In summary:
- Windows 11’s April update KB5083769 is causing black screen crashes and visual glitches, particularly affecting HP and Dell laptops with NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti GPUs.
- PCWorld reports that users are experiencing boot loops, automatic repair issues, and system instability, with Dell Support Assist suspected as a contributing factor.
- The only current solution is uninstalling the problematic update, as Microsoft has not yet acknowledged these widespread crash issues.
Microsoft’s big April patch (update KB5083769) has been causing numerous problems on Windows 11 machines these past few weeks, including BitLocker lockouts, reboot loops, and breakage of third-party backup apps. Now another issue has surfaced: black screen crashes.
According to Borncity (machine translated), affected users are complaining of PC crashes and “distorted, mosaic-like graphics.” One social media post reads:
Certain HP and Dell laptops and desktops, particularly with NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti GPUs, appear most affected. Users are frequently stuck in Windows Automatic Repair.
Microsoft has not yet added this to their known issues list.
Suggested recovery options are System Restore, Startup Repair, or using “Reset this PC” if needed.
A failed boot loop was already reported as a fault on the Microsoft forums on April 17th, 2026, caused by this very same update. The affected user owns an HP Pavilion 590 p0044.
Other users confirm the issues described in the thread, and another user even reported a similar problem as early as April 16th: “Working computer until update yesterday. Woke up to BSOD with kernel_security_check_failure. Any restart returns to the BSOD.”
On April 21st, 2026, another user then posted about this problem (machine translated from Greek):
Two days ago, Windows Update had the update 2026-04 Security Update (KB5083769) (26200.8246) listed for download and installation. As soon as it was installed and the system restarted, I noticed visual artifacts on the screen and was unable to boot into Windows 11 Pro.
After many failed restart attempts, Windows initiated automatic repair and eventually managed to boot normally. However, Windows Update keeps trying to install the same update every time. I paused updates and used the “Show or hide updates” tool to hide this specific update so it would be ignored. Today, I had to repeat the same process again.
In the Borncity comments section, some readers confirm the issues mentioned. It’s currently impossible to say for certain whether these are isolated cases or whether a larger number of users are affected. One suspected cause of the BSOD crashes is Dell Support Assist.
Microsoft has not yet issued a statement on the matter. For affected users, the only solution right now is to uninstall update KB5083769. Learn more about how to roll back a problematic Windows update.
By the way: If you’re using Windows 11 Home, you’re missing out on the many benefits of Windows 11 Pro. To learn more, see our comparison of Windows 11 Home and Pro. If you want to upgrade, snag it for cheap in the PCWorld Software Store: now just $59 instead of $99.
This article originally appeared on our sister publication PC-WELT and was translated and localized from German.
Author: Hans-Christian Dirscherl, Managing Editor, PC-WELT
Hans-Christian Dirscherl began his IT life with Autoexec.bat and config.sys, Turbo-Pascal and C, Sinix and Wordperfect. He has been writing on almost all IT topics for around 25 years, covering everything from news to reviews and buying guides.