The Nvidia Control Panel remains one of the most important pieces of software to access vital features of an Nvidia graphics card. It offers several useful options and features that are still missing on other Nvidia companion apps, making it a must-have utility on your PC. It’s not very intuitive to use, though, and you may also run into some problems and errors while using it.
The “Nvidia display settings are not available” is one such error that you may encounter while using the Nvidia Control Panel. There could be a few reasons why you may see this particular error on your Windows PC, so it’s hard to tell what exactly is causing it. Thankfully, there are a few different things you can try to get rid of this error, and they’re all fairly simple and straightforward.
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How to fix Nvidia Control Panel when it won’t open
Having trouble opening Nvidia Control Panel on Windows? Here are the steps you need to take to fix it.
1. Check your display connections
Try this before moving to other troubleshooting methods
The first thing you need to ensure is that your display is plugged properly into your Nvidia graphics card. This is crucial because the Nvidia Control Panel won’t recognize your display if it’s not properly plugged in, resulting in various errors, including the one we’re trying to solve here.
Your PC, in case you’re wondering, has several display ports, and you must ensure you’ve connected your monitor’s display adapter to the Nvidia graphics card’s (discrete) port. Restart your PC after you’ve established the right connection to see if it fixed the error. Alternatively, you can also try to use a different port on your graphics card to see if that fixes the error. Doing this will ensure that you’re not using a bad port that’s causing this, to begin with.
2. Enable all Nvidia services
Services that ensure smooth functioning
There are several Nvidia services running on your Windows PC at any given point that manage the display driver. They include:
- NVIDIA Display Container LS
- NVIDIA Telemetry Container
- NVIDIA LocalSystem Container
- NVIDIA NetworkService Container
These services ensure your graphics card and the Windows OS have no communication issues, so it’s crucial to have these services running properly. Your Nvidia graphics driver — and the Nvidia Control Panel — may have some trouble working properly if one or more of these services aren’t working. To ensure the aforementioned services are working properly:
- Press Win + R to open the Run program.
- Type services.msc in the search bar, and hit Enter.
- Look for the services from the aforementioned list.
- Right-click on the service, and select Properties.
- Click the dropdown menu next to the Startup Typeand set it to Automatic.
- Click the Stop button located under the Service Status tab, and then click Start after a few seconds.
- Click and Apply and OK to save your changes.
3. Disable and re-enable the graphics card
Another simple, yet a potential fix
A quick way to resolve pesky software errors is by disabling or restarting the associated hardware itself. In this case, you can try to disable and re-enable the Nvidia graphics card that’s installed on your PC to see if it fixes the issue. To try this fix:
- Press the Windows key on your keyboard, and type Device Manager.
- Open Device Managerand expand the Display adapters section.
- Locate your Nvidia graphics card, right-click on it, and select Disable device.
- Restart your PC.
- Repeat the steps from 1 to 3, but select Enable device this time.
- Restart your PC, and see if it fixes the issue.
4. Update Nvidia graphics card drivers
All you need is a simple update
A simple graphics driver update is all it takes to fix a lot of GPU-related issues. This is particularly true if you haven’t updated the graphics driver of your PC, so consider this as a sign to breathe a new life into your Nvidia graphics card. To update the graphics card driver manually:
- Go to Nvidia’s driver download center on its website.
- Select the required fields for GPU, your OS, and the correct type of drivers. For GeForce GPUs, you’ll have Game Ready Driver and Studio Driver options.
- Click Search to find the latest driver available.
- Click Download to begin downloading the driver.
- Run the installer on your PC and follow the on-screen instructions to extract the installer.
- Choose whether to install the Graphics Driver and GeForce Experience or just the driver itself. Click Agree and continue.
- Choose the Express install to go with default settings or the Custom install if you want to change settings.
- Follow the on-screen instructions, wait for the process to finish, and click Close.
5. Roll back graphics card drivers
Not the most straightforward fix
The “Nvidia display settings are not available” error could also be a result of just a bad graphics driver, and there’s a good chance that a new driver that you may have downloaded and installed on your Windows may have triggered it. If the error popped up after updating a graphics driver, then you might want to roll back to see if it fixes the error. Here’s how to roll back Nvidia drivers with Device Manager:
- Press the Start button on your Windows PC, look up Device Manager and click on the result.
- Double-click the Display Adapter option to reveal the graphics cards or chips installed on your PC.
- Right-click the Nvidia graphics card on the list and select Properties.
- Select the Drivers tab.
- Select the Roll Back Driver option.
- Choose the reason when prompted, and confirm your selection by pressing Yes.
Hope Nvidia gets rid of the Control Panel someday, solving all problems with it
Nvidia’s Control Panel may have some important options and tools to help your GPU perform better, but it’s no secret that it’s a crusty old app that’s losing its charm among all the other modern programs that we have. The company’s new Nvidia App is expected to merge the GeForce Experience and all the Control Panel options to serve as a one-stop solution, but it’s not ready for prime time just yet.
Let’s hope the Nvidia App will deliver us a much better experience overall someday, and we won’t have to deal with many of these annoying Control Panel issues. For now, though, you can try one of the aforementioned troubleshooting methods to see if it fixes the “Nvidia display settings are not available” error on Windows.