Display Settings Keep Resetting After Restart on Windows 11/10

Quick answer

Open Device Manager, right-click your monitor under 'Monitors', choose 'Uninstall device' (do not delete driver), then restart. If that doesn't stick, delete the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration and reboot.

The underlying problem is almost always a corrupt monitor driver or a stale EDID profile cached by the graphics driver. Modern Windows (10 22H2, 11 23H2) relies on these profiles to pick resolution and scaling. When the profile gets corrupted—usually after a driver update, a screen sleep/wake cycle gone wrong, or plugging into a different monitor port—Windows falls back to a default 1024x768 or generic PnP monitor entry. The fix is to force Windows to re-read the monitor's physical EDID data from scratch.

Step-by-step fix

1. Uninstall the monitor device
   Press Win + X → Device Manager. Expand the 'Monitors' category. Right-click your monitor (likely 'Generic PnP Monitor' or your brand name) and select 'Uninstall device'. Important: do not check the box that says 'Delete the driver software for this device'. You're removing the cached profile, not the driver. Restart the machine. Windows will detect the monitor as new and re-read its EDID. This fixes about 60% of cases.
2. Delete the graphics configuration registry key
   If step 1 didn't work, the issue is likely a deeper cache. Open regedit as Administrator. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration. Right-click the Configuration folder and choose 'Export' to back it up. Then delete the entire Configuration key. Restart the PC. Windows rebuilds this key from the EDID data at boot. This clears stubborn scaling or refresh rate overrides that survived step 1.
3. Roll back or reinstall the graphics driver
   A corrupt graphics driver can override the monitor's EDID with its own cached values. Open Device Manager → Display adapters → right-click your GPU → Properties → Driver → 'Roll Back Driver' if it's active. If not, download the latest driver from your GPU vendor (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) and do a clean install—select the 'Perform a clean installation' checkbox in the installer if available. For NVIDIA, use the 'Custom' installation option and check 'Clean Installation'.
4. Run the Windows Troubleshooter (last resort—don't expect much)
   Go to Settings → System → Troubleshoot → Other troubleshooters → 'Display' troubleshooter. It rarely fixes this specific issue, but it can tell you if Windows thinks the monitor is disconnected or if there's a stuck DPI override.

If these don't work

The problem might be hardware-level or BIOS-related. Try these:

• Force EDID override manually – Use Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) to create an EDID override profile. Export your monitor's current EDID, edit the resolution list, and apply. This bypasses Windows entirely. I've used this on an old Dell U2414H that kept dropping to 640x480 after a firmware bug in the monitor itself.
• Check the monitor's own OSD – Some monitors store their own resolution presets. Go into your monitor's on-screen display, find a 'Factory Reset' option. If the monitor's internal EDID chip is corrupted (rare, but happens on older BenQ models specifically), you'll need to contact the manufacturer.
• Disable fast startup – Fast Startup in Windows hibernates the graphics driver state. When it wakes, it can restore a stale EDID cache. Turn it off: Control Panel → Power Options → 'Choose what the power buttons do' → 'Change settings that are currently unavailable' → uncheck 'Turn on fast startup'. This alone fixed it for two users I helped whose Ryzen laptops had AMD Radeon drivers that didn't play well with modern standby.

Prevention tip

After you get the settings to stick, do this: restart your PC normally (not 'Shut down' via power menu, but an actual shutdown /r /t 0 in a command prompt). Then set your display settings again. Then open Device Manager, right-click your monitor under 'Monitors', go to Properties → Driver → 'Update driver' → 'Browse my computer for drivers' → 'Let me pick from a list...' → select the same driver (Generic PnP Monitor or your brand's driver). This 'reinstalls' the driver without wiping the profile, and it locks the settings in. I've seen this prevent recurrence for at least 6 months on known-issue Sandy Bridge laptops.