- Windows 11 has suffered a bug that causes black screen crashes for gamers with a ‘security check failure’ error
- Microsoft has admitted the bug and tells us it’s now fixed
- The fix is in the latest February update for Windows 11 along with one for problems connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks
Microsoft has confirmed that some Windows 11 gamers are suffering from a bug that causes their PC to completely lock up – but the good news is that the February update packs a cure for this.
Windows Latest reports that the bug causes the dreaded Black Screen of Death (BSOD – which used to be blue, of course), prompting the system to reboot. The telltale sign of this error is that the screen itself bears a ‘Kernel Security Check Failure’ error message.
Technology notes that testers have also run into this issue recently (although they get green error screens), as well as those running the full version of Windows 11 – and this has also been a problem in the distant past.
Windows Latest highlights a Microsoft Feedback Hub post complaining about Genshin Impact crashes, and there are also Reddit posts about the issue (for example, this one detailing issues with Marvel Rivals).
Microsoft says the issue is now fixed in the release notes for the February update: “[Graphics] Fixed: This update resolves an issue where certain GPU configurations may have recently experienced a system error related to dxgmms2.sys, resulting in the Kernel_Security_Check_Failure error.”
A good few reports of problems with GPUs lately in Windows 11 have been focused on Nvidia graphics cards, with Team Green themselves observing that there was an issue with the January update that caused not just black screen crashes, but visual corruption of various kinds (like screen flickering).
However, Microsoft has indicated that all graphics cards can experience this particular black screen error with the security check, so presumably AMD and Intel GPUs can also be affected by this unfortunate error.
Not anymore, thankfully, since the February update has arrived. You should have been offered that upgrade by now, so if you’re suffering from black screen crashes, installing it should be a priority. In fact, we saw this fix arrive in the January preview update late last month (which is, of course, the beta version of the February update – so it’s not a shock that the fix was present here, and some of you may already have it if you grabbed the optional update).
That said, there’s a twist in the story here, because if you installed the preview update from January, this had a new bug that stopped Windows 11 from connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks using WPA3 (the cutting-edge wireless encryption standard).
So, if you’ve had trouble connecting to some Wi-Fi networks after installing the latest optional update, you’ll want the February update, which also fixes this WPA3 issue.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a fix applied, only for another bug to pop up (albeit only in preview this time). And gaming-related bugs are certainly not new and have been depressingly regular occurrences with Windows 11 since the 24H2 update, so this latest bug doesn’t help Microsoft’s reputation in that regard — a reputation the company hopes to repair this year, let’s not forget…
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