DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED or DEVICE_HUNG: Fixes in Order

A game that closes on a DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED box has lost its graphics device. Most of those boxes carry a second code, written as “with Reason”, “DeviceRemovedReason” or just a second hex number. That second code is the part worth reading.

It comes from a Direct3D function called GetDeviceRemovedReason, which a game calls after the device is gone to ask why. Microsoft’s GetDeviceRemovedReason reference lists what it can return: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG, DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED, DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_RESET, DXGI_ERROR_DRIVER_INTERNAL_ERROR, DXGI_ERROR_INVALID_CALL and S_OK. Epic’s GPU crash guide for Unreal Engine shows what that looks like in a log: “with error DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED with Reason: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG”.

Older guides say “D3D device lost”. That is a DirectX 9 term for a different condition, such as a full-screen game losing focus. Microsoft’s device-removed walkthrough explains that Direct3D 11 did away with it, and that the graphics adapter can still change or vanish under a game, which is what the device-removed errors report.

Read your dialog

Find the second code in this table. The definitions are Microsoft’s, from its DXGI_ERROR reference and the device-removed walkthrough.

Two limits apply to that last column. Microsoft writes these definitions for developers, so “the application” is the game, never you. And Epic warns that reason codes “are not completely reliable”, even while it uses them to sort its own crashes. Use the code to pick a starting point. The scope test below decides the rest.

One reading holds across every code. Microsoft’s TDR overview says a well-written DirectX 10 or later app releases and re-creates its Direct3D device after a reset and keeps working. A game that shows this box and closes did not.

One game or every game?

This test does more than the code does. Run it before anything else.

• One game, or one game since its last patch, while others run clean at the same settings. Start with steps 1 to 3 below. The game or its pairing with your driver is the suspect.
• Every game that uses DirectX, and the desktop flickers or goes black too. That is a system fault. Work steps 4 to 7.
• It started the day a driver installed. Microsoft lists a driver upgrade as one of the four ways a device gets removed. Go to step 2.

Then check whether Windows logged a GPU timeout at the minute the game closed. Press the Windows key, type powershell, press Enter, and paste:

Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='System'; ProviderName='Display'; Id=4101} -MaxEvents 5 | Format-List TimeCreated, Message

Event 4101 is the one Microsoft’s archived Event ID 4101 page gives, with the source Display, as “Display driver %1 stopped responding and has successfully recovered.” A 4101 at the time of the crash means the GPU hung and Windows reset it, which is the case Microsoft describes as “the graphics device stops responding and is reset.” The dialog is its second half. That archived page was written for Windows Vista and 7, and it still suggests raising the timeout in the registry; Microsoft’s current developer page overrides that, as the section on fixes to skip explains.

If PowerShell answers in red with “No events were found that match the specified selection criteria”, no timeout was logged. On Windows 11 25H2 build 26200.9457, read on October 2, 2026, the command needs no administrator rights.

The fix order

The order is mine, cheapest first, with the vendor behind each step named. Test the game after each one.

1. Restart, and close other 3D apps

EA’s Battlefield 6 error-codes page gives one instruction for DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG: fully restart your system. Epic explains why other programs matter. A GPU timeout “invalidates all currently running contexts”, so another program’s GPU crash takes your game down with it. Close browsers with hardware acceleration, video encoders, overlays and any second game before you relaunch.

If the crash never returns after a restart, you are done.

2. Update the game and the driver

Epic tells anyone reporting a GPU crash to use the latest driver and not to rely on Windows Update or even vendor tools to say it is current. Get it from the AMD, Intel or NVIDIA site. EA’s advice for AMD driver errors in Battlefield 6 is the same, with one addition: remove the old drivers first.

If the crash started with a new driver, roll it back instead. The clean removal, with AMD’s tools or DDU in Safe Mode, is step 1 of the GPU driver crash fix. On a Radeon card with DX12 crashes in Apex Legends or War Thunder, read that page’s September 2026 section first, which collects what AMD said about those two games.

Update the game too. INVALID_CALL, and a HUNG reason that only one game throws, both point at the game’s code by Microsoft’s definitions, and only a patch changes that.

3. Try the game’s DirectX 11 mode

AMD gave this workaround for one case: DX12 driver timeouts in Apex Legends and War Thunder on Adrenalin 26.8.1, as the GPU driver crash fix records. For other games it is my own suggestion. If the game offers DX11 beside DX12, switch for a session. A crash that stops in DX11 puts the fault in that game’s DX12 path or the driver’s handling of it, and you can keep playing while a patch arrives. The trade-offs between the two are in DX12 vs DX11.

4. Put everything back to stock

Intel’s DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG article was written for one case, Prepar3D v4 on a laptop with Intel HD Graphics 620. After a driver update, its next step is to correct unstable overclocking by setting voltage and speed to the system’s specifications. Stock means all of it:

• any GPU overclock, and any undervolt, including one that ran clean for months
• a factory-overclocked card’s boost profile, if its software offers a stock or silent mode
• CPU overclocks, Precision Boost Overdrive and Curve Optimizer offsets
• the XMP or EXPO memory profile

I count an undervolt that passed a benchmark as unproven here, because the crash comes in one game’s scenes and not in the benchmark’s. If you tuned the card with one of our guides, the way back is in the undervolting guide, the RTX 5080 undervolt guide and the RX 9070 XT undervolt guide. Play at stock for a few days. If the crash stops, bring the tuning back one piece at a time.

The same Intel article then caps the game at 60 FPS, tests the memory with a tool such as MemTest, and reinstalls the game as the last step. The frame cap is a cheap test on any game that crashes in its busiest moments.

