Is your high refresh rate monitor stuck at 60 Hz?
Windows often leaves a newly connected monitor at 60 Hz, and nothing tells you. At 60 Hz a screen shows at most 60 frames a second, however fast the graphics card is — so a 144 Hz monitor bought for smooth games can spend years delivering none of it.
Updated 24 September 2026
Check it in Windows 11
- Right-click the desktop and choose Display settings.
- With more than one monitor, select the one to check at the top of the page.
- Scroll down and choose Advanced display.
- Look at Choose a refresh rate. If it says 60 Hz and the list offers more, pick the highest.
The screen may go blank for a moment. If it does not come back properly, just wait: Windows returns to the old setting by itself after about 15 seconds unless you choose Keep changes.
Check it in Windows 10
Open Settings → System → Display → Advanced display settings, choose the monitor, and set Refresh rate. On older versions of Windows 10 the setting is under Display adapter properties, on the Monitor tab.
When the faster rate is not in the list
Windows offers only what the monitor, the cable, the port and the graphics driver can all do. If the monitor’s advertised rate is missing, one of them is holding it back.
The cable and the port
Older connections cannot carry high refresh rates at high resolutions. Use DisplayPort, or HDMI 2.0 or newer — and the cable that came with the monitor if you still have it. Both ports and the cable between them all have to support the speed.
| Connection | 1080p | 1440p | 4K |
|---|---|---|---|
| HDMI 1.4 | 120 Hz | 60 Hz | 30 Hz |
| HDMI 2.0 | 240 Hz | 144 Hz | 60 Hz |
| HDMI 2.1 | 360 Hz | 240 Hz | 144 Hz |
| DisplayPort 1.2 | 240 Hz | 165 Hz | 60 Hz |
| DisplayPort 1.4 | 360 Hz | 240 Hz | 120 Hz |
With standard 8-bit colour. Monitors vary, some go further using compression (DSC) — many DisplayPort 1.4 monitors reach 4K at 144 Hz that way — and the monitor’s manual has the exact figures.
The motherboard instead of the graphics card
On a desktop with a separate graphics card, the monitor has to plug into the card’s ports, in the horizontal slots lower down the back of the case. The ports in the panel near the top belong to the motherboard and run from the processor’s own graphics, which may not offer the monitor’s higher rates — and games run on that weaker chip too.
The monitor’s own menu
Some monitors have settings in their on-screen menu that hold the refresh rate down: a DisplayPort version switch set to an older standard, or an overclock option that has to be turned on to reach the advertised figure. The monitor’s manual will say.
The graphics driver
Straight after Windows is installed, or after a driver problem, Windows falls back to its Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, which offers very few modes. Install the current driver from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel.
Games have their own settings
Once Windows is running at the right rate, check the game as well. Many have their own refresh rate, frame rate limit or V-Sync setting, and some keep the 60 Hz choice they made the first time they ran. The graphics driver’s control panel can hold a frame rate cap too.
Laptops on battery
Many laptops drop to 60 Hz on battery on purpose, to save power, and go back up when plugged in. That is a choice, not a fault.
How Bottleneck checks this
Bottleneck reads each monitor’s current refresh rate and the rates the graphics driver offers at the current resolution, and flags any monitor running well below what it can do — by name, so it is clear which one. It checks that monitors are plugged into the graphics card rather than the motherboard, and it stays quiet on battery.
It also counts the refresh rate before suggesting a faster graphics card. At 60 Hz, a faster card would change nothing you can see.
One limit worth knowing: when a cable or port hides the faster modes, the driver never offers them, so Bottleneck cannot see them either. The table above is the check for that.