Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe) high RAM usage

Anonymous
2020-11-27T12:01:04+00:00

Recently I felt a big performance decrease on my pc.

My configuration:

i3-8100

GTX1660Ti

8Gb RAM

I have 2 screens:

  1. 1680x1050
  2. 1920x1080

When I start Task Manager I often see 94% RAM usage and the first reason is Desktop Window Manager. It uses nearly 5Gb of memory.

If I kill this process it starts to use about 300Mb and then slowly rises to previous values.

I use Wallpaper Engine and tried to disable it, but got no result.

I also see dwm using more than 10-15% of CPU and GPU. I've done almost everythnig I found on web such as updating drivers or something but nothing's changed.

PLEASE don't write about scanning for viruses, buying new memory and etc. I need real help and want to improve performance of my pc.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2022-04-10T04:52:41+00:00

Here is how I fixed the issue.

My system specs:

CPU - Intel Core i3-10110U

OS - Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for Workstations

Display Adapter Description: Intel UHD Graphics

RAM - 12GB DDR4

I was facing similar issue wherein Desktop windows Manager process was consistently going beyond 1GB. When I went to Device Manager and tried updating my driver under Display Adapter, I got a message that I already have the latest version of driver installed. (had 30.0.100.9XXX version)

I went to Intel Asia Pacific site (link below) and searched for my processor. Under the downloads section, there was this driver version 30.0.101.1660 released on 3/31/2022. Name - Intel® Graphics – Windows* DCH Drivers.  

Intel® Core™ i3-10110U Processor

Even though the list of OS indicated in this section did not cover Windows 11 Pro version that I am using ,I still downloaded it and installed it. It was a very slow upgrade and my system froze with a full black screen after seemingly completion of installation.

I manually powered off the system and when I turned it back ON, it was very smooth. I went to device manager and found that the new driver version has got installed successfully.

Also now under Task Manager, I see that the Desktop Window Manager process is hovering around 75MB to 120 MB and not going beyond 1GB like it used to before.

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Sumit 44,416 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2021-12-01T14:38:52+00:00

The issue seems to be resolved with the Beta driver(Version 101.1121) from Intel. Keep in mind that if the OEM has made customizations to the chip, you need to ask them for updated driver as the installation would fail.

https://community.intel.com/t5/Graphics/BUG-dwm-exe-uses-memory-leakage-with-Intel-HD-Graphics-630/m-p/1338417#M103298

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-06-06T04:40:09+00:00

    The DWM is currently using 16k mb of my 32 gig system without any tabs open cant figure it out

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-04-27T09:12:31+00:00

    Hi, sure this will work, but after some time the memory is again allocated by the Desktop Windows Manager.  At least on my end.  So finding the root cause is important.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-02-08T16:57:13+00:00

    UPD: DWM.exe gone crazy. 

    GPU 0 is Intel UHD Graphics 630. The latest driver is installed. Don't know what could go wrong.

    Image

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