How to restart your graphic drivers in Windows 10 with a secret keyboard shortcut

There are many reasons that Windows 10 can freeze leaving you unable to continue with the work you were in the middle of, or play the game you were about to beat. All manner of issues can arise that lead to your computer hanging and requiring you to restart.

But before you reach for that power button, it is worth giving something else a try -- restarting your graphics card drivers. How can you do this if your system is seemingly frozen? There's a keyboard shortcut that can help you out.

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There are already so many keyboard shortcuts to help you quickly achieve various tasks in Windows 10 and the applications you have installed that it may be surprising to learn that there is one built into the operating system that you don't know about. But there are a lot of people who does not know that it is possible to restart their graphic driver in an instant.

The shortcut you need to use is:

Win + Ctrl + Shift + B

While the idea of a four-key keyboard shortcut might sound a little unwieldy, the position of the keys in question (on most keyboard layouts, at least) means that it's actually very easy to perform.

You will know that the keyboard shortcut has work because you should firstly see the screen go temporarily blank, and your computer will beep. After this, you should find that not only everything works as it should, but that you can pick up from where you left off without having to restart you system or relaunch any apps.

Of course, the shortcut is no guaranteed to help fix every system hang, but it's definitely worth a try the next time Windows freezes on you..

Image credit: photo952 / Shutterstock