Solved NVIDIA driver weird issue: games lag and is on low FPS, but reinstalling driver fixes the problem until restart

As the title says, I am running into a very weirdly specific problem, in which I'll have lag across all games, it's like something feels corrupted or something. I was initially thinking it was cache shader, but further investigation seems to point to something FPS related.

Basically the strange thing here is, reinstalling NVIDIA driver through a quick reinstall fixes the problem, however, the problem will come back after I resume my laptop from a hibernation or restarting it (sleeping doesn't cause this problem to occur).

Since then, I have tried to do further investigation. Strangely enough, I found a much quicker workaround - from NVIDIA Control Panel, changing the GPU performance counter access in the developer setting and then back fixes the problem as well. Better than having to reinstall every time.

But now I am worried, because that could tell me it's something hardware or technical even. I have had the same issue in the past quite the several months ago, but then the issue went away on its own. Now it seems to be back. It happens with any games. Genshin, Tower of Fantasy, Zenless... it's not a single game. My laptop is Acer Nitro 5.

Here are my GPU specifications:

GPU 0

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU

Versione driver: 32.0.15.7680
Data driver: 12/06/2025
Versione DirectX: 12 (FL 12.1)
Località fisica: Bus PCI 1, dispositivo 0, funzione 0

Some things I have tried:
1. I have tried to use DDU to kill everything NVIDIA related and try to do a clean install from NVIDIA website, to nothing. Often, my games will run on 20 FPS. I don't know whether it's an indicator or not but when I run into this weird glitch my GPU usage is also at 99%, however when I reset the FPS settings in developer configs, or when I reinstall the driver, it gets fixed and the GPU usage goes back to 50% give or take, more normal levels, while Genshin FPS become 60 (the max in the game), so back to how it was.
2. I do not think I've ever got an overclocking app like MSI Afterburner. People seem to point to it as the common cause for this specific bug but I don't have this app which is strange. I do have Nitrosense but I cannot seem to find anything that could point to it... and looking it up online it seems to be an useful app that's sort of necessary for Acer laptop to control fans, battery and the likes. Including lighting up the keyboard, too!

It looks like Windows Update sneaks a "new" driver which takes effect after restart screwing your performance. Install the official nVidia driver, then use either Microsoft's Windows Update Show/Hide Tool or the Windows Automatic Updates Manager (aka WAU Manager) to hide (block) the unwanted nVidia driver update. Both utilities are in Major Geek.

Do you play - with it "plugged in" and what are the GPU temperatures while playing? Cause sounds like it's switching to iGPU or thermal throttling (overheating).

Try this for measuring: TechPowerUp - and check the Sensors tab.

spapakons said:

It looks like Windows Update sneaks a "new" driver which takes effect after restart screwing your performance. Install the official nVidia driver, then use either Microsoft's Windows Update Show/Hide Tool or the Windows Automatic Updates Manager (aka WAU Manager) to hide (block) the unwanted nVidia driver update. Both utilities are in Major Geek.

Click to expand...

How do I tell if there is a "new" driver being snuck inside? I have checked Windows update history and the only update recently was a new KB update some time ago, but the issue already started even before the update. I tried to update thinking it could fix something, but to nothing. My NVIDIA driver version is 576.80.

I'll try to do another clean reinstall, but I have my doubts on this one. A quick reinstall seems to fix the issue, but when I tried to do a clean install yesterday through the NVIDIA app it didn't do much at all.

As a last resort, I was thinking if I should update my BIOS firmware. I do have an optional update that says Insyde Firmware 5.43.1.20. But that seems risky, because I've heard it could brick laptops. And my laptop's performance seems to work fine.

neves said:

Do you play - with it "plugged in" and what are the GPU temperatures while playing? Cause sounds like it's switching to iGPU or thermal throttling (overheating).

Try this for measuring: TechPowerUp - and check the Sensors tab.

Click to expand...

Yes, I play with it "plugged in". I will check back in about GPU temperatures, but I have strong doubts it's related to temperature because it always happens on restart or hibernation. It doesn't matter what temperature it is, the games will start to stutter or have lag until I reinstall the driver or change the developer setting, then it's fine again until next restart or hibernation. I remember that even when playing Genshin for hours and having a bit of high temperature there wasn't any throttling or overheating.

