DWM (Desktop Window Manager) crashes while gaming

Anonymous

Since about two weeks back, I have frequent crashes playing various games, e.g. 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...

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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38 answers

Anonymous

2024-01-21T07:27:16+00:00

I am also having the same problem, Tried the controller update, tried updating BIOS drivers, completely updated all my drivers for everything on the pc, Tried doing a 3DMark Benchmark and got a crash, reset the GPU back into the PC, still same thing.

Going to borrow a friends 3050 that works and try it tomorrow to see if its GPU related but just wanted to see if people had found something too

Also getting this error as well
Faulting application name: dwm.exe, version: 10.0.19041.3636, time stamp: 0x6e55ef4a

Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.19041.3930, time stamp: 0x9141f979

Exception code: 0xe0464645

Fault offset: 0x000000000012db22

Faulting process id: 0x2764

Faulting application start time: 0x01da4c3805085393

Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\dwm.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll

Report Id: edc040a6-9fe1-47f6-b714-11c1dd2a7317

Faulting package full name:
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Anonymous

2024-01-21T06:51:17+00:00

I'm having the same issue. Can you guys tell me what PSU you use?
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Anonymous

2023-11-25T22:43:40+00:00

Hello everyone!

I have also been having these issues for the past few week, but I do not have a controller. Does anybody know if you can update something anyways? I would try doing it now but... My PC doesn't recognise the GPU until for a few hours after shutdown.

I've also seen people talking about uninstalling all USB drivers and that it does seem to fix it as well, does anyone know if I do that I'll be able to at least shutdown my PC and have them automatically install on boot?

I'm worried that I'll lose the ability to even use my mouse or something crazy like that. 'm very much a newbie to the world of computers as you can see.

Also... I've also seen a lot of people saying it could be a GPU dying (hopefully not bad news for those of us with no controller). I need to look into dusting my PC because I'm fairly sure the GPU fan didn't move an inch last time I used my PC so maybe it's stuck or something. Could the fans not spinning cause the PC to not detect the GPU? The motherboard does beep codes related to the video and display errors (1 long 2 short beeps).

Thank you in advance!
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Anonymous

2023-11-20T05:49:42+00:00

Everyone, I was struggling with this issue for months and I find out that it was because I had to update my controller from the MS Store (attached). If you're using an Xbox Controller to play games, this is most likely the reason. You'd think Microsoft would make these sort of updates mandatory instead of making us bash our heads against the wall. I digress.

I just had this happen to me out of nowhere and this was the resolution. I've had this controller for well over a year, had the computer for 3 years, and never had this issue until yesterday. All of a sudden games only (no desktop/browser issues) started showing a black screen at random times for a few seconds, or dying entirely. Checking Windows Event Viewer showed issues with dwm.exe that led me to this post. Updating the Xbox Series controller with this app resolved the issue immediately after.
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Anonymous

2023-07-31T21:16:59+00:00

You reset the bios on the PC motherboard?
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