Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Guides

How to reset graphics drivers in Windows 11

By and

Having some graphics trouble with your Windows PC? Before you open the nearest real window and toss your treasured gaming rig into the great beyond, you should probably do a little troubleshooting. Luckily, one common culprit is misbehaving drivers. And guess what? These pests can be reset! Here’s a guide to teach you how to do it.

Recommended Videos

Difficulty

Moderate

Duration

20 minutes

What You Need

How to restart your graphics driver in Windows 11

If your PC appears to be working fine, but the visuals have frozen, or you've had a sudden black screen but the PC seems to be working otherwise, you might need to restart your graphics driver.

Step 1: Press Windows key + Ctrl + Shift + B.

Step 2: Your screen(s) will flash black (if they aren't black already) as the driver refreshes.

If it worked, you should find your PC is working again. If this problem persists, you might want to consider reinstalling your graphics driver anyway.

Related

How to reinstall your graphics driver on Windows 11

The best way to reset your graphics driver in Windows 11 is by reinstalling it. If you have an AMD, Nvidia, or Intel graphics card, skip to the section below. However, if you're running a Windows 11 PC with Intel or AMD onboard graphics, you can let Windows do all the heavy lifting for you.

Step 1: Search for Device Manager in Windows search.

Searching for Device Manager in Windows 11.
Digital Trends

Step 2: Look under Display Adapters for your graphics chip. It will be listed as AMD Radeon, Intel UHD, or some variation.

Finding the display adapter in Device Manager in Windows 11.
Digital Trends

Step 3: Right-click on the entry and select Uninstall device. It may take a second and your screen may flicker off and on, but when it's finished, restart your PC.

When Windows 11 boots back up again, it should reinstall the latest Intel or AMD onboard graphics driver for you, hopefully fixing whatever problem you were facing.

How to reinstall your graphics card drivers in Windows 11

If you have an AMD, Nvidia, or Intel graphics card, the process for reinstalling your graphics driver is a little more involved but not much more complicated.

Step 1: Use the Windows 11 search bar to find Add or remove programs and select the appropriate result.

Searching for Add and Remove programs in Windows 11.
Digital Trends

Step 2: Scroll through the list or use the search, to find Nvidia, AMD, or Intel graphics drivers. Select the three-dot menu on the right-hand side and select Uninstall.

You may also want to remove the GeForce experience, Nvidia Control Panel, AMD Radeon Adrenaline, and other related applications and drivers.

Finding the Nvidia drivers to uninstall them.
Digital Trends

Step 3: Optional: If you want to make doubly sure that your drivers are completely removed, you can also run the third-party application, Display Driver Uninstaller, otherwise known as DDU. Find out how to download it and use it, on the official site.

Step 4: Restart your computer and wait for it to boot back up.

Step 5: Visit your graphics card manufacturer's website and download the latest version of the most applicable driver for your graphics card. Their respective download sites are:

Step 6: Run the graphics card driver installer and follow the on-screen instructions to reinstall your graphics driver.

Now that you've reset your graphics drivers in Windows 11, how about improving gaming performance? Make these in-game settings tweaks to make the most of what you've got, or consider overclocking your graphics card to find more performance.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale
Computing Coordinator
Jon Martindale is the Evergreen Coordinator for Computing, overseeing a team of writers addressing all the latest how to…
Windows 11 Home usually costs $139 — but it’s only $30 today
Laptop sitting on a desk showing Windows 11's built-in Microsoft Teams experience

If you've recently bought yourself a new desktop or laptop, you're most likely using Windows 11 Home edition, which is still pretty good, but it does lock some features away that you can only get with the Pro edition. While they aren't completely necessary, they are nice to have, but the usual $200 cost of a Windows 11 Pro license means they aren't worth the cost. Luckily, there's a great deal from StackSocial that discounts Windows 11 Pro down to just $30, which constitutes a whopping 84% discount on the regular price. You better grab it quite too, because the sale is going to be ending soon.

Why you should buy Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
Most of the features that you'll find on Windows 11 Pro are targeted to, you guessed it, professionals, but that doesn't mean that you can't also take advantage of it. For example, while both versions of Windows 11 are pretty secure, Windows 11 Pro has extra security features. For example, the Pro version comes with Defender Application Guard, which is an additional level of security that protects your files even if your computer is stolen, and the BitLocker can directly lock your files so nobody can read them even if they can access them.

Read more
How to disable VBS in Windows 11 to improve gaming
Highlighting VBS is disabled in Windows 11.

Windows 11's Virtualization Based Security features have been shown to have some impact on gaming performance — even if it isn't drastic. While you will be putting your system more at risk, if you're looking to min-max your gaming PC's performance, you can always disable it. Just follow the steps below to disable VBS in a few quick clicks.

Plus, later in this guide, we discuss if disabling VBS is really worth it, what you'd be losing if you choose to disable it, and other options for boosting your PCs gaming performance that don't necessarily involve messing with VBS.

Read more
How to dual boot Linux and Windows
A person using a Linux laptop.

Windows might be your bread and butter, but you can dual-boot it with Linux if you want to tinker, or play around with a wider range of open source software. Whether you're using Windows 10 or Windows 11, you can install a range of different Linux distributions as a secondary operating system to give you the best of both worls.

Here's how to dual boot Windows and Linux.

Read more