Nvidia control panel is a very familiar name among the PC gamers.
It’s actually a graphics control panel by Nvidia, which is used to tinker the settings of a dedicated graphics card and its behavior with your games.
The changes made in this panel will have a ‘global’ effect on all of your games/softwares that work with a dedicated graphics card, even though you can later customize these settings for every game though in-game settings.
Needless to say, this control panel is really important if you want to get the most out of your Nvidia graphics card.
Many people have reported in recent times, however, that they are unable to find (or open, in some cases) Nvidia control panel on their Laptops/PCs .
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In usual circumstances, this panel can be found either in the Desktop context menu or among the “Hidden Items” in the Taskbar. However, once missing, it can’t be find in either of the places mentioned above.
Possible Reasons For Missing
- You have upgraded your windows versions. In recent times, Microsoft has rolled out Windows 10 Creators Update and many users have upgraded windows version of their PC/Laptop. This can be a potential problem.
- You haven’t shut down your PC properly last time or you have wake your PC from sleep mode.
There are a number of ways you can solve this problem and we’ll discuss each of them one by one.
1. UnHide Nvidia Control Panel
In many cases, such as when you update windows OS, Nvidia panel can be accidentally “hidden” by Windows OS during that update. Not deleted but hidden.
In order to retrieve it back to context menu, first you need to go into the Control panel of your PC. You can do it by simply typing Control Panel in your Start Menu and pressing the Enter key.
Once you’re in the control panel, you need to change your view. On view by option, at the top-right side of your screen, select Large icons.
After that you should be able to see Nvidia control panel in that big list of options. Once you open it, click on Desktop > Add Desktop Context Menu.
Now, you should be able to see it in desktop context menu.
2. Update Drivers of Your Graphics Card
In case you weren’t able to see your graphics panel in the control panel items list, you may need to update your graphics card drivers. It’s because chances are very high that you’re using an outdated version of your graphics drivers.
Most convenient method for updating these drivers is through Nvidia’s own website.
First go to Nvidia Geforce’s site > Drivers.
Then you’ll see a list of fields you need to select in order to have drivers specific to your graphics card, like Product type, series, OS etc.
Once you’ve chosen all of your options, you’ll be shown a download link of your drivers (which is usually a compressed zip file).
There’s an auto option too, in which the website automatically detects your GPU, but I like the manual method. After downloading, you need to install those drivers and restart your PC and you’re done.
Note: if you still aren’t able to locate Nvidia panel, it means that you have to reinstall these drivers you’ve just downloaded (by first uninstalling previous version of Nvidia control panel).