APPCRASH Event 1000 - dwm.exe

[MaverickZer0]

For the last couple of weeks i've been having a persisting problem with windows seemingly crashing to a black screen whenever i play 'graphically demanding' games.

After about 4-5 minutes of gameplay (not counting being sat in a menu or paused), the monitor(s) will cease receiving input and turn themselves into the standby state, my graphics card's lighting will turn to default white and the fans will ramp up to 100%. Most of the time i can still hear audio and i can still retain control of any applications through the mouse and keyboard, although the screen(s) will be black and will not receive any input until i power the system off manually via the power button.

After trawling through event viewer i located the suspect events, an event with the code 1000 (or sometimes 1001) relating to an appcrash with dwm.exe, something i understand is a core windows process dealing with desktop windows and their effects, this in turn causes the NVIDIA drivers to crash, leading to a blacked out screen from which it will not recover.

My first fix naturally was to re-install the graphics drivers and did so via the GeForce experience application, to no effect.

Next i rolled back the drivers to a build before the issue arose. Again, no change. The system still crashed to a black screen after gameplay.

From there i decided to disable windows aero effects, the desktop slideshows and whatnot. I also re-installed the offending programs to see if that made any difference. Nothing.

I changed the windows power plan to high-power mode, removed any unused USB devices save the mouse and keyboard, used just the one monitor, reseated every component and cleared the ports for dust and debris, turned down the in-game graphics settings (which should have been my first move but it escaped me until then), ensured windows was up to date, and tried once more .... black screen.

Went through and deleted everything related to Nvidia and it's drivers, uninstalled via DDU and re-installed the older drivers manually via their website. Deleted any program that allowed altering of the GPU RGB settings/fan control and such, including monitoring software and tried again. Interestingly this allowed me to play for a good hour without a crash, and i suspected i could have gone longer but after rebooting the system, it happened again. I ran a Furmark test to see if the GPU would crap out but after twenty minutes on a rather demanding stress test, nothing happened, i only stopped as my temperatures were getting high.

Strange to think it can handle a stress test but not in an actual game.

Nevertheless i pressed on. I tested it with only one stick of RAM in the PC, and went through each systematically, the crash occurred with all of them.

I went and wiped my current windows user profile, re-installed windows afresh and installed nothing but the graphics drivers for my card and the game as a testbed, as i could reliably replicate the crash within a short time frame. It happened once more.

I started to suspect my hardware was an issue so i tested it out with a friends GPU in the system and it didn't crash, though after about 40-50 minutes, the system gave me a BSOD with an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error code.

That leads me up to now, i figured it could be the PSU, it's getting on four years old though has not shown any signs of wear or tear recently, though components, like people age and i can understand that. Though i don't have a spare at hand at the moment to test with.

As for the errors, they are almost always followed by a LiveKernelEvent with a code of 141, or sometimes 117, rarely. Looking in windows reliability monitor, there can be as little as one 'Desktop Windows Manager - stopped working' entries, from what i understand windows is trying to reboot the drivers to no avail.

Unfortunately, since resetting windows, most of the logs i have are gone and the only ones are recently. Though i have a couple of entries from one of the first few times it has happened.

Spoiler: Error 1001

Log Name: Application
Source: Windows Error Reporting
Date: 22/02/2022 22:53:58
Event ID: 1001
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Elliots-PC
Description:
Fault bucket 1486643659604955993, type 4
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: dwm.exe
P2: 10.0.19041.746
P3: 6be51595
P4: KERNELBASE.dll
P5: 10.0.19041.1503
P6: b2acaea9
P7: e0464645
P8: 000000000010b382
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERBF94.tmp.dmp
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC032.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC042.tmp.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC05E.tmp.csv
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC06F.tmp.txt

These files may be available here:
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_dwm.exe_f44735eac4cf1775ef43a9cc34beb965765144b0_c2f10bab_e9ea1991-a1a2-480f-9915-297252eae2cf

