dwm.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 3e7b780c-0cf8-45b2-85b1-524d4f2d0b97
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Re-installed my OS (About 3 months ago at this point, but didn't fix this issue)
DDU video card driver re-install
Bios update on mainboard
Bios update on video card
Tried turning TPM off (just due to errors in event viewer)
Disabled Intel Management (event viewer errors again)
Disabled/Uninstalled Xbox Bar from Powershell
Installed Xbox Gaming Accessories (Even though I don't use an xbox controller)
Adjusted Windows Settings for performance, turned on smooth screen edges, show window contents while dragging, shadow under windows
Disabled XMP profile on Ram
Disabled factory OC on video card with a jumper
Ran DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
Ran SFC /Scannow
Swapped Power cables from PSU to GPU
Watched temps closely on CPU/GPU, rarely gets over 70c, NEVER goes over 80c


Seems specific to a couple games for me, I can play most games for hours, or leave them running for days with no issues.
No Mans Sky (only certain new orbital stations) crashes 15 seconds - 10 minutes randomly.
What I've tried in this app specifically.
Changed video settings to the lowest possible, changed resolution settings to lowest possible, tried borderless window, full screen, changed DirectX 11 and 12

Ready or Not
Crashes in some levels, sometimes while loading in, sometimes 30 seconds to 10 minutes in.
Tried basically same stuff as I did with No Mans Sky, no luck.


Windows MINIDUMP crash errors

VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE (116)
Attempt to reset the display driver and recover from timeout failed.
SYMBOL_NAME: nvlddmkm+1498a70

MODULE_NAME: nvlddmkm

IMAGE_NAME: nvlddmkm.sys

[_I_]

post a cpuz validation link
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
cpuz -> validate button -> submit button
it will open a browser, copy the url (address) and paste it here

start with drivers
get the correct ones from the mobo mfg site
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z390-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10/support#support-dl-driver
audio, chipset, lan, bt, vga (unless its disabled in bios)

[N3tRunn3r]

as this clearly is an older thread, i can still tell you ::


back in these days DWM had a MEMORY LEAK, especially when Steam was used . . .
DWM by its memory leak was able to stack up and accumulate more than 12 GB in RAM. this made your system highly unstable and its response to any input and output was on a very low performance.

By killing its DWM.exe process through task manager for a few times in a row and to restart your machine afterwards, DWM kept again less than 600 MB which was ok . . . it should be between 60 mb and 300 mb at best . . .

Keep up ALL of your drivers on LATEST !! From A to Z . . . !!
Usually it helped and it was neccessary to force latest iGPU drivers via Device Manager, as Windows kept older iGPU drivers installed via Windows Update by force!! This all has changed today . . .

DWM.EXE stopped working
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/4360117044320490443/#c4360117044322071820

Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) Memory Leak? (Answered)
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/11/4337599680242246260/#c4337599680243074398

Steam accumulates instead clearing Memory/RAM/Cache
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/5540052310300845065/

Today this issue should be fixed, by Microsoft AND Steam . . .

[letskiydj]

Hi, I had the same issue, black screen while playing games, I have MSI NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super
In logs found crash dwm.exe process.
I tried to fix a lot of things, but solution was simply - it's overheating of the video card =)
By default settings it's not enough cooler speed on high temperature (> 70)
I downloaded MSI tool to configure coolers (set the speed to 70% on temperature > 50) and now I have max 55 degrees while gaming. The problem is completely gone.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

You should always be fine tuning the GPU fan curve. The defaults are terrible essentially when gaming long periods