Maybe some error makes Windows revert to the previous drivers? See your logs.

spapakons said:

Maybe some error makes Windows revert to the previous drivers? See your logs.

Click to expand...

That's what I'm not understanding though. I checked logs and I don't see anything pointing to drivers, unless I'm using the wrong app or words to search for events related to drivers. I have the latest Intel UHD Graphics version too. I feel a little hopeless, so I guess I'll have to give up and let this issue run for a few days and see if it goes away in some way or another. I tried to look on Reddit to search for similar issues but I mostly just found 'anyone with same issue as me?', the most common fix was uninstalling MSI Afterburner but that doesn't work because I never had it in the first place.

DDU Instructions - Nvidia
1. First, do Option #2, step #3 and onward, here...
2. This will block MS from including drivers in Windows Updates.
3. They'll still be listed in the Optional Updates, if you ever need them.


1. Get this program, here: Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) | Wagnardsoft ...get the latest version, and save it to your desktop.
2. Get the Nvidia WHQL vid card driver here... Nvidia drivers - manual search ...save this to your desktop. Unhook the internet completely.
3. Reboot into Safe Mode and run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) choose the "Highly Recommend Option", and just do what it tells you.
4. After it's done, reboot to normal mode, then just double click the Nvidia driver to install.
[See pics below]. If it want's to reboot, let it.
Rehook the internet.

Michele said:

I do have Nitrosense but I cannot seem to find anything that could point to it... and looking it up online it seems to be an useful app that's sort of necessary for Acer laptop to control fans, battery and the likes. Including lighting up the keyboard, too!

Click to expand...

Something is triggering power profiles - based on your description. Nitrosense does handle power-profiles as well - so it's worth uninstalling - even if it's just to see if that's still happening without it. So hey, uninstall it -using Download Revo Uninstaller Freeware - Free and Full Download and see how it goes without it.

Ghot said:

DDU Instructions - Nvidia
1. First, do Option #2, step #3 and onward, here...

Enable or Disable Include Drivers with Windows Updates in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable including drivers with Windows Updates in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Windows Update will include drivers when available in Windows 11 by default. You can enable the Do not include drivers with Windows Updates policy to not include drivers...

www.elevenforum.com

2. This will block MS from including drivers in Windows Updates.
3. They'll still be listed in the Optional Updates, if you ever need them.


1. Get this program, here: Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) | Wagnardsoft ...get the latest version, and save it to your desktop.
2. Get the Nvidia WHQL vid card driver here... Nvidia drivers - manual search ...save this to your desktop. Unhook the internet completely.
3. Reboot into Safe Mode and run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) choose the "Highly Recommend Option", and just do what it tells you.
4. After it's done, reboot to normal mode, then just double click the Nvidia driver to install.
[See pics below]. If it want's to reboot, let it.
Rehook the internet.

Click to expand...

I have already given DDU a try as outlined in the first post, but it didn't fix the issue at all. I'll try this at least and see if it's fixable or if it's more isolated at least. Gotta try one by one after all.

neves said:

Something is triggering power profiles - based on your description. Nitrosense does handle power-profiles as well - so it's worth uninstalling - even if it's just to see if that's still happening without it. So hey, uninstall it -using Download Revo Uninstaller Freeware - Free and Full Download and see how it goes without it.

Click to expand...

I have just now attempted this method with Revo Uninstaller to uninstall Nitrosense, but it seems to have done nothing at all without it, it's the same problem, so I think it's not Nitrosense that's doing it. But keep in mind I only used the middle option, I'm not sure if advanced setting would fix the root cause of the problem.
It's still the same story/outcome, 99% GPU and 15-20 FPS but changing developer setting back and forth in NVIDIA control panel fixes this to how it should be normally (50% GPU usage and 60 FPS on Genshin) until next restart or hibernation.

