Laptop showing 'Microsoft Basic Display Driver' instead of my GPU

[Nasric]

I've got a laptop with a GTX 840M, and I've been noticing that my games have been running extremely laggy recently - single digit framerates are normal. I recently reformatted my laptop, and after it's showing 'Microsoft Basic Display Driver' in my dxdiag. Also, if I try to go to Nvidia's Control Panel (not Geforce Experience) then it tells me that I'm not using a display that's attached to a Nvidia GPU. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling my Nvidia drivers, with no success.

 

[Solandri]

Your laptop probably has an nvidia Optiimus configuration to let you use the Intel integrated GPU and nvidia 840m simultaneously. You need to download the video drivers from the Acer website for your laptop. The standalone nvidia and Intel graphics drivers assume they are the only GPU on your system.

 

[JimF_35]

What is the Make and Model number of your Laptop?

 

[Nasric]

Asus Aspire V3-572G-54S6

 

[JimF_35]

I believe the original driver only supports Windows 8.1. Did you happen to upgrade to Windows 10? Also, have you tried these drivers...

http/www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/84891/en-us

If so then I am not sure why it is not working. You could try booting in safe mode, force remove the video driver and try reinstalling to see if that works.

 

[Nasric]

I did upgrade to Windows 10, but I've previously used this same laptop to play games with good results even with 10. It's only been a recent thing (after I reformatted) that this has begun to happen. I'll download those drivers and see what happens - I was using the GPU-specific ones from Nvidia before, for my 840M. If that doesn't work, I'll do safe mode and see what happens.

 

[JimF_35]

I feel for you. This is why I personally never recommend a reformat and reinstall as the best way to clean your computer. It is better to try to clean your computer with out a reformat if you can but I do understand that there are those pesky root kits that you just can not get rid of without a reformat and you can't go from 32bit to 64bit with out a reinstall either.

Good luck. Maybe some with the same model computer as yours has run into the same problem and has a solution. Keep checking back for other posters.

 

[Nasric]

Okay, so I decided to just go into Device Manager and uninstall both the Intel HD Graphics drivers and the 840M drivers from that specific location. Intel HD graphics drivers asked me to restart, and so I did. Now, whenever I go into DXDIAG, Intel HD Graphics is displaying instead of Microsoft Basic Display Driver. That's progress, at least when I fire up something like Team Fortress 2 it's running at 60FPS. Now I just need to figure out how to use my 840m instead of Intel HD.

 

[Solandri]

Your laptop probably has an nvidia Optiimus configuration to let you use the Intel integrated GPU and nvidia 840m simultaneously. You need to download the video drivers from the Acer website for your laptop. The standalone nvidia and Intel graphics drivers assume they are the only GPU on your system.