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: eb3a0bf1-21f4-4a90-b9b1-55c83f021618
Report Status: 268435456
Hashed bucket: d6508a4cd1925dc5d4a19e8826571359
Cab Guid: 0
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Windows Error Reporting" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">1001</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>4</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2022-02-22T22:53:58.2783051Z" />
<EventRecordID>156463</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>Elliots-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>1486643659604955993</Data>
<Data>4</Data>
<Data>APPCRASH</Data>
<Data>Not available</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>dwm.exe</Data>
<Data>10.0.19041.746</Data>
<Data>6be51595</Data>
<Data>KERNELBASE.dll</Data>
<Data>10.0.19041.1503</Data>
<Data>b2acaea9</Data>
<Data>e0464645</Data>
<Data>000000000010b382</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERBF94.tmp.dmp
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC032.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC042.tmp.xml
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC05E.tmp.csv
\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\Temp\WERC06F.tmp.txt</Data>
<Data>\\?\C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\AppCrash_dwm.exe_f44735eac4cf1775ef43a9cc34beb965765144b0_c2f10bab_e9ea1991-a1a2-480f-9915-297252eae2cf</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>eb3a0bf1-21f4-4a90-b9b1-55c83f021618</Data>
<Data>268435456</Data>
<Data>d6508a4cd1925dc5d4a19e8826571359</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

Spoiler: Event 141

Source
Windows

Summary
Hardware error

Date
‎23/‎02/‎2022 00:37

Status
Not reported

Description
A problem with your hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 141
Parameter 1: ffff8309ea2d9050
Parameter 2: fffff80639968ca4
Parameter 3: 0
Parameter 4: d64
OS version: 10_0_19043
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
OS Version: 10.0.19043.2.0.0.768.101
Locale ID: 1033

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BKPjCoTNtWst8urincWTinNDJ-Nr3sD_/view - Google Drive to a reliability report XML.


Attached is a DxDiag from before i swapped out the GPU for another one. Though i can post that too if you want. Any other information i'd be happy to provide.

 

[phillpower2]

Sorry but we have our own way of information gathering and always try to avoid going to external sources/downloads.

You may have more than one issue going on, one hardware and one software.

Can you post the brand and model name or number of the power supply (PSU).

Download then run Speccy (free) and post the resultant url for us, details here, this will provide us with information about your computer hardware + any software that you have installed that may explain the present issue/s.

To publish a Speccy profile to the Web:

In Speccy, click File, and then click Publish Snapshot.

In the Publish Snapshot dialog box, click Yes to enable Speccy to proceed.

Speccy publishes the profile and displays a second Publish Snapshot. You can open the URL in your default browser, copy it to the clipboard, or close the dialog box.

1. Copy any dmp files from C:\Windows\Minidump onto the desktop.
2. Select all of them, right-click on one, and click on Send To> New Compressed (zipped) Folder.
3. Upload the zip folder using the Attach button, bottom left of the dialogue input box

 

[MaverickZer0]

Ok.

PSU is a Corsair CP-9020061 CXM 750w Bronze. Going on 5/6 years old now, not shown any signs of wear and tear though i guess the system has seen rigorous use in it's lifetime.

Speccy - http://speccy.piriform.com/results/0xYD840lqdrfPNvcwPE05Jh

Since resetting windows there were no .DMP files, so i ran through the motions to trigger a crash and uploaded the DMP soon after.

 

[phillpower2]

Corsair CP-9020061 CXM 750w Bronze.

Even when out of the box new the PSU should not have been used near such a high end GPU, Corsair only recommended the CX range be used for the below;

CX Series Modular power supply units are an excellent choice for basic system builds and desktop PC computer upgrades, offering high reliability, low noise, and the flexibility of modular cabling.

Which power supply do you need?