5. Laptops: pin the game to the discrete GPU

Microsoft’s list of ways a device gets removed includes a system that “changes from a power-saving graphics adapter to a performance graphics adapter”. That takes two GPUs in one PC, such as a laptop with integrated and discrete graphics. Microsoft’s windowed games page gives the path. Open Start > Settings > System > Display > Graphics, select the game under Custom options for apps, choose Options, set Graphics preference to High performance, and select Save. Restart the game.

6. Desktop timeouts and blue screens go to the TDR page

If the Event 4101 check above found timeouts outside games, or the PC blue-screens with VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE, the problem is no longer one game’s dialog. The GPU driver crash fix works that path from a clean driver install down, and this page does not repeat it.

7. REMOVED in every game: power and the card itself

Microsoft’s walkthrough describes DEVICE_REMOVED as a device “physically removed, turned off, or a driver upgrade has occurred.” When it is the reason in every game, at stock clocks, on a fresh driver, I treat it as the card losing power or contact. Shut down, switch the power supply off at its rear switch, unplug the power cord, and touch a bare metal part of the case to ground yourself. Then reseat the card and push every power connector home until it latches. After that, use PSU failure symptoms to watch the 12V rail under load. If the card is vanishing from Device Manager afterwards, graphics card not detected follows it from there, and corruption on screen before the crash goes to GPU artifacts.

Microsoft’s walkthrough says repeated device-removed errors “can also indicate a hardware failure or a bug in the graphics driver.” Steps 1 to 6 cover the driver and the settings. What is left is hardware.

Two fixes to skip

The TdrDelay and TdrLevel registry edits

Older fix pages lead with a registry edit under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers. Microsoft’s TDR registry key page is written for driver developers, and it says “End users shouldn’t manipulate these registry keys.”

TdrDelay is the timeout itself, 2 seconds by default. Raising it gives a hung GPU more time before Windows resets it, and the clock, driver or power fault that caused the hang is still there. Epic’s Unreal Engine guide does set TdrDelay and TdrDdiDelay to 60 seconds, but that guide is for developers whose engine sends long workloads while they build a game, and Epic says the change “will not resolve all crashes.”

The TdrLevel edit is worse. In Microsoft’s table, TdrLevelOff (0) is “Detection disabled”. Windows stops looking for a hung GPU at all. The feature exists, in Microsoft’s words, “to prevent the entire system from becoming unresponsive”, so with it off, a hang that would have closed one game can freeze the whole PC instead.

Reinstalling DirectX

Microsoft’s DirectX support page says DirectX 11.3 and 12 ship with Windows 10 and later, that updates come through Windows Update, and that there is no stand-alone package. The DirectX End-User Runtime that fix pages link “does not change the version of DirectX”. It installs legacy libraries such as D3DX9 for older games. It cannot repair DirectX 12, and it does nothing for a device-removed error. Skip that download entirely.

Why the advice online disagrees

Four vendors explain this crash four ways.

• Microsoft blames DEVICE_HUNG on badly formed commands from the application, and adds that repeated removals can mean hardware or a driver bug.
• EA’s Battlefield 6 page says of DEVICE_HUNG, “This error happens when a background app is stuck.”
• Intel’s DEVICE_HUNG page, written for Prepar3D v4 on Intel HD Graphics 620, runs from a driver update to clocks, a frame cap and memory, and its steps are all on the player’s side.
• Epic’s list of GPU crash causes runs to content errors, engine bugs, driver bugs, overheating, running out of video memory and other apps.

They are each describing the slice they can see. Microsoft writes for developers, so the application is the obvious culprit. The other three write for people who cannot change the game’s code. Their steps are restarts and drivers first, then clocks. The fix order above follows the same split. The cheap player-side steps come first, a game update covers the developer’s side, and hardware comes last.

Game notes

Battlefield 6. EA’s error-codes page, updated August 11, 2026, says DirectX errors “can mean there’s an issue with your drivers”, asks you to check the game’s minimum requirements, and gives a full restart as the fix for DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG.

Unreal Engine games. Epic’s guide shows the log line quoted at the top of this page and says the reason is a separate field from the error code. It is written for developers, but the reading carries over. A DEVICE_RESET reason in an Unreal game means, by Epic’s account, that another application probably crashed the GPU.

Apex Legends on Radeon. AMD’s statements about DX12 timeouts in Apex Legends and War Thunder are dated and linked in the GPU driver crash fix.

For Baldur’s Gate 3, FiveM, Arc Raiders, Wuthering Waves and Monster Hunter Wilds, I found no publisher support page that addresses this error as of October 2, 2026. For those, the scope test and the fix order above are the route.

Sources

• Microsoft Learn, DXGI_ERROR (Winerror.h) (page shows last updated March 15, 2021)
• Microsoft Learn, Handle device removed scenarios in Direct3D 11 (page shows last updated October 20, 2022)
• Microsoft Learn, ID3D11Device::GetDeviceRemovedReason (last updated February 22, 2024)
• Microsoft Learn, WDDM support for timeout detection and recovery
• Microsoft Learn, TDR registry keys (last updated November 7, 2025)
• Microsoft Learn archive, Event ID 4101
• Microsoft Support, How to install the latest version of DirectX
• Microsoft Download Center, DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer
• Microsoft Support, Optimizations for windowed games in Windows 11
• Epic Games, Dealing with a GPU Crash When Using Unreal Engine
• EA Help, Troubleshoot error messages in Battlefield 6 (updated August 11, 2026)
• Intel Support, How to Resolve Error Message DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG (Prepar3D v4; last reviewed May 19, 2022)