- Windows 11 has been suffering from a bug that causes black screen lockouts for gamers with a ‘security check failure’ error
- Microsoft admitted the problem and tells us it is now fixed
- The fix is in the latest February update for Windows 11, along with one for issues connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks.
Microsoft has confirmed that some Windows 11 players have experienced a bug that causes their PC to completely crash, but the good news is that the February update includes a cure for this.
Windows Latest reports that the error causes the dreaded black screen of death (BSOD, which used to be blue, of course), so the system requires a reboot. The telltale sign of this problem is that the screen itself displays the error message “Kernel security check failed.”
The tech site notes that testers have also run into this issue lately (although green error screens appear), as well as those running the full version of Windows 11, and this has also been an issue in the distant past.
Windows Latest highlights a Microsoft Feedback Hub post with a complaint about Genshin Impact crashing, and there are also Reddit posts about the issue (for example, this one detailing issues with Marvel Rivals).
Microsoft says the issue is now resolved in the February update release notes: “[Graphics] Fixed: This update fixes 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.
Some reports of GPU issues in Windows 11 lately have focused on Nvidia graphics cards, with Team Green itself noting that there was an issue with the January update that was causing not only black screen crashes, but also visual damage of various kinds (such as screen flickering).
However, Microsoft has indicated that all graphics cards can experience this particular black screen error with the security check failure, so presumably AMD and Intel GPUs could also be affected by this unfortunate bug.
Fortunately, not anymore since the February update arrived. You should have already been offered that update, so if you are suffering from black screen crashes, installing it should be a priority. In fact, we saw this cure arrive in the January preview update late last month (which, of course, is the beta version of the February update, so it’s no surprise that the fix was present here, and some of you may already have it if you took that optional update).
That said, there’s a twist to the story here, because if you installed the January preview update, it had a new bug that prevented Windows 11 from connecting to certain Wi-Fi networks using WPA3 (the next-generation wireless encryption standard).
So if you’ve been having trouble connecting to some Wi-Fi networks after installing the latest optional update, you’ll want to get 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 (although this time only in preview). And gaming-related bugs certainly aren’t new, and have been a depressing occurrence with Windows 11 since the 24H2 update, so this latest bug won’t help Microsoft’s reputation in this regard – a reputation the company hopes to repair this year, let’s not forget…
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