Fwiw, if it wasn`t a Corsair with the high end GPU and amount of storage devices you have hooked up a lesser brand would of gone bang and taken all your other hardware with it.

CPU
Intel Core i7 6700K @ 4.00GHz: 39 °C
Skylake 14nm Technology
RAM
32.0GB Dual-Channel Unknown @ 1203MHz (15-15-15-35)

That is the wrong RAM for your CPU, Intel state here up to 2133MHz and if you have XMP enabled the RAM will get auto OCd past what the CPU can handle and the PC fall over.

Go into the BIOS, disable XMP and then manually set the RAM to run at 2133MHz, make sure that the RAM is 1.2V, save the settings then exit the BIOS.

Power Profile
Active power scheme: High performance

Change the Windows Power Plan to Balanced, Ultra and High Performance are a form of overclocking that is known to cause stability and overheating issues, the setting should only be used for gaming type notebooks that have a discrete GPU that needs the extra power.

Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Computer type: Desktop
Installation Date: 25/02/2022 03:05:33

Windows is shown to be a recent install but there are no system drivers shown to have been installed since.

Once Windows has been clean installed you must then install first the chipset drivers, then the storage/SATA drivers and third the graphics drivers, the drivers can either come from a disk provided by the motherboard manufacturer or downloaded from the site and saved to a flash drive etc, this is a must and Windows should not be allowed to check for updates before it has been done as more often than not Windows installs the wrong drivers or in the incorrect order and this can cause all sorts of problems.

Partition 0
Partition ID: Disk #2, Partition #0
Disk Letter: E:
File System: NTFS
Volume Serial Number: F0990AAB
Size: 931 GB
Used Space: 862 GB (92%)
Free Space: 68 GB (8%)

For Windows to be able to run efficiently and to be able to update you need to have between 20 and 25% of the partition or drive available on a HDD and an SSD between 10 and 15% as free storage space at all times, if you don`t you risk Windows becoming corrupt or not being able to update which puts you at risk of malware attack.

Data only storage devices should not be allowed to get any lower than 10% of free storage space of the full capacity of the drive/partition on the drive, this also to avoid data corruption.

Please note that storage devices can physically fail if the amount of free storage space is allowed to drop below the required 10 or 20/25% minimum.

Last but not least, no drivers flagged up in the crash dmp only the game Escape from Tarkov and Filter Managers which could be either the game or Windows itself.

All the changes above need to be made, the PC restarted and should the PC blue screen afterwards upload the dmp and a new Speccy url for us.

 

[MaverickZer0]

Indeed the outdated Power Supply is an issue in itself and i've already ordered a new one, as it's apparent that it's way past due it needs replacing with a more up to date one. I've already made headway in clearing out lots of unwanted files and cleared much more space on the overstuffed drives, again an issue with me hoarding files I don't need. I've changed the powerplan to Balanced also.

As for the chipset drivers, I've updated everything that was provided via the manufacturers site save for the BIOS, my work schedule is busy and i'm yet to do it.

As for the RAM speeds, i was told that the RAM was fine for the CPU but nevertheless i've set them to run at 2133Mhz via the bios, though interestingly my CPU and MoBo temps have jumped by about 10 degrees.

I did another crash test just for posterity and it now crashes faster than it did before, i could play for 5 minutes or so but now it takes barely 1 minute after loading into gameplay.

I'll upload a more up to date speccy and the crash dumps after i've updated the BIOS sometime in the next day or so.

 

[phillpower2]

As for the RAM speeds, i was told that the RAM was fine for the CPU but nevertheless

Sorry but who told you this, my guidance was given based on what Intel state at the link that was provided to substantiate what you had been advised.

I did another crash test just for posterity

Leave well alone until you get an appropriate quality and Spec PSU, for your GPU and the amount of extra devices hooked up and 850W Gold efficiency rated PSU from Corsair, EVGA or Seasonic should be your minimum.

 

[phillpower2]

Thread closed due to lack of feedback from the OP.