Took me 45 minutes to realize my second monitor was set to 30Hz

I spent way too long yesterday messing with cables and adapter cords because my side monitor looked laggy and weird. I tried three different HDMI cords before I remembered to check the display settings in Windows. Turns out the second screen was running at 30Hz because Windows defaults to that on some older monitors. Changed it to 60Hz and it felt like a whole new monitor. Has anyone else wasted time on a super simple fix like this that should have been obvious?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielwhite1mo ago

Oh man, that's Windows for you. Quick thing though, it's not really a "default to 30Hz" thing. Windows usually tries to match whatever the monitor says it supports through its EDID data. If your monitor is older or the cable wasn't great, it might have just picked the lowest common denominator to be safe. But yeah, I've done similar stuff. Forgot to enable XMP on a new RAM kit once and spent a week wondering why my games felt choppy. Always check the basic settings first, then blame the hardware.

paige5141mo ago

Hold up, Windows is supposed to be smart enough to handle EDID data properly. It's 2024, not 2004. If it can't figure out that a 144Hz monitor should run at 60Hz minimum, that's still a Windows problem, not a cable problem. Most modern monitors self-report just fine unless you're using some ancient DVI cable from 2009. And the XMP thing is a perfect example - why doesn't the board just default to the advertised speeds out of the box? We shouldn't have to dig through BIOS menus to get what we paid for.