Display driver failed to start

Question

_{Thursday, December 13, 2018 11:40 AM}

Hello, this is my first time posting here, hopefully I posted in the correct sub. From the event viewer, it shows that dwm.exe had application error (event id 1000) and after that, dwminit has exited.

The application details is:
Faulting application name: dwm.exe, version: 10.0.17134.1, time stamp: 0xf5178e97
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xe0464645
Fault offset: 0x0000000000000000
Faulting process id: 0x2144
Faulting application start time: 0x01d492ce46b92504
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\dwm.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: 8b4c08b2-5cde-43fb-8d1b-69ce39ca3fd9
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

while the dwminit error is:

The Desktop Window Manager process has exited. (Process exit code: 0x000000ff, Restart count: 1, Primary display device ID: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970)

Sorry but I'm not sure where to begin checking and stuff. But I have updated my display drivers but it still occurs. I had to force restart to get the monitor to connect but after awhile, the whole monitor does not detect at all. Tried reconnecting the wires too. In the notifications, it says 'display driver failed to start using windows basic display driver instead'

Thanks!

All replies (4)

_{Friday, December 14, 2018 2:27 AM}

Have you updated display driver from the driver support site of the manufacturer or via windows update?

S.Sengupta,Microsoft MVP Windows and Devices for IT, Windows Insider MVP

_{Friday, December 14, 2018 10:11 AM}

Hi VincentHZ,

Is this issue occurring specially while playing games? Or some other operations? We found some similar situations, guess if it's a compatibility error between Win 10 and Nvidia drivers. What operations have you done before this issue occurred? Have you recently upgrade the OS version of your machine? If so, try to rollback it to the previous version, then check if issue still persist. If the problem recently started after an update installation, then rolling back the driver within device manager might help or get the latest driver from the Nvidia site.

The “Display driver failed to start” error message appears when your graphics driver installed for your on-board or dedicated graphics card failed to start normally. You can try to update the display driver in the Device Manager, following the steps and snapshots given by this link: https://www.intowindows.com/fix-display-driver-failed-to-start-error-in-windows-10/ .

Also please note that updating to the newest version of the display driver might not fix the issue in some cases. In other words, you might see the error even when you are running the latest version of the display driver. If updating the driver didn’t help, try to uninstall it and then reinstall the newest version of the display driver manually from PC’s or graphics hardware manufacturer’s website. You can check following link for more details: https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/solved-display-driver-failed-to-start-in-windows-10/ .

We also found a similar situation mentioned NVIDIA driver issue, and some guy gave suggestions to resolve the issue, you can check the following link for more details: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/display-driver-failed-to-start-using-microsoft/85cc2e20-cba8-42e4-9aa4-ac431d51a655

You can try to contact the NVIDIA support also for more assistance. If there is anything else we can do for you, please feel free to post in the forum. Thank you for choosing Microsoft.

Best regards,

Zoe Mo

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_{Tuesday, December 18, 2018 9:30 AM}

Hi VincentHZ,

What is your current situation? Have you tried the suggestions provided above? Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, any other questions please feel free to post back. Thank you for choosing Microsoft.

Best regards,
Zoe Mo

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

_{Thursday, December 20, 2018 9:28 AM}

Hi VincentHZ,

We haven’t heard from you for a couple of days, have you solved the problem? Would you mind letting me know the update of the problem? Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help, any other questions please feel free to post back. Thank you for choosing Microsoft.

Best regards,
Zoe Mo

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].