I'm using a Dell G15 laptop, and my NVIDIA graphics card seems to be acting up. It's not showing in Task Manager and is hidden in Device Manager, but I know it's still physically there. Sometimes it recognizes the GPU, and I can play FPS games, but other times it fails to show up. I just had the RAM replaced yesterday, and when it does show up, it says my drivers are up to date. What could be causing this?
2 Answers
If your GPU still shows up in Device Manager, your computer recognizes it but might be missing the right drivers to function properly. Since you mentioned blue screens and a specific error, you might want to create a bootable Windows media and reinstall Windows. If you want to avoid that, another option is to completely uninstall your NVIDIA drivers using DDU, then reinstall them fresh—might help sort out the issue!
It’s actually pretty common for laptop GPUs to be soldered onto the motherboard, so they can’t get loose like desktop GPUs can. What you’re likely experiencing is a failing GPU or some other issue that’s causing it to drop out intermittently. When it’s marked as ‘hidden’ in Device Manager, that usually means Windows isn’t detecting the GPU at that time. Definitely sounds like a hardware issue to look into!
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