Dealing with screen flickering on Windows can be annoying, but it’s a common problem with multiple fixes. Whether the flickering is caused by outdated drivers, incorrect display settings, or software conflicts, this guide will help you diagnose and resolve the issue. By updating your display drivers, adjusting the refresh rate, or checking for incompatible applications, you can eliminate screen flickering and restore a stable, smooth viewing experience on your Windows PC.

What is Screen Flickering?

Screen flickering refers to rapid and continuous flashing of the display, often caused by hardware malfunctions, software glitches, or external interference, which leads to an unstable viewing experience, making it difficult to work or use the device comfortably. It can be caused by outdated graphics drivers, incompatible applications, incorrect refresh rate settings, or faulty display cables. Identifying the root cause and applying the right troubleshooting steps, can help resolve screen flickering effectively.

As Windows 11 is already out in the market, some users are experiencing flickering problems due to hardware malfunction, loose graphic card wires, viruses, and graphic card drivers, applications like iCloud, Norton Anti Virus, or third-party software. If you are one of them, let’s solve the flickering problem easily and quickly.

1. Check for graphic card wires.

Before going into drivers troubleshooting and updating your drivers make sure your cables are connecting properly with your monitor on the desired port and no wire is damaged, loose, or broken.

·         Check monitor wire if broken or damaged replace it with a new one.

·         Bring your computer to rest by shutting it down and unplugging and plugging it properly in its respective port.

2. Check for the desktop window manager.

Desktop window manager (dwm.exe) helps in eye-catching Windows animation but it is responsible for causing rendering in Windows too, causing various problems in Windows including flickering. We can stop it by using the following steps:

·         Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc. It will open Task Manager.

·         In Task Manager Click the More Detail option if programs running in the background are shown.

·         Otherwise you will be sent to the Processes Menu where you can find Desktop Window Manager on your left-hand side inside Window Processes.

·         Select the Desktop Window Manager and Click on the End task button.

3. Update the Graphic Drivers.

Most of the users have claimed that due to old and partially corrupted drivers that were able to migrate to the new Windows 11 they faced such problems but after uninstalling and reinstalling, updating their driver from the official source the problem was solved. Follow the process to update your drivers.

·         Press the Window key + R to open the Run dialog box.

·         Type ‘devmgmt.msc’ in the search box and press Enter it will open Device Manager.

·         Expand the Display adapters by double-clicking them.

· Right-click on the graphic driver from the list.

·         Click on update drivers to update the graphic drivers.

·          Now restart your PC.

Check if your problem is solved or not if not then update your monitor drivers.

·         Open the device manager by running the above run dialog box command.

·         In the device manager look for Monitors and expand it.

·         Right-click on the driver and click update drivers.

·         Restart your PC.

Normally this should solve the problem.

4. Uninstall and Reinstall drivers.

If updating the drivers doesn’t fix your problem then first uninstall the drivers from your PC and install them from the source channel. Following are the steps to help you uninstall the driver.

·         Press the Window key + R to open the Run dialog box.

·         Type ‘devmgmt.msc’ in the search box and press Enter it will open Device Manager.

·         Expand the Display adapters by double-clicking them.

·      Right-click on the graphic driver from the list.

·         Click on uninstall drivers.

·         Follow the uninstall process for all the graphical drivers in the list.

·         Now restart your PC.

Similarly, we will uninstall the monitor drivers as well.

·         Open the device manager by running the above run dialog box command.

·         In the device manager look for Monitors and expand it.

· Right-click on the driver and click uninstall drivers.

·         Restart your PC.

·         After restarting your PC, visit the source page of your drivers and download the latest drivers from the page. It may be

Nvidia’s Download Page
AMD’s Download Page
Intel Graphics Download Page

·         After downloading the latest version of drivers, install it on your PC and now restart your computer to see if the problem is solved.

5. Adjust the Refresh rate.

Adjust your refresh rate by increasing or decreasing the refresh rate of your monitor. The following steps will guide you to accomplish it.

·         Press the Windows + I key, and it will pop up the Settings menu.

·         Go to the System dialog box.

·         Click on Display and then click on Advanced Display.

