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External Monitor is Not Using Your GPU? How to Force it
Make sure the monitor is fully compatible with your PC to avoid issues
3 min. read
Updated onOctober 4, 2023
updated onOctober 4, 2023
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Key notes
Many use external monitors with their laptops because they offer more space and better quality. However, many users reported that an external monitor not using GPU.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the only issue, and many reported that asecond monitor is not detectedon their PC.
This can be a problem and affect your performance, so it’s important to fix it, and this guide will show you the best ways to do it, so let’s get started.
Why is my monitor not using GPU?
Do external monitors use GPU?
On laptops, integrated graphics render the user interface and other graphics components. This means that integrated graphics will be used on external monitors as well.
Only if you start a demanding application, such as a video game, will your laptop be forced to switch to a dedicated GPU.
After doing that, it doesn’t matter if the game is displayed on an internal or external display, it will run on your dedicated GPU.
What can I do if an external monitor is not using GPU?
Before we start, there’s one thing you need to check:
1. Reinstall the graphics driver
After the driver is uninstalled, you need toupdate the graphics driverand check if that solves the problem.
While uninstalling your drivers, some users recommend usingDisplay Driver Uninstaller, so you might want to try that as well.
2. Set a preferred GPU
As you can see, this is a minor issue, and it’s normal behavior since the external monitor not using GPU by default.
However, there are more serious issues you can encounter, one of them being theexternal monitor not being detected after sleep, however, we fixed that in a separate guide.
What method did you use to fix this issue, let us know in the comments below.
More about the topics:GPU,laptop,second monitor issues
Milan Stanojevic
Windows Toubleshooting Expert
Milan has been enthusiastic about technology ever since his childhood days, and this led him to take interest in all PC-related technologies. He’s a PC enthusiast and he spends most of his time learning about computers and technology.
Before joining WindowsReport, he worked as a front-end web developer. Now, he’s one of the Troubleshooting experts in our worldwide team, specializing in Windows errors & software issues.
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Milan Stanojevic
Windows Toubleshooting Expert
Before joining WindowsReport, he worked as a front-end web developer. Now, he’s specialized in Windows errors & software issues.
