MSI’s Afterburner allows users to adjust the GPU’s performance, regardless of the manufacturer, as long as a dedicated GPU is installed on their PC. As good as it is, theapplication encounters complicationsonce in a while.
If your MSI Afterburner is not detecting GPU, it indicates driver issues or services from third-party applications are interfering with Afterburner. Besides this, an anti-cheat application could also cause complications with the application—this is especially the case if you have Valorant installed on your PC and Riot’s Vanguard is running in the background.
Disable Low-Level IO Driver
Afterburner’s Low-Level IO driver allows the application to communicate with your GPU. This enables the application tooverclock the graphics cardwithout having to go through BIOS settings.
If you have an anti-cheat process running in the background, it might disable several Afterburner functionalities, one being the application not detecting the GPU. To fix this, you need to Disable Low-Level IO Driver.
Disable VGC Service
Applications installed on your PC might require a service running to operate. Services from certain applications can restrict the system from executing codes by blocking GPU access from Afterburner.
If you have Valorant installed on your system, it is the VGC (VanGuard Client) service that is causing the issue. In that case, you need to disable VGC.
However, if you think other services are interfering with the working of the MSI Afterburner, you may clean boot the system and find out the service that is causing the issue.
Reinstall Graphics Driver
If disabling the service does not work, it could be the graphics driver that is faulty. The graphics driver is responsible for communication between Windows and the GPU. Any complication with the driver could stop the Afterburner from detecting the GPU.
First, you need to uninstall the graphics driver. You can use Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) touninstall your graphics driver.
Once the system restarts, you need to reinstall the driver.
Reinstall Afterburner
Performing a clean install removes all saved Afterburner application files and re-installs them again. By doing this, the system gets rid of any corrupted app files which should fix the issue at hand.
Connect Monitor to Graphics Card
If your monitor is connected to the motherboard I/O Ports instead of the graphics card, the system will use the integrated GPU from the CPU, if it has one. However, it is very unlikely that you have hooked your display cable to the motherboard instead of the graphics card.
If it is the case, you need to connect the display cable from the monitor to the graphics card and check if the problem is solved.
