How to fix missing Nvidia Control Panel on Windows 10
If you have an Nvidia GPU or the on-board graphics card on your system is an Nvidia card, you will have the Nvidia Control Panel installed on Windows 10. The Nvidia Control Panel is an app that allows you to control how the graphics card works. This isn’t a stock Windows 10 app though so it may be missing on your system.
Missing Nvidia Control Panel app
The Nvidia Control panel app is not a stock Windows 10 app. It will only be available on your system if you have an Nvidia chip either as the GPU or as the main graphics card. Before you can fix the problem of the missing Nvidia Control Panel app, you need to make sure that you have an Nvidia chip installed on your system. There are two ways to do that.
Device Manager
- Open Device Manager.
- Expand Display Adapters.
- Look at the name of the chips listed under Display Adapters.
- If you see Nvidia in the name of at least one chip, the Nvidia Control Panel app should be present on your system
Task Manager
- Open Task Manager.
- Go to the Performance tab.
- Scroll down in the column on the left and select GPU 0 and then GPU 1 (one by one).
- In the pane on the right, look at the top right corner for the make and model of the graphics card.
- If you see Nvidia in the name, you should have the Nvidia Control Panel app installed on your system.
Get Nvidia Control Panel app on Windows 10
The Nvidia Control Panel app normally installs automatically when drivers for the Nvidia chip are installed. If the app is missing, you can manually install it. Note down the model of the Nvidia chip via the methods listed in the previous section and the follow the steps below.
- In your web browser visit the Nvidia downloads page on the official Nvidia website.
- Select the product type, series, name, your Windows version (32-bit or 64-bit), choose either Game Ready drivers (if you game a lot) or Studio Drivers (if you work with design and animation tools).
- Click the Search button.
- Click the Download button for the driver that is found.
- Run the downloaded file and install the drivers.
- Once installed, restart the system.
- Right-click an empty area on the desktop and select Nvidia Control Panel from the context menu.
Note: you can also open Nvidia Control Panel via Windows search.
Conclusion
If your on-board graphics card is an Intel chip and you do not have a GPU, you won’t be able to install the Nvidia Control Panel. Likewise, if you have an AMD chip as the GPU, you won’t be able to install the Nvidia Control Panel either. The options that you see in the Nvidia Control Panel app will differ based on the chip model.
