A 144, 165 or 240 Hz monitor running at 60 Hz almost always comes down to one of four causes: Windows is still set to 60 Hz, the cable or port can’t reach the highest rate, the cable is plugged into the motherboard instead of the graphics card, or the game is capping it. Start with Windows: in Settings › System › Display › Advanced display, pick the highest rate on the list. If it isn’t there, the problem is the cable, the port or the driver.
How to check if your monitor is running at 144 Hz
Windows picks the rate your screen refreshes at, not the monitor. That’s why you can have a 165 Hz monitor running at 60 Hz without noticing. The Advanced display page shows the current resolution and refresh rate of the selected monitor, and whether it supports variable refresh rate (VRR). If the number there is 60 Hz and the box says 144 Hz or more, follow the steps below. The refresh rate is how many times per second the image updates: a 60 Hz monitor refreshes the image 60 times per second. Microsoft notes that in games a higher rate reduces motion blur and makes response quicker, and that a lower rate uses less battery on a laptop.
How to set 144 Hz in Windows 11
- 1Open Settings (Windows key + I) and go to System › Display.
- 2Scroll down to Advanced display. With more than one monitor, pick the one you want to change at the top of the page.
- 3Under "Choose a refresh rate", select the highest value on the list. A rate marked with an asterisk (*) doesn’t work at your current resolution: picking one changes the resolution too.
- 4Go back to the display information panel and check that the new rate shows up. On Windows 10 the path is similar: the advanced display settings, inside Settings › System.
On Windows 11, the same page may have dynamic refresh rate (DRR), which changes the rate on its own based on what you’re doing to save battery. It only exists on screens with VRR and at least 120 Hz. Microsoft warns that DRR can limit the maximum rate of games that weren’t built for VRR and recommends turning it off if a game seems stuck at a lower rate.
144 Hz missing from the list: cable, port and driver
- Cable in the motherboard. If your PC has a graphics card, the monitor goes into the card’s outputs, separate from the USB and network ports. Plugged into the motherboard, the processor’s integrated graphics draws the screen. Intel explains that in this case the available resolutions and rates are only the ones the integrated graphics supports.
- Cable and port. An old HDMI cable may not have the bandwidth for the highest rate: Intel lists older HDMI cables as a cause of 144 Hz monitors stuck at 120 Hz. Use DisplayPort or the cable that came with the monitor, and check its manual to see which port reaches the highest rate at your resolution.
- Graphics driver. Install the driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel. When the highest rate doesn’t show up, Intel recommends a clean driver installation.
- Does the monitor really support that rate? The spec is in the manual and on the model’s page, sometimes only at one resolution or on one port.
In the NVIDIA Control Panel
With an NVIDIA card, you can also pick the rate in the NVIDIA Control Panel: under Display › Change resolution, choose the monitor and select the value in the Refresh rate list. NVIDIA notes that with VRR (G-SYNC) on, a compatible monitor goes to its highest rate automatically. With an AMD or Intel card, the Windows path above does the job.
Windows is right and the game is still at 60?
In windowed or borderless fullscreen mode, Windows decides the rate. If the game stays at 60 after you fix Windows, check its video menu: V-Sync ties the game to the monitor’s refresh rate, an FPS cap of 60 holds everything below what the monitor can do and, when there’s a refresh rate option, it needs to be at the highest value. After changing it, measure the same scene before and after.
