Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing

How to fix the ‘you are not currently using a display attached to an Nvidia GPU’ error

By

Occasionally, those with Nvidia graphics cards may see a message pop up that says, “You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDIA GPU.”

This typically happens because Windows is trying to access the Nvidia GPU, but it’s inactive. There could be a number of reasons for this, but if you’ve run into this issue, have no fear. Here are a few troubleshooting tips to fix this annoying little problem.

Recommended Videos

Plug the HDMI cord into the Nvidia card itself

Believe it or not, one of the simplest fixes may be to just plug your HDMI cord into the right port. This is geared primarily toward desktop users who use CPUs with integrated graphics. Some people mistakenly plug the HDMI cable into the motherboard rather than directly into the graphics card itself. Since the display is running off the integrated graphics, it bypasses the discrete card altogether.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!
Privacy Policy

To check to see which GPU your monitor is using, click on Start > Settings > Display > Advanced Display Settings.

Advanced display settings in Windows 10.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Update the Nvidia drivers

The next thing you want to do is to make sure your Nvidia drivers are up to date. If you already have Nvidia GeForce Experience installed, you can go to the Drivers section and click on Check for Updates on the far-right.

Checking for updates in Nvidia Geforce Experience.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Alternatively, you can go to Nvidia’s website and download the drivers directly. Simply input the requisite details of your particular graphics card and operating system, and the website should display the available drivers.

Downloading drivers on Nvidia website.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

You’ll want to ensure that you pick the correct type, either Game Ready or Studio drivers. After installing the drivers, restart your PC — and hopefully, this error goes away entirely.

Uninstall and reinstall Nvidia drivers

The last thing you’ll want to do is try uninstalling the current drivers and reinstalling fresh drivers.

Right-click the Start icon on the bottom-left of the screen and choose Device Manager from the list of options. While in the Device Manager window, click on the arrow next to Display Adapters, and you should see your Nvidia card listed. Right-click on the Nvidia card and select Uninstall Device.

Uninstalling drivers in Device Manager.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

You may see an additional prompt asking for confirmation. Make sure that Delete the Driver Software for This Device is checked. Click Uninstall, then restart your computer.

Confirmation dialog for uninstalling drivers.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Once you’ve logged back into Windows, follow the steps from the previous section on how to update the Nvidia drivers.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
David Matthews
David Matthews
Former Digital Trends Contributor
David is a freelance journalist based just outside of Washington D.C. specializing in consumer technology and gaming. He has…
The viral ‘GPU purse’ costs $1,024 — but you can make your own for $40
A purse made out of a GT 730 GPU.

I never thought the best graphics cards would become a fashion statement, much less some of the worst, but here we are. Over the weekend, a website called GPU Purse went live with a listing for a discarded Nvidia GT 730 GPU -- a $20 used GPU -- that had been turned into a handbag. You'll just need to shell out $1,024 for the bag, which, according to the product page, fits a phone and comes complete with a long or short chain.

One look at the website sets off alarm bells, especially for a product that's over $1,000, but it appears there's some legitimacy behind it. Financial Times reports that the GPU Purse is the brainchild of Tessa Barton, a New York Times alum and current pretraining engineer at Databricks. Barton reportedly set up a Shopify store in haste after a post on X (formerly Twitter) went viral last week with over 1.4 million impressions.

Read more
Nvidia’s next-gen GPU may be a hit for laptop gamers
Forza Horizon 5 running on the Alienware x14 R2.

Nvidia's RTX 50-series is still shrouded in mystery, but today, we got an exciting report about the upcoming RTX 5060 laptop GPU. According to the chairman of Hasee, a Chinese laptop and desktop manufacturer, the RTX 5060 will feature a sizable upgrade, all the while cutting back on the power consumption. Is the RTX 5060 going to be one of the best graphics cards for laptop gamers, including the ones who prefer thin notebooks?

The juicy scoop, first shared via Weibo, comes from Hasee's chairman Wu Haijun, who talked about the RTX 5060 during a meeting with the media. The chairman claimed that the next-gen xx60 graphics card will only consume 115 watts of power, as opposed to the 140W total graphics power (TGP) we've seen in the RTX 4060.

Read more
Nvidia may be working on a surprising new budget GPU
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card.

This is certainly unexpected. Hints of an upcoming Nvidia graphics card showed up in the PCI-ID database, and it's definitely not what you think. Instead of working on the RTX 50-series or refreshing a 40-series GPU, Nvidia is bringing back the slowest RTX 30-series card -- the RTX 3050 -- but with an Ada Lovelace chip. In theory, that could make this the first RTX 30-series GPU to have access to Deep Learning Super Sampling 3 (DLSS 3).

The GPU in question is a laptop version of the RTX 3050. It's hard to say why Nvidia would choose to release new versions of that particular card in 2024 (or beyond), but the RTX 3050 A exists -- VideoCardz found traces of it in the latest Nvidia drivers. Just the fact that there's an RTX 3050 in the works is surprising, but that it's based on the AD106 chip is what baffles me.

Read more