How to Change Hz on Your Monitor (Refresh Rate Settings Explained)

Your monitor's refresh rate — measured in Hz (hertz) — controls how many frames it displays per second. A 60Hz monitor redraws the screen 60 times per second. A 144Hz monitor does it 144 times. The higher the number, the smoother motion appears, which matters most in gaming, video editing, and fast-scrolling interfaces.

What surprises many users: even if you own a high-refresh-rate monitor, your operating system may not be using it by default. After connecting a new display, Windows and macOS often fall back to 60Hz regardless of what the hardware supports. Changing it is straightforward — once you know where to look.

Why Your Monitor Might Not Be Running at Its Maximum Hz

Before diving into steps, it helps to understand why this gap exists. When a monitor is first connected, the OS reads the display's EDID data (a small file embedded in the monitor that describes its capabilities). If the cable, GPU, or display port can't confirm the full bandwidth needed for the higher refresh rate, the system plays it safe and defaults lower.

Common causes of a stuck lower refresh rate:

• Using an HDMI 1.4 cable instead of HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort (HDMI 1.4 caps out at 60Hz for 1080p, and lower for higher resolutions)
• A GPU that doesn't support the target Hz at your chosen resolution
• The monitor connected to an integrated graphics port rather than a dedicated GPU output
• Incorrect resolution selected — some monitors only unlock higher Hz at specific resolutions

Solving the Hz issue is sometimes a cable or port swap, not just a software setting. 🔌

How to Change Hz on Windows 10 and Windows 11

Via Display Settings:

1. Right-click the desktop and select Display settings
2. Scroll down and click Advanced display settings
3. Under the relevant display, click Display adapter properties
4. Select the Monitor tab
5. Under Screen refresh rate, open the dropdown and choose your target Hz
6. Click Apply, then Keep changes

Via the Graphics Control Panel:

If you have an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, their respective control panels (NVIDIA Control Panel, AMD Adrenalin) offer refresh rate controls under display or resolution settings. These sometimes expose options the Windows display settings don't surface, particularly for custom refresh rates.

Note: Only the Hz values your monitor actually supports at your current resolution will appear in the dropdown. If 144Hz isn't listed, the issue is hardware or cable — not the settings panel.

How to Change Hz on macOS

macOS handles refresh rate settings slightly differently depending on the version:

macOS Ventura and later:

1. Open System Settings
2. Navigate to Displays
3. Hold the Option key while clicking the resolution options — this reveals advanced refresh rate choices
4. Select your desired Hz from the list

macOS Monterey and earlier:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Click Displays
3. Hold Option and click Scaled to reveal the full list of resolution and refresh rate combinations

Apple Silicon Macs and newer Intel Macs with ProMotion displays may handle this automatically through ProMotion adaptive sync, which adjusts Hz dynamically rather than locking to a fixed value.

Refresh Rate vs. Resolution: They're Linked 🖥️

This is where things get more nuanced. On most monitors, higher refresh rates are only available at lower resolutions, because pushing more pixels at a faster rate demands more bandwidth.

These are general bandwidth-based benchmarks, not guarantees — actual limits depend on your specific GPU, cable quality, and monitor model.

If you're targeting 144Hz at 1440p over HDMI and only seeing 60Hz as an option, the cable spec is almost certainly the bottleneck.

Custom Refresh Rates (Advanced)

Both NVIDIA and AMD allow custom resolution and refresh rate profiles through their control panels. This is useful if your monitor supports an unlisted rate — some panels physically support 75Hz or 100Hz even if not officially advertised. Custom Hz settings push data to the monitor directly and let the display confirm whether it accepts the signal.

This carries minor risk: an unsupported custom rate can cause a blank screen temporarily. Both drivers revert automatically after 15–20 seconds if no confirmation is given.

What the Variables Actually Look Like in Practice

Two people asking "how do I change Hz on my monitor" may be in very different situations:

• A competitive gamer at 1080p on a 240Hz display with a mid-range GPU may find 240Hz unlocked the moment they swap from HDMI to DisplayPort
• A video editor at 4K on an older GPU may be physically limited to 60Hz at their working resolution regardless of settings
• A laptop user connecting an external monitor may hit limits set by the laptop's GPU or the Thunderbolt/USB-C bandwidth ceiling
• Someone on a budget 75Hz office monitor may see 60Hz listed as the default and simply need to scroll the dropdown

The steps to change the setting are the same. But whether the target Hz is achievable — and at what resolution — depends entirely on the combination of monitor, GPU, cable standard, and port being used in that specific setup.

Understanding your hardware chain from GPU output → cable → monitor input is the piece that determines what's actually possible before you open any settings panel.