Windows 11 Horizontal Screen Jitter – Core Ultra 7 270K Plus iGPU – Greatly Improved After Clean Driver Reinstall

Title: Windows 11 Horizontal Screen Jitter – Core Ultra 7 270K Plus iGPU – Greatly Improved After Clean Driver Reinstall

I am documenting this in case someone else runs into the same issue.

System​

• Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus
• Gigabyte Z890 AORUS ELITE WIFI7 PLUS
• Intel integrated graphics
• ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQ5A monitor
• Windows 11 Pro
• Monitor connected directly to the motherboard DisplayPort
• Current Intel graphics driver: 32.0.101.8331 from Gigabyte
• Intel Graphics Software: 26.26.2459.3
• XMP currently disabled

Problem​

After moving from Windows 10 to Windows 11 Pro, I started getting intermittent horizontal screen jitter.

The best way I can describe it is a very brief horizontal shift, shake, displacement, or glitch across the screen.

The exact same monitor did not have this problem in my previous Windows 10 setup.

Under Windows 11, the jitter originally happened periodically and was frequent enough to be noticeable and annoying.

BIOS discovery​

While troubleshooting, I noticed that:

Initial Display Output in the Gigabyte BIOS was set to:

PCIe Slot 1

However, I am currently using the Intel integrated graphics and the monitor is connected to the motherboard DisplayPort.

I changed:

Initial Display Output: PCIe Slot 1 → IGFX

This appeared to improve the display behavior.

Other relevant BIOS settings:

• XMP: Disabled
• High Bandwidth: Auto
• Low Latency: Auto
• RC6 Render Standby: unchanged
• No manual iGPU overclocking

Safe Mode test​

I booted Windows 11 into Safe Mode.

The screen appeared substantially more stable than during normal Windows operation.

I did eventually see one horizontal spike, but it looked noticeably different. It was a larger/coarser horizontal artifact rather than the smaller, more refined jitter I was normally seeing in Windows.

This suggested that the normal Windows graphics driver/display stack was making the problem significantly worse, even if it might not be the entire cause.

Intel graphics driver test​

I disconnected the PC from the Internet so Windows Update could not immediately install another graphics driver.

I then:

1. Opened Device Manager.
2. Expanded Display adapters.
3. Uninstalled the existing Intel graphics driver.
4. Selected the option to remove the driver package when available.
5. Restarted the PC.
6. Installed Gigabyte's Intel VGA driver version 32.0.101.8331.
7. Restarted again.

Result​

The improvement was immediate and substantial.

Before the clean reinstall, the horizontal screen jitter occurred relatively often.

After:

• changing the BIOS Initial Display Output to IGFX,
• completely removing the previous Intel graphics driver,
• and clean-installing Gigabyte's 32.0.101.8331 Intel VGA driver,

the jitter became dramatically less frequent.

For a while after the reinstall I did not see the problem at all.

I have since seen a few rare jitters, so I do not consider the issue completely solved, but the difference is very significant.

Other testing​

I also disabled Dynamic Refresh Rate in Windows 11 and am testing the monitor at a fixed refresh rate.

Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling does not appear as an available option on this Intel integrated graphics configuration, so I could not test HAGS.

I have not started changing RC6, CPU C-states, or other power-management settings because I want to avoid changing too many variables at once.

Current theory​

At this point I suspect there may be some interaction between:

• Windows 11 display handling
• Intel integrated graphics
• Intel graphics driver versions
• display initialization during BIOS/Windows handoff
• refresh/display timing
• possibly power-management behavior

The fact that the problem became dramatically less frequent after correcting the BIOS primary display device and clean-installing driver 32.0.101.8331 suggests that the graphics software/display initialization path is at least part of the problem.

Important observation​

The monitor itself was stable under Windows 10.

The issue appeared after moving to Windows 11.

Normal Windows 11 operation originally produced frequent small horizontal jitters.

Safe Mode was much more stable but produced one larger/coarser horizontal spike.

Clean-removing the existing Intel graphics driver and installing Gigabyte's 32.0.101.8331 driver greatly reduced the frequency of the problem.

Changing the BIOS Initial Display Output from PCIe Slot 1 to IGFX also appeared to help.

Still investigating​

I eventually plan to install a discrete graphics card and connect the monitor directly to that GPU.

That should provide a useful A/B test:

If the jitter completely disappears when the display path is moved away from the Intel iGPU, that would strongly point toward the Intel integrated graphics/driver/display-output path.

If the same exact jitter remains with a discrete GPU, then Windows 11 display timing, the monitor connection, or another shared component becomes more likely.

I will update this post if I identify the remaining cause or completely eliminate the jitter.

If anyone has experienced similar horizontal jitter with Windows 11, Core Ultra 200-series integrated graphics, Arrow Lake, or Z890 systems, I would be interested in hearing what driver version and settings worked for you.