How to Unlock RTX AI Performance on Windows — Step by Step

Last verified Oct 27, 2026 · Works with Windows 10/11 · ~15 min total

⚠️ Read this first. The Windows port (impacifist/Windows-GPU-UNLOCK) uses a UEFI shell approach — because Microsoft enforces kernel-mode signing, you can't run a pre-driver hook natively like on Linux. This means you'll need to boot from a USB drive and run a `.efi` file before Windows starts. It's a little more involved than the Linux one-click install.

Before you start

Make sure you have these boxes checked:

✅ One of the supported GPUs (RTX 3060 12GB / 3070 / 3080 / 3090 — or RTX 40 series with the community Ada fork)
✅ A USB flash drive — 8GB is plenty, we'll wipe it
✅ Your motherboard has UEFI boot (not Legacy BIOS — every board post-2017 does)
✅ You know how to boot from USB (usually press F11, F12, or Del during startup)

Not sure if your board is compatible? Check the official hardware matrix on GitHub. ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, and ASRock all have working reports.

What we're about to do

Very simply:

Make a bootable USB with a UEFI shell and the unlock `.efi`
Boot into it instead of Windows
Run the unlock tool — it writes a few GPU register values and resets the card
Reboot into Windows normally. The NVIDIA driver loads, sees a fully unlocked GPU, and never knows the difference.

No files are modified on your Windows drive. Nothing is installed. Nothing is permanent — it resets every time you power off. You just need to re-run it once per boot.

Step-by-step guide

Step 1 — Download the tools

You need two files:

Windows-GPU-UNLOCK UEFI binary: download the latest `.zip` from Releases (pick your GPU series — Ampere for RTX 30, Ada for RTX 40)
UEFI shell: grab the X64 version from tianocore/edk2 — or just use the one bundled inside the Windows-GPU-UNLOCK repo

Extract both to a folder on your desktop. You should see an unlock.efi file somewhere inside.

Step 2 — Make a bootable FAT32 USB

Plug in your USB drive. We need it formatted as FAT32 with a specific folder structure so the UEFI shell can see it.

On Windows:

Open Disk Management (Win + X → Disk Management)
Find your USB, right-click the volume → Format
File system: FAT32, Allocation unit size: Default
Name it UEFI or whatever, click OK

Now create this folder structure on the USB root:

/EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI     ← your UEFI shell binary
/unlock.efi               ← the GPU unlock tool (put it right on root for simplicity)

Name the UEFI shell binary exactly BOOTX64.EFI inside /EFI/BOOT/. That's what every motherboard looks for by default.

Step 3 — Disable Secure Boot (temporarily)

Most motherboards block unsigned EFI files from running until you disable Secure Boot. This is normal and fully safe — you'll turn it back on later.

Shut down Windows fully. Turn on your PC and start mashing F12 (or Del, F11, F2 — depends on your board) to enter BIOS.
Find the Secure Boot setting (usually under Boot → Security).
Set it to Disabled.
Save and exit.

Weirdly, some newer boards with Windows 11 refuse to boot if Secure Boot is disabled permanently. If yours does this, just flip it back on after unlocking — we'll re-enable it in a later reboot.

Step 4 — Boot from USB and run the unlock

Press the boot menu key again (F12).
Select your USB drive from the list.
You should see the UEFI shell boot screen — something like UEFI Interactive Shell v2.x.
The shell will auto-map your filesystem volumes. Type fs0: then press Enter to select the USB.
Now run the unlock tool:

fs0:
ls                   ← list files, confirm unlock.efi is here
unlock.efi           ← run the unlock (or ada_unlock.efi if you downloaded the Ada version)

It should print something like: Detected GA102 GPU... writing speed selectors... success! resetting card.... Total time: about 3 seconds.

If it says Unknown GPU model or errors out, you either have the wrong `.efi` for your card or the BIOS isn't exposing your GPU to the shell — check the GitHub Issues for your exact motherboard model.

Step 5 — Reboot into Windows

The unlock is done. You can type exit then reboot from the boot menu, or just hit the reset button on your case.

**Do NOT power off fully between unlock and Windows boot.** If you shut down completely, the GPU resets and the unlock is lost. Always restart (warm reboot) from the boot menu or press Ctrl+Alt+Del in the shell.

Step 6 — Verify it worked

Once you're back in Windows, run a quick benchmark to confirm:

Run Stable Diffusion. Generate the same 512×512 image with the same prompt. You should see a noticeable speed bump (20-50% is normal; 100% is rare but reported).
Check TFLOPS. Download NVIDIA CUDA, open PowerShell, navigate to nvidia-smi, or use a community tool like gpu-burn.
Check the registry. Run reg query "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvlddmkm\GPU" — you should see the speed selectors at full values.

Benchmark data from Zagitta's GitHub: on RTX 3090 Ti, BF16 throughput went from 87.5 → 157.4 TFLOPS. That's the number to chase.

Step 7 — Re-enable Secure Boot

Back into BIOS, flip Secure Boot back to Enabled. Most boards will happily boot with an unlocked GPU even with Secure Boot on — the unlock happened before Windows started, so Secure Boot doesn't see it as a "modified system."

One very important thing

The unlock is temporary. Every time you do a full shutdown + power-off, the GPU resets its speed selectors and you'll need to run the UEFI tool again. A warm reboot (Restart) preserves it.

This is a known limitation of the UEFI approach — it writes to GPU firmware registers that get cleared on cold boot. The Linux kernel module avoids this because it hooks into the boot process every time automatically. The community is working on a Windows startup script to automate the UEFI step.

Pro tip: If you game, your monitor refresh rate and frame times should not change much. The unlock only affects FP16/BF16 Tensor Core operations — gaming runs on FP32 and RT cores which aren't locked. Your AI workloads speed up; your framerate stays roughly the same.

Common problems & quick fixes

Problem	Likely fix
unlock.efi says "Unknown GPU"	Download the correct branch (Ampere vs Ada). Don't mix them.
Black screen after running unlock.efi	Your GPU reset before the shell could display output. Normal — just reboot into Windows, it should be fine.
Secure Boot keeps blocking the USB	Disable it temporarily in BIOS. Re-enable after the unlock.
Windows won't boot after re-enabling Secure Boot	Some boards have a "Custom Secure Boot" mode — try that, or keep Secure Boot off while you test.
No speed improvement after reboot	You probably did a cold shutdown between unlock and boot. Use Restart instead of Shut Down.
BSOD when loading NVIDIA driver after unlock	Rare — usually a driver version issue. Try a different NVIDIA driver (550+ works best per community reports).

Want the simpler path?

If you dual-boot or can switch to Linux for AI work, the Linux guide is one command and handles this automatically at every boot. No USB needed. I'd actually recommend that for anything non-gaming — it's cleaner, safer, and the original gpu-unlock kernel module has been battle-tested by thousands of users.