Why is my 144Hz monitor running at 60Hz?
High refresh monitors ship set to 60Hz and stay there until you change it. Here is that setting, and what to check if changing it does not stick.
Most 144Hz monitors spend their lives running at 60Hz, because that is what they ship set to and nothing tells you otherwise. The panel is not faulty and the cable is usually fine. The setting simply has to be changed by hand, once, and almost nobody knows it exists.
Change the setting
Windows. Settings, then System, then Display, then Advanced display. There is a refresh rate dropdown near the bottom. Select the highest value offered and confirm.
macOS. System Settings, then Displays. Refresh rate appears as a dropdown for external displays that support more than one.
Linux. Display settings in your desktop environment, or xrandr --rate from a
terminal.
Then measure it. Do not assume the setting took: a monitor can accept a higher signal and still deliver fewer frames to a specific application, and the setting will happily show 144 while your browser runs at 60.
If the option is missing
The dropdown only offers what the whole chain can carry. If 144Hz is not listed, one link cannot support it at your current resolution.
The cable
This is the most common cause. Bandwidth is shared between resolution and refresh rate, so a cable can carry 1440p at 60Hz and refuse 1440p at 144Hz.
| Connection | Typical ceiling |
|---|---|
| HDMI 1.4 | 1080p at 120Hz, or 1440p at 60Hz |
| HDMI 2.0 | 1440p at 144Hz, 4K at 60Hz |
| HDMI 2.1 | 4K at 120Hz and beyond |
| DisplayPort 1.2 | 1440p at 165Hz, 4K at 60Hz |
| DisplayPort 1.4 | 4K at 120Hz with compression |
DisplayPort generally has more headroom than HDMI of the same era, so if your monitor and card both have it, use it. Cheap or very long HDMI cables frequently fail to carry their rated bandwidth even when the specification says they should.
The port
On a desktop with a dedicated graphics card, plugging into the motherboard’s video output routes everything through integrated graphics. It works, which is why the mistake goes unnoticed, and it often caps what is available.
Resolution
Dropping one step in resolution frees enough bandwidth to reach the higher refresh rate. If 1440p at 144Hz is unavailable but 1080p at 144Hz is, you have found a bandwidth limit.
If it is set correctly but still measures low
You are on battery
Laptops routinely drop to 60Hz unplugged, and some browsers cap animation frames in low power mode independently of the display. Plug in and measure again.
The window is on another display
The browser runs at the refresh rate of the display its window is on. A window dragged to a 60Hz secondary monitor reports 60Hz no matter what your main panel does.
Hardware acceleration is off
A browser without GPU acceleration falls back to software rendering, which commonly caps at 60. Check your browser’s performance settings.
Variable refresh is active
G-Sync and FreeSync change the rate continuously to match what is being rendered. A measurement then reports an average rather than a fixed number, and high jitter alongside it is the signature. That is the feature working, not a fault.
What you should actually see
A 144Hz display running correctly measures somewhere around 143 to 144Hz with very low jitter. Displays rarely run at exactly their advertised figure, so anything within a couple of percent is that rate.
If you measure almost exactly 60, something is capping you. If you measure 143.9 with a fraction of a millisecond of jitter, everything is working.
Common questions
Why do monitors ship at 60Hz?
Sixty hertz is the safe default that works over any cable with any graphics driver. Shipping at the maximum risks a black screen on hardware that cannot carry it, which generates returns. The trade-off is that a large share of high refresh monitors are never switched off 60Hz by their owners.
My setting says 144Hz but it feels like 60.
Measure it rather than trusting the setting. A monitor can accept a 144Hz signal and display it correctly while the browser or a specific application is capped lower. Browsers in particular cap animation frames on battery power or when hardware acceleration is off.
The 144Hz option is missing entirely.
That is almost always cable bandwidth or the wrong port. Check you are using DisplayPort or HDMI 2.0 or later, that the cable is rated for it, and that you are plugged into the graphics card rather than the motherboard.
Does refresh rate matter outside gaming?
Yes, though less dramatically. Cursor movement, scrolling and window dragging are all visibly smoother. Most people notice the difference immediately when moving between a 60Hz and a 144Hz display, even with no game running.
Will a higher refresh rate reduce my battery life?
On a laptop, yes, noticeably. The display and GPU both work harder. This is why many laptops drop to 60Hz automatically on battery, and why a laptop that measures 144Hz plugged in can measure 60Hz unplugged.