High GPU usage of Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe)

Question

Hey guys,

Normally this process (Desktop Window Manager) only occupies up to 1% of GPU 0 (integrated GPU), but once I open a video or any game, no matter how many windows I'm opening, the occupation of DWM will suddenly jump to 60%, which slows down my laptop quite a lot.  In game my FPS are extremely sub-optimal because of that. I tried pretty much every solution that exists in the internet but nothing helped. Some of the things I tried so far :

Updating my iGPU drivers

Updating my dGPU drivers

Uninstalling my iGPU and dGPU drivers and reinstalling them using GURU

Uninstalling completely NVIDIA GeForce Experience

Uninstalling Intel graphics command center

Uninstalling Xbox Bar etc

Setting DWM.EXE priority to low in task manager.

Running the game in compatibility mode.

Setting turn off hard disk after to: Never (in power options)

Disabling multiple specific start up services

Creating a custom High Performance Mode in Power Options

In windows graphic settings, setting the games to high performance (in order to force them to only use the dGPU)

In NVidia control panel setting the preferred graphics processor to the high performance NVIDIA processor

Reinstalling Windows (2 times)

System model name: XMG CORE 15 (intel)

CPU: i7-10870H

iGPU: Intel UHD 630

dGPU: NVidia RTX 3060 Laptop

Answer 1

Hello Revo_not,

I'm John an Independent Advisor and a Windows user like you. I'll be happy to assist you today. What is your current Windows version and edition? Press Start then click Settings(Gear icon), select System then About.

Apparently this is a known bug since mid 2020 / 20h2 in Windows 10. Microsoft and Intel have not yet come up with a solution. According to Bryce_Intel - Moderator, they're closing on establishing the root cause.

https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/BUG-dwm...

Please try the following methods below if it helps.

**Please try to turn off Fast startup

Press Start then search Control panel

Under View by > select Small icons

Select Power Options

On the left side, Click "Choose what power buttons do"

Click "Change settings that are currently unavailable"

Under Shutdown settings > Turn off fast startup and hibernate

After that, restart your computer using Clean Boot.

**Perform a Clean Boot

Determine whether a background program or a software conflict is causing the issue.

Go to the search box > type msconfig

Select System Configuration > go to the Services tab.

Select and put a check mark on "Hide all Microsoft services" > Click Disable all.

Go to Startup tab > Open Task Manager > Disable all the unnecessary services running there. Restart your computer.

**Please try AncientFire's workaround in this older thread with a similar problem.

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

Kindly let me know if this helps or if you have any further concerns.

Kind regards,

John DeV

Independent Advisor

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Answer 2

Hey John_Dev,

Thanks for your fast reply. My windows edition is Windows 10 Pro and the current version is 21H1. I had memory leakage a while ago and tried turning off Fast Startup. The memory leakage of dwm.exe went away. However the current problem I have is with high GPU usage of desktop window manager whenever I am gaming, using obs, using VLC, or simply by moving a window very fast up and down on the desktop screen.

The solution with the services tab I had already tried and it didn't help. Tried it once again now and again the problem is not solved. Just to clarify the dwm.exe process does not have high RAM usage or RAM leaking. The problem is with the iGPU usage of the dwm.exe process which is extremely high when gaming, causing my games to have very very low FPS.

Kind regards,

Revo_not

Answer 3

Hello Revo_not,

Thank you for updating me with that information. I apologize that the above methods did not resolve the issue.

Please check AK_0815's solution in this older thread with a similar problem if it helps.

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

Kindly let me know if this helps or if you have any further concerns.

Kind regards,

John DeV

Independent Advisor

Answer 4

Hey John,

I'm afraid AK's reply did not help.

Kind regards,

Revo_not

Answer 5

Hello Revo_not,

Thank you for getting back to this thread. I'm sorry, I'm running out of possible fix and solutions. Since this is an open forum, let's see if another member of the community has a better solution to the issue.

Kind regards,

John DeV

Independent Advisor