Is there any way I can report this to NVIDIA? I'm starting to think there might be a bug with the driver but the way the issue plays out is so weird it leaves me stumped. I can 100% replicate it, and I can 100% replicate the solution as well. I'm really hoping it's not hardware related, because speaking of temperature, I played Genshin for several hours on high configs and it hasn't been causing serious overheating issues on my laptop.

Michele said:

I'll try this at least

Click to expand...

Step 1, 2 and 3 are the important part.
You need to block MS including drivers in Windows update.... THEN the rest will work.

Your easiest route with your laptop is this poor state is to get the Recovery Media from the manufacturer Acer. That will return it to a working state as supplied.

Obviously there will be a lot of updates. You only need to use the Manufacturers updating application and Windows updates.

I have a different brand Laptop, the hardware would be very similar but with an RTX 3070 Ti laptop GPU.

Politely avoid taking advice from Desktop users(e.g. point 2. of your post), their hardware is different from your integrated Laptop hardware.
I feel for people these days, googling around will give maybe 99% rubbish fixes, just wrecking their pricey Optimus Laptops.

Unless the Acer has customized the hardware, they most likely provide the standard Intel and nVidia drivers at their site and they might be older versions. So I would first install the latest versions directly from Intel and nVidia, and IF the installer of either prompts me to download the driver from Acer, then I would do that. I may use a desktop as my main computer but I own a laptop too. Plus I am a Computer Technician, so I know what I am doing. A custom driver from manufacturer is needed in one out of tens of laptops. It's the exception not the rule.

Out of curiosity, are you on 24h2?

Michele said:

I have already given DDU a try as outlined in the first post, but it didn't fix the issue at all. I'll try this at least and see if it's fixable or if it's more isolated at least. Gotta try one by one after all.



I have just now attempted this method with Revo Uninstaller to uninstall Nitrosense, but it seems to have done nothing at all without it, it's the same problem, so I think it's not Nitrosense that's doing it. But keep in mind I only used the middle option, I'm not sure if advanced setting would fix the root cause of the problem.
It's still the same story/outcome, 99% GPU and 15-20 FPS but changing developer setting back and forth in NVIDIA control panel fixes this to how it should be normally (50% GPU usage and 60 FPS on Genshin) until next restart or hibernation.

Is there any way I can report this to NVIDIA? I'm starting to think there might be a bug with the driver but the way the issue plays out is so weird it leaves me stumped. I can 100% replicate it, and I can 100% replicate the solution as well. I'm really hoping it's not hardware related, because speaking of temperature, I played Genshin for several hours on high configs and it hasn't been causing serious overheating issues on my laptop.

Click to expand...

Go to classic Nvidia Control panel (you can find it with Windows Search - if you installed it - just look for Nvidia Control Panel) - and change the following settings for all the games you play:

- switch all games to High Performance NVIDIA processor (from Auto-Select).

- set their Power Management to High Performance (not recommended for laptops - since this will force the GPU to run at 100% - but just want to see if it's throttling at 100%). If it does power throttle, you could also try - Prefer Consistent Performance - which is less aggressive.





A workaround for power throttling - would be Undervolting (with Afterburner). I actually recommend that for every laptop with dedicated GPU (there's tons of step by step guides on YouTube - so it's rather easy and safe... if you don't do the opposite: raise the voltage or/and overclock).

NVIDIA Support doesn't handle - individual driver issues (there's just - to many customers to be able to do that - and Nvidia acts as a manufacturer - so if asked for support with your laptop - they'll recommend you try Acer support - since they're the ones responsible for finished product). Only if there's multiple complaints for exactly same issue (there's the oficial support forums - which devs check it incognito if multiple complaints) - they'll look into it. You could install an older driver (from couple of months ago) - so if there's truly an issue with this driver - won't be present with that one, such as:


Is this issue - a recent thing, or was like that for awhile now?

This sounds familiar. Setting something at nVidia (such as performance configuration) and it resets to the default settings after restarting. I had this bug with an older driver in my desktop. My Sony19" TV has too vivid colors when used with the default settings, so I reduce the digital vibrance from the default 50 to 32. Upon restart the vibrance was reset to 50 again. It was solved by a newer driver. So you might have the same bug. If installing latest nVidia driver doesn't fix it, just try older version or wait for the next release. Also see if installing the Studio driver instead of the Game Ready driver makes any difference.

