Unable to use NVIDIA Graphic Card on any application, and that unable to open up NVIDIA Control Panel.

misterkurai

Reputable
Oct 12, 2015
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4,510
My System
Operating System: Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
System Manufacturer: LENOVO
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4710HQ CPU @2.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.5GHz
Memory: 16384 RAM
Direct X Version: DirectX 11
Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M, 12GB Memory



I have been having problems with my graphic card for a couple of days now. Starting from the beginning, I was playing League of Legends and I had this game crash. I thought it was just a normal bugsplat and I couldn't seem to get back into a game after getting this pop-up notification saying "Unknown DirectX problem, make sure that your video card supports the system" and stuff. I didn't screenshot this so I tried to delete some files in the game file, as suggested in most of the threads in the forums of the game website. It didn't work so I tried reinstalling the game but it didn't work as well.

After some researching, I tried to reinstall my graphic card. I thought it worked for a few minutes, but then it came a screeching sound that goes "EEEEEEE" and my screen froze and the game crashed. I tried a few times but it just kept crashing. There was a pop-up notification that goes "Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 358.50 stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

I went to have a System Restore, to a point where it was "healthier" a couple weeks ago. It worked for a game where I was able to select NVIDIA graphic card to play, but then soon after I couldn't use it again.

So I went to the NVIDIA Control Panel and tried to see if everything was in place. I could change my Global Settings and my Program Settings to High-performance NVIDIA processor, and I could see that the applications were using the graphic card. But after I tried once on another game, I could not use it again after attempting to reenter the game, saying that I have "no privilege to select graphics processor in this menu" and lets me have the option to open my NVIDIA Control Panel. But soon after, I tried to open the NVIDIA Control panel by right clicking on the Windows homescreen, and I get this pop-up that says "NVIDIA Display settings are not available. You are not currently using a display attached to an NVIDIA GPU."

I am not sure if it was just my NVIDIA graphic card spoiled or that it was something in my system that is the problem.

I am not sure what to do now. I am not a guy who's really good with tech. I might have missed out something. I hope that someone answers my question because I'm getting frustrated to be able to get my laptop to do what I could do a week ago.

Kind Regards.
 
Solution
Firstly, I would make sure that your monitor's display cable is connected into the GPU's display output, not the motherboard's. Then, check that the drivers are good and up to date. Then lastly, if nothing else works then you can try claim a refund or replacement if it is still under warranty. If it is not replaced, read over the Australian Consumer Law to check whether you are entitled to a warranty.

NextGenLifeHD

Reputable
Sep 29, 2015
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4,710
Firstly, I would make sure that your monitor's display cable is connected into the GPU's display output, not the motherboard's. Then, check that the drivers are good and up to date. Then lastly, if nothing else works then you can try claim a refund or replacement if it is still under warranty. If it is not replaced, read over the Australian Consumer Law to check whether you are entitled to a warranty.
 
Solution

smayne

Distinguished
Dec 14, 2008
3
0
18,510
Just figured out how to fix this on my PC.

ISSUE - NVidia control panel is running as a process, but I cannot open it via right click method on desktop, nor by directly running the EXE. All that happens is that you get a spinning hourglass for a few seconds then it disappears. The Nvidia Control Panel will not open, but you can clearly see in Task Manager that another process opens with same name.

RESEARCH - Did almost everything on these pages. Clean install, AV set to allow EXE to run. I noticed people stating to remove the OnBoard Intel card. Well that was a last gasp method I didn't want to tackle quite yet, so I thought about why that would impact the Nvidia Control Panel. I hypothesized that it was the VirtuMVP software that come with many of the new boards with onboard GPU's.

STEPS TAKEN
- Clean reboot
- System Tray - Open VirtuMVP control panel
- on 'Main' tab that it starts with I simply clicked the 'On' button on the GPU Virtualization to turn it off
- Right-clicked desktop and selected Nvidia Virtual Control Panel and it opened.
- Retested this multiple time on clean reboots and it worked every time, on two different PC's.
- UPDATE - Also confirmed that after opening the Nvidia Control Panel and closing it that I could open and close as much as I wanted .. until I turned VirtuMVP GPU Virtualization back on, and it immediately prevented Nvidia Control Panel from opening again. That pretty much sealed the deal on this as a fix for me.

Hopefully this will work for you. If it doesn't, I am truly sorry as I felt your pain. Hopefully Nvidia or the VirtuMVP people will see this and create a fix.