·         Click on the drop-down menu and look for choose a refresh rate.

·         Click the drop-down button to adjust the refresh rate from higher to lower hertz which should solve the flickering problem in your PC.

6. Uninstall or stop the startup of incompatible applications.

Applications that are installed from third-party software cause the screen to flicker. So to remove flickering we can uninstall or stop them from starting up and running when the PC is on.

·         Press Windows + R. The Run dialog box opens.

·         Write control and hit enter it will run the control panel for you.

·         Go to uninstall or change the program.

·         Search for the third-party application in the list and right click it and hit uninstall.

Stop startup incompatible applications.

To stop the applications that are running in the background when you restart or power up your PC you can follow the following instructions.

·         Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc. It will open Task Manager for you.

·         Click on the Startup tab on the Task Manager menu.

·         Inside the startup menu search for the Third-party application running during startup. Select then and hit Disable

7. Personalize color and background.

With automatically built-in accent color and background in Windows 11, there are reports of screen flickering. So you can follow these steps.

·         Press Windows + I. It will open Windows Settings.

·         In the left panel you will see Personalization.

·         Select Personalization and click Background.

· To personalize your background only select the Picture or Solid color option as Slideshow may cause screen flickering.

·         Now go to the Colors section of Personalization.

·         Select Manual for Accent color.

·         Select the color of your choice.

8. Disable Animation Effect

You can fix the flickering of the screen in Windows 11 by disabling the animation effect.

·         Press Windows + I. It will open the Windows Settings menu.

·         From the left panel select the Accessibility option and from the right panel click Visual Effects.

·         Turn off Animation effects.

9. Check Your NVIDIA Control Panel.

If you are using Nvidia graphic card then you should check for your Nvidia control panel to see if it is the one causing the screen flickering in your PC. Normally most gamers have reported this problem. Below is the process to stop it.

· Right-click your mouse on the desktop and select the Nvidia Control Panel.

·         Nvidia control menu opens up from the left panel expand Display and select Adjust desktop size and position.

·         On your right-hand side, scroll down and find and check Override the scale mode set by games and programs.

10. Check your AMD Radeon Settings.

If you are using an AMD graphic card, then AMD Radeon FreeSync technology is causing flickering during the gameplay. Steps to follow to stop it are:

·  Right-click your mouse on the desktop and select AMD Radeon Settings.

·         It opens the AMD Radeon Settings dialog box, selects Display, and turns off the AMD FreeSync Option.

11. Disable Hardware Acceleration.

This feature is widely used to improve the overall performance of the system but in some rare cases, it may be the reason for creating a flickering screen in your pc. To disable it we have work in regedit.

·         Press Windows + R. It will open the Run dialog box. Type regedit and hit Enter.

·         In Registry Editor, search for this location

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics.

·         Look for Disable HWAcceleration on the right pane under Avalon.Graphics.

If it is present, change the Value Data from 0 to 1 and click Ok to save the changes.

If it is not present then right-click on the space and select New > DWORD(32-bit)value.

Now rename the file as DisableHWAcceleration double-click on it and change the Value Data from 0 to 1. Click Ok to save the changes.

·         Close Registry Editor and restart your PC.

Disable hardware acceleration for Browser.

Open your Browser on your PC. We will take Google Chrome as an example.

·         Open your Google Chrome.

·         On your top right, you will see a vertical three dots icon click it and select Settings.

·         Inside settings select System

·         On your right panel you will see Use hardware acceleration when available, toggle the switch to OFF, and click Relaunch.

12. Disable HDR

If you are using a low-end display, there is a probability that HDR is only partially supported due to which you may be experiencing the flickering in your PC. To solve it we will go through the following steps:

·         Press the Windows + I key, and it will pop up the Settings menu.

·         Go to the System dialog box.

·         Click on the Display menu.

·         Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on HDR.

·         Inside the HDR menu, toggle to OFF and save the changes.

·         After modification is complete reboot your PC to see if flickering issues have been fixed.

Hopefully, this article was able to help you get rid of flickering problems. Its step-by-step process guided you through fixing Windows 11 screen flickering issues. Visit our website for more tech news.