Quick answer
Open Device Manager, find your graphics card under Display adapters, right-click it, select 'Disable device', wait 10 seconds, then 'Enable device'. If that fails, uninstall the driver completely using DDU in Safe Mode, then reinstall the latest driver from NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel.
What's this error really about?
I've seen 0xC0262316 pop up mostly on systems with multiple monitors or when you're hot-plugging a display. Had a client last month whose whole setup crashed every time he docked his laptop to two external monitors—this error was the culprit. The 'video present target set' is basically a list of outputs your graphics driver thinks are connected. When it doesn't match what's actually plugged in (or when the driver gets confused after a sleep/wake cycle), Windows throws this error. It's not a hardware failure 90% of the time—it's the driver losing track of what's connected.
Main fixes
1. Reset the display adapter
This is the quickest test. Don't reboot—just disable and re-enable the adapter.
- Press Win + X and select Device Manager.
- Expand Display adapters.
- Right-click your GPU (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel) and choose Disable device.
- Wait 10 seconds. Your screens will go black for a moment—ignore it.
- Right-click again and select Enable device.
If this clears the error, you're done. The driver just needed a kick in the pants.
2. Unplug and replug all monitors
Turn off your computer. Unplug every monitor cable (HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, USB-C—everything). Wait 30 seconds. Plug them back in one at a time, starting with your primary monitor. Boot up. This forces Windows to re-enumerate all displays.
3. Clean driver reinstall
If steps 1 and 2 don't work, the driver is corrupted. Don't just 'update'—nuke it.
- Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) from Guru3D. Get the latest version.
- Boot into Safe Mode (hold Shift while clicking Restart, then Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart > press 4 or F4).
- Run DDU. Select your GPU vendor (NVIDIA/AMD/Intel) and choose Clean and restart.
- Once back in normal Windows, install the latest driver directly from your GPU maker's site—not Windows Update. For NVIDIA, use the Studio driver if you're not gaming; it's more stable.
I've fixed this exact error on three different machines this way. DDU is overkill sometimes, but when it's needed, it's the only thing that works.
Alternative fixes if the main ones fail
Disable hardware acceleration in apps
If the error happens only in a specific app (like Chrome, Discord, or Slack), turn off hardware acceleration in that app's settings. It's a band-aid, but it tells you the driver is the problem, not the hardware.
Check for faulty monitor cables
Had a case where a bent DisplayPort pin caused this error. Swap cables if you can. Cheap cables cause weird EDID handshake failures.
Update motherboard chipset drivers
On laptops especially, the chipset driver handles PCIe lane negotiation. Outdated chipset drivers can confuse the GPU. Grab them from your motherboard or laptop manufacturer's support page, not Windows Update.
Prevention tip
Never hot-plug monitors when the system is under load. If you're gaming or rendering, shut down before connecting or disconnecting a display. Also, set your power plan to 'High performance' on laptops—power-saving modes sometimes drop GPU state detection and trigger this error when resuming from sleep. I've seen it happen with Lenovo ThinkPads and Dell XPS models running Windows 10 22H2. One guy had it happen every time he closed his laptop lid—turned out the lid-close action was messing with the display topology. We disabled that action in Power Options, and the error vanished.
Bottom line: 0xC0262316 is almost always a driver-display mismatch. Reinstall clean, reset the adapter, and stop hot-plugging while rendering. Your GPU is fine—it just lost its map.