BobOmb said:

Out of curiosity, are you on 24h2?

Click to expand...

Yes, I am on 24h2. Why? Does the latest version has something to do with these kind of bugs? I don't have the option to revert to a previous version though and I'm pretty sure even when first updating to 24h2 I wasn't having the issue at all, it is recent. Please don't tell me you're gonna explode, seeing as your name is BobOmb... /j

Helmut said:

Your easiest route with your laptop is this poor state is to get the Recovery Media from the manufacturer Acer. That will return it to a working state as supplied.

Obviously there will be a lot of updates. You only need to use the Manufacturers updating application and Windows updates.

I have a different brand Laptop, the hardware would be very similar but with an RTX 3070 Ti laptop GPU.

Politely avoid taking advice from Desktop users(e.g. point 2. of your post), their hardware is different from your integrated Laptop hardware.
I feel for people these days, googling around will give maybe 99% rubbish fixes, just wrecking their pricey Optimus Laptops.

Click to expand...

I can give this a shot, but that will probably be some sort of last resort because my laptop works fine everywhere, in fact I'm not having issues with playing videos, etc. My laptop isn't experiencing slowdowns. It is a specific issue that then gets fixed by changing a setting back and forth. For now, as I said I think I will let this issue linger for a few days, it's just 20 seconds fix that I can apply every restart or hibernation.

@neves The issue is a very recent thing. It has happened last year though in July 2024. I even attempted to do a system restore, but it did not fix the issue at all. HOWEVER, reinstalling / quick installing the driver again post-system restore made the issue go away fully. So I am suspecting there is a sort of bug going on that is causing the GPU to act up like that as spapakons brought up, that, or something just... decided to act up on my laptop. I will give your settings a try.

I'm surprised at how many people are trying to help me. I can't act upon all these solutions right away since I have to get busy with IRL things but I appreciate the generousity.

@spapakons I don't exactly think it's configs being reset to default, but if I have the time to test out different configurations, I will let you know how it goes and report back if there is any resetting going on. My games haven't had their settings reset. I'm glad though that you at least find the issue familiar. It's really niche and weirdly specific so it gets annoying trying to solve this problem.

Yes 24H2 had known bugs with nvidia cards, not all of which were listed because I was experiencing it on games that weren't in the known list

as soon as I upgraded to 24H2, my frames started running terribly. I reverted to 23H2 and hardcoded my system not to update any further until I'm sure there aren't going to be issues and everything is good now.

It was actually happening to a lot of people it might be the version of windows you are on. Have you tried updating to 25H2 is that out yet?

more importantly, did you just recently do the update or have you had it for a while?

There will be an easy upgrade from 24H2 to 25H2, a 25H2 Enablement Package, just like it was from 22H2 to 23H2. However it is only available for Insider's builds yet:


Also since there were bugs and still are in 24H2, why be an early adopter? I would wait for the standard release in October 2025. If it is a simple Enablement Package, chances are it won't make any difference to your games, unless a newer update for 25H2 fixes them. However experience says there will be a version of that update for 24H2, so there is no reason to upgrade to 25H2 yet. Just wait for a new version of nVidia drivers, or a Windows Update that fixes the issue. Have you tried to uninstall the Game Ready driver and install the Studio version? Does it makes any difference?

From personal experience: FPS drop can be caused by VSync setting in Nvidia Control Center.
Are games set to 60 FPS in the settings ?
1% Low or Average FPS ?
I don't know if the quality of the Internet connection affects the FPS.

I normally disable V-Sync to boost performance. However, if I see the image is "breaking" (when you see two different frames instead of a smooth transition because the monitor cannot keep up with the GPU, I don't know the appropriate term), I enable V-Sync to fix it. If this is only in specific games, I enable V-Sync only for that games, not globally. However, I don't think that is the OP's issue. With such a fast system V-Sync should make negligible difference whether enabled or disabled.