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
    2021-11-01T04:28:12+00:00

    I found graphics driver rollback was the only real solution, but eventually the intel 630 driver gets updated and it starts over again.

    I did have peace for several months, though.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-11-01T04:57:42+00:00

    Yes, I agree. I've been meaning to edit or probably delete what I wrote on this as killing the process no longer works for me. It crashes my laptop now and restating is very hard as a small amount of water was spilt on it. And I think it was damaging it anyway by killing the DWM.

    Luckily I only have to restart about once a month. It takes about that long for the ram to get so high. Haven't noticed MoUsoCoreWorker for a long time. I guess I'm lucky there and to get up to a month. Can't put to sleep either it won't wake and I have to do a hard shutdown.

    If updates aren't needed then logout then login again works to clear the memory. But I've no answers.

    HP W10 8gb Ram & Intel Core i5-8265U. 620 graphics I believe.

    Thanks. Better go deal to some posts now.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-11-01T05:21:53+00:00

    Just checked, and quite odd. DWM only seems to affect my virtual memory now and mso thing isn't an issue anymore. Its been on 24/7 for a week or 2 now ad only set to turn off the screen after 2 hours.

    Are MS even aware of this? Or too busy jabbing people now.

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