If you are a gamer or video editor, you must have wondered whether a 60 Hz laptop can support a 144 Hz monitor or if it is just a myth. There have been speculations about it, however, when you talk about technology, there is always a probability of making things work out, out of the box.
So to put it simply, the 60Hz laptop can certainly support a monitor display with 144 Hz provided that your laptop has a dedicated and compatible graphics card that shows positive support for HDMI 1.4/HDMI 2.0/or DisplayPort video output.
That makes it ready to support 144 Hz display monitors. Note that if you disable the laptop’s display, getting the 144 Hz result from the externally supported monitor becomes more efficient and seamless.
Laptops with 60 Hz displays usually have a limited array to support video content. As a matter of common observation, many laptops have limited refresh rate approaches regardless of their graphics card capacity so that makes one wonder about increasing its refresh rate performance.
Are all laptops efficient enough to support 144 Hz?
Before you connect your 60 Hz laptop to a 144 Hz display it is important to note that your laptop must own a graphics card that lets out 144 frames per second.
The reason is laptop machines can hike temperature due to more frame rate consumption. The same happens with monitors. To keep the temperature down you can either use coolant gel or place the laptop somewhere the ventilation remains regulated. So, the older the laptop technology, its compatibility would be a matter of question.
144 Hz display monitor for a 60 Hz laptop
As a rule of thumb, people upgrade their gear when they want to run compatible applications or play games. However, attaching an external display or device also comes as a handy approach for a large chunk of people.
First of all, attaching an external display with your least compatible 60 Hz display of a laptop gives you the same approach and visual aesthetics that you would get after playing a game on a dedicated rig.
As you know 60 Hz means that your display shows 60 frames (pictures) in one second. Likewise, 144 Hz implies that the display will showcase 144 pictures in one second. So attaching an external display with your 60 Hz laptop would give you more visuals and smoother display graphics that matter.
However, as the technology is evolving and with each passing year the older technology is becoming less supportive or compatible with advanced firmware so there are chances that your laptop may not support 144 Hz.
The reason could be the HDMI port features HDMI 1.2 which is only compatible with 60 Hz. If that is the case with your laptop, you need to opt for a rig that is compatible with 144 Hz or more.
Why does the laptop freeze at 60Hz?
In many cases, connecting a 60Hz laptop to a 144Hz display monitor, the display (144Hz monitor) remains stuck at 60Hz. so which makes it difficult to pursue furthermore. In this case, you need to disable the secondary mode and set up the second monitor as the primary display. It means you need to disable your laptop display so that the monitor performs as a sole display. It will certainly solve the ongoing issue.
Your computer recognizes two displays as primary and secondary. The primary is certainly your laptop and the secondary display is the external monitor that you are trying to connect. Therefore, the laptop may sync its own refresh rate (60Hz) with the external display (144Hz), resulting in the display being locked at 60Hz!