dwm.exe crashes repeatedly - eventually causes a system crash

Question

Not spurred on by any update or other change, the following has been occurring for several days:

Upon entering into a video game's first major loading screen or shortly after, at a reliable, reproducible point for each game (tested with Tabletop Simulator, Honkai: Star Rail, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, and Apex Legends), my screen will go black. Audio continues for a few seconds before it too fails. My fans spool up to maximum for up to 2-3 minutes before the computer fully crashes and does not restart unless the power button is pressed.

The full event stack is copied into this google doc, and my system specs are under that respective tab:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16DVFskGZnxwSC6jZHksgMFxptfE-ymnTxgRLIAY49Zc/edit?tab=t.0

In short, dwm.exe fails, then the application fails, then dwm fails more a few times, tries to restart, continues failing, and then eventually the computer crashes with a power failure, Kernel 41. The inital failure exception code is 0xc00001ad.

This only occurs when trying to enter into a game and never happens otherwise.

The following fix attempts have already been tried:

1: The steps found in this related post here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/dwmexe-application-error/d7657629-8566-4cf0-bc17-e73f9a31758b 

2: Uninstalling XBox Game Bar and related processes

3: Fiddling with Nvidia Control Panel settings & performance-vs-battery life settings (I am on a laptop)

4: Updated windows / Nvidia drivers and backpedaled them in various combinations

It should be noted that, in the moments before the black screen occurs, my GPU temperature (on a clean boot) is 51 C and no load on any single system component exceeds 50%. Ultimately, there is nothing that "predicts" the black screen occurring on the system (not in terms of fans, system load, heat, slowing of other processes, etc.) This occurred out of nowhere, but now that it is happening, I can tell you the precise loading point at each game when the computer will fail.

I have 3 "nuclear options" as it were, that I have not tried because each is a substantial headache to deal with and it would be preferred not to have to do any of them, as each introduces its own risks and problems.

1: A full factory reset and reinstall of Windows 10

2: Upgrading to Windows 11

3: Disassembling my laptop to see if there is a problem with the power supply (as posters on other forums have stated that sometimes things get wiggled loose near the internal cables and that re-fixing them can solve this problem).

I do not know if any other fixes or ideas exist. Please help.

Answer 1

I hope that someone from MS can respond to this with something helpful. I am suffering from the same issue and have been unsuccessful in finding a solution. I posted a reply to a similar thread roughly a month ago and have not heard back since ( https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/dwmexe-crash-black-screens-while-playing/4ac36994-3832-49c9-8a96-bd7ae0798c35?rtAction=1743996909059)

I have also already attempted a reinstall of Windows 11 and done most of the fixes Ive seen online (specs of my machine and fixes attempted detailed in my other post).

Hoping this gains some traction/visibility...