Your monitor supports 120Hz, 144Hz, 165Hz, 240Hz, or another high refresh rate, but Windows may still be using 60Hz. This guide applies to Windows 10 and Windows 11 with external monitors or laptop displays that support more than 60Hz.
Does This Affect You?
Refresh rate, measured in hertz, is how many times per second the screen redraws. Higher rates make scrolling, mouse movement, and fast games look smoother. Windows sometimes chooses 60Hz by default after a new monitor, cable, driver, or graphics card change.
Check and Change the Refresh Rate
The setting is only a few clicks deep.
- Right-click an empty area of the desktop and choose Display settings.
- If you use more than one monitor, select the display you want to adjust.
- Scroll down and open Advanced display.
- Find Choose a refresh rate. The dropdown shows the rates Windows believes the monitor, cable, and graphics hardware support.
- Select the highest refresh rate you want to use and click Keep changes when Windows asks.
- If the screen goes black or flickers badly, wait for Windows to revert automatically or press Esc.
Monitor Stuck at 60Hz Even Though It Supports More
When the higher option is missing, the cause is usually cable bandwidth, port limits, or the graphics driver.
- Check the cable. Older HDMI cables and older HDMI ports may be limited at high resolutions. DisplayPort is often the easier choice for high-refresh PC monitors, while HDMI 2.0 or 2.1 works when both ends and the cable support it.
- Try another port on the graphics card or laptop. Some devices have one port that supports the full refresh rate and another that does not.
- Lower the resolution temporarily and check again. Some combinations can do high resolution or high refresh rate, but not both together.
- Update the graphics driver through NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel, or through Device Manager if that is your only option.
- Open NVIDIA Control Panel, AMD Software, or Intel Graphics Command Center. The vendor control panel may expose refresh-rate options Windows does not show.
Setting the desktop to 144Hz does not guarantee every game runs at 144 FPS. Check the game display mode, frame-rate cap, and V-Sync settings. If your display supports G-Sync or FreeSync, enable it in the graphics control panel to reduce tearing when frame rate fluctuates.
Some monitors support an overclocked rate, such as 165Hz, only with a specific port or with a custom refresh-rate setting in NVIDIA or AMD software. Confirm the exact monitor specification before adding a custom mode. Mixed-refresh setups are normal; each monitor has its own Advanced display setting.
Sources
- Microsoft Support – Change your display refresh rate in Windows (2025)
- NVIDIA – Setting a custom refresh rate (2024)
- ASUS – Why is my monitor stuck at 60Hz? (2024)