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Some times my video card driver (Intel GMA X4500HD) crashes and gets restarted automatically. But more often (almost every time I watch a flash-powered online video for a period of time) it just gets slower and slower and extremely slow until I restart my computer. This looks like a resource leak in the video driver code and I'd like to try restarting it alone without restarting the whole system. How do I restart it (or cause it to crash immediately to be restarted automatically by the OS) manually?

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  • Maybe I dont understand something, so I'll put this as a comment, but I think u can go device manager, select the card, go to it's properties, and update driver. Select choose from installed and select the one you want. Seems easy Nov 16, 2016 at 6:50

4 Answers 4

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Use the Devcon tool from Microsoft.

Using DevCon, you can enable, disable, restart, update, remove, and query individual devices or groups of devices.

To list display devices use the following command:

devcon listclass display

To restart a device use the command:

devcon restart "class id"

Example:

devcon restart "PCI\VEN_115D&DEV_0003&SUBSYS_0181115D"
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  • Seems to do exactly what I need. Problem solved. Thanks.
    – Ivan
    Jul 7, 2013 at 22:13
  • Requires a 1.4GB download, I used devmanview instead. May 10, 2014 at 11:01
  • 2
    @DBX8 Isn't it up to me to rate the answer based on my own opinion? I don't think it's worth a 1GB+ download to restart a graphics driver if you can do it with a smaller utility. May 23, 2014 at 7:34
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  1. Get the file: devmanview.exe from Nirsoft, move it to ..\windows\system32\ and run it.
  2. Get your device name by opening devmanview.exe: right mouse click and select Properties on your video device.
  3. Copy "DEVICE NAME" to clipboard for use in the script: for example: "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260" or "AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series" Open notepad and copy paste this code:
@echo off
echo.
echo *** Restarting GPU  
timeout /t 2 /nobreak >nul
devmanview.exe /disable_enable "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260" 
echo. 
echo *** DoNe 
timeout /t 2 /nobreak >nul
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
explorer.exe

Remember to change "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260" to your Graphics card name taken from ..\windows\system32\devmanview.exe

Save the notepad file as a nameyoulike.bat . Double click to reboot your GPU and driver.

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  • 3
    This is the only one that worked for me-- I couldn't figure out how to download devcon. I suggest you provide a link to devmanview.exe, and also list the step open "devmanview.exe" to get the device name.
    – MattPark
    Dec 10, 2013 at 2:08
  • I went ahead and did it. Welcome to SuperUser Dior!
    – MattPark
    Dec 10, 2013 at 2:19
  • Awesome, thanks! I had this in Windows 8.1 with World of Tanks and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M and it's much nicer than restarting Windows. Jan 2, 2015 at 15:38
  • Wow, it actually works, thanks! N.B.: It also kills of Firefox on my system.
    – Dexter
    Mar 29, 2015 at 21:10
  • This does work, but it wreaks havoc if you use DisplayFusion.
    – bgmCoder
    May 4, 2018 at 19:23
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  • ServiWin allows you to easily stop, start, restart, pause, and continue service or driver enter image description here
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  • Looks great but doesn't work. Absolutely nothing happens when I click to restart or stop.
    – Ivan
    Jul 7, 2013 at 22:12
  • Try running it with administrator privileges Jul 7, 2013 at 22:55
  • Of course I did.
    – Ivan
    Jul 10, 2013 at 20:21
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You can restart it using device manager

  1. go to start menu
  2. search for device manager
  3. find display adapters
  4. choose your card right click and choose disable
  5. the screen will be restarted and the size of the screen will be very small
  6. right click and enable it

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