My gaming PC has developed a dual-monitor startup problem since a graphics driver update. When both displays are connected while the computer starts, the screens flicker with black flashes and green pixel-like squares. Sometimes the lock screen appears stretched into the upper-left corner. The only temporary workaround is starting the PC with both monitors unplugged and reconnecting them afterward.
I have tried rolling back the NVIDIA driver and running an SFC scan, but neither helped. The system is running Windows 11 Pro with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, 32 GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. One monitor is 1920×1080 at 180 Hz, while the other is 1440×900 at 75 Hz. NVIDIA App version is 11.0.5.420, and the installed driver is Game Ready 581.80. What should I check to fix these startup display glitches?
2 Answers
One possible cause is Multi-Plane Overlay (MPO), which can produce flickering and graphical corruption in Windows. Disabling MPO is worth testing, although it is not guaranteed to solve the problem. If that does not help, test each monitor and cable separately, temporarily use the same refresh rate on both displays, and perform a clean graphics-driver installation rather than only rolling the driver back.
Could you describe the glitching more specifically? Display problems can come from the driver, cable, monitor, or GPU, so details such as flickering, colored artifacts, stretched images, or signal loss help narrow it down.
The screens flicker with black flashes and strange green pixel-like squares. Sometimes the lock screen looks extremely stretched and appears only in the upper-left corner.
I tried disabling MPO using a troubleshooting guide, but the startup glitches are still happening.