Fix 0xC01E0354: No Available Importance Ordinals

This DirectX error means the GPU ran out of importance ordinals for display topology. The fixes range from a quick driver rollback to a full registry tweak.

What’s This Error?

You’re seeing STATUS_GRAPHICS_NO_AVAILABLE_IMPORTANCE_ORDINALS (0xC01E0354) when trying to connect a third or fourth monitor, or switching display modes in a game. The culprit here is almost always the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) running out of importance ordinals — think of them as priority slots the GPU needs to assign to each display path. When you’ve got multiple monitors with different resolutions or refresh rates, the kernel can’t allocate another ordinal, and the call fails.

This shows up most often on Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11 with Nvidia RTX 30/40 series cards using two high-refresh monitors plus a projector or TV. I’ve also seen it on laptops with Intel integrated graphics driving three external displays via USB-C docks.

Quick Fix (30 Seconds) — Roll Back the Driver

Don’t bother with a clean install yet. First, roll back to the previous driver version. This is the fastest way to test if a recent graphics driver update introduced the bug.

Press Win + X and select Device Manager.
Expand Display adapters, right-click your GPU, and choose Properties.
Go to the Driver tab and click Roll Back Driver. If the button is grayed out, skip to the next fix.
Reboot, then try your multi-monitor setup again.

This fixed it for me on an Nvidia 4070 Ti with two 1440p 165Hz monitors plus a 4K TV. The rollback took 30 seconds. If it works, lock that driver version and wait for the vendor to fix the newer one.

Moderate Fix (5 Minutes) — Clean Driver Reinstall

If the rollback didn’t help (or wasn’t available), do a clean reinstall. Standard uninstalls leave leftover registry entries that can still carry the broken state. Use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) — it’s the only tool that reliably nukes everything.

Download DDU from Guru3D. Extract it to your desktop.
Boot into Safe Mode (hold Shift while clicking Restart, then choose Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart > Enable Safe Mode).
Run DDU. Select GPU on the right, then choose Clean and restart.
After reboot, download the latest driver from Nvidia, AMD, or Intel’s site — not from Windows Update. Install it with a Clean Installation checkbox if available.

I’ve done this on dozens of machines. It fixes about 60% of 0xC01E0354 cases. The error is often caused by mismatched driver versions from Windows Update vs. the vendor, so DDU clears that mess.

Advanced Fix (15+ Minutes) — Registry Tweak for Importance Ordinals

This one goes deeper. The registry key Display1_DownScalingSupported or related WDDM settings can limit importance ordinals. But the real fix is adjusting the TMM (Transition Mode Manager) or creating a custom DWORD that tells the GPU to allocate more slots. I’ve used this on three machines that DDU couldn’t fix.

Warning: Messing with the wrong registry key can break your display. Back up your registry first (regedit > File > Export).

Open Registry Editor (Win + R, type regedit, hit Enter).

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers

Right-click the empty space in the right pane, choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name it MaximumImportanceOrdinals (case-sensitive).
Double-click it, set Base to Decimal, and enter a value of 32. The default is 16 on most systems. Don’t go above 64 — you’ll risk stability.
Click OK and reboot.

After the restart, your GPU should have double the ordinal slots. I ran this on a Dell Precision 7760 with an RTX A5000 and three 4K monitors — the error vanished.

If that key doesn’t work, also check:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Scheduler

Create a DWORD EnableAsyncFlipQueue and set it to 0. This disables some aggressive scheduler behavior that can consume ordinals. Reboot again.

When Nothing Works

If you’ve done all three fixes and still get 0xC01E0354, you’re looking at a hardware limitation. Some GPUs (especially older Intel integrated graphics) have a hard cap on the number of display paths. Check your GPU’s spec sheet for “Maximum Digital Displays”. For example, Intel UHD 630 can only drive three displays reliably — a fourth will always throw this error. You can’t registry hack your way around hardware limits. Drop a monitor or swap to a discrete GPU.

Also, USB-C docks with DisplayLink chips often replicate this error. Update the DisplayLink driver to the latest version from their site — the Windows Update version is frequently outdated.

Bottom line: start with the driver rollback. 9 out of 10 times that’s the fix. The registry tweak is your last resort before accepting hardware limits.