Dell AW3420 flickering issue supposedly expected behaviour

Ollie_B_2000

Ollie_B_2000

Ollie_B_2000

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I must admit I'm a little annoyed at this point, I've been seeing random black flashes on my screen since using this monitor and have just reached out to Dell's support.

I'm being told that apparently I can use EITHER 120hz or G-Sync but not both together or this will cause high frequency noise and cause this issue. Not only that but this issue is expected on this monitor.

Dell Support
The random flickering experienced on the monitor is known as high frequency noise and it is a behavior that can be expected on this monitor. Disabling G-Sync or lowering the refresh rate are some ways we recommend in order to lower the impact. You can keep the monitor at 120Hz and enable G-Sync if you want.
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Anyone else have any experience with this?
 
"Black flashes" and "random flickering" sound like two different issues tbh.

Do these flashes affect mainly the bottom half of the screen by any chance? What GPU out of interest?

Reason being that I used to get these type of black flashes on my AW3418DW. They were very intermittent, maybe a few times a day and never really bothered me. I always put it down to running at 120Hz which is an overclock on my monitor.

However, when I upgraded the GPU they stopped happening entirely at which point I realised it was probably the GPU, a Zotac 1080Ti. A bit of searching revealed some other people had had similar experiences with some models of Zotac card. Works fine in every other respect.
 
Vertigo1 said:
"Black flashes" and "random flickering" sound like two different issues tbh.

Do these flashes affect mainly the bottom half of the screen by any chance? What GPU out of interest?

Reason being that I used to get these type of black flashes on my AW3418DW. They were very intermittent, maybe a few times a day and never really bothered me. I always put it down to running at 120Hz which is an overclock on my monitor.

However, when I upgraded the GPU they stopped happening entirely at which point I realised it was probably the GPU, a Zotac 1080Ti. A bit of searching revealed some other people had had similar experiences with some models of Zotac card. Works fine in every other respect.
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You know what those points are somewhat familiar. The flashes are mostly but not always on the lower half of the screen and I also have a 1080ti, albeit from a different manufacturer. What did you move to?

The 120hz isn't an overclock on this monitor as it supposedly met the gsync certification without needing it. Can't really see how this would have passed testing.
 
I moved to a 3080. Was going to sell the 1080Ti but, once I realised it could be at least partly responsible for these flashes I had to be honest about that which obviously makes it hard to sell.

Could well be that it only happens with this monitor and/or at 120Hz and/or with G-Sync etc etc but there's no easy way to know.

What drivers are you using as I've been reading about a "flickering" issue specifically with the 1080Ti and the latest drivers, maybe that's what it is?

I think the issue Dell are describing is different. I've seen several reports saying there's often a very faint flickering type effect associated with G-Sync but it's usually imperceptible unless you look for it.
 
There is a guy on reddit with similar story he said freesync was playing up on his 1080ti, he moved to a 3000 series card and it was fine, he concluded it may be some compatibility issue on the 1000 series, so doesnt necessarily mean its faulty.
 
I definitely think the card is fine as it's worked flawlessly with my previous gsync monitor @165hz for 3 years. Started happening almost immediately with this new monitor.

Nice to know there's a fix but £800 seems a little steep to do so. I'm just dumbfounded Dell could release this knowing it was an issue and telling people they just shouldn't use the features of their new monitor. If other monitors work without issue then there's no reason the Dell shouldn't too.
 
TheReflex said:
This type of flickering makes me think your cable isn't able to handle the bandwidth of 3440x1440@120 . Are you using a VESA certified DP cable?
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Not sure at all if it's certified, it came with my previous monitor. I wouldn't have thought it isn't up to the job as maxed out 1440p @165hz should surely require more bandwidth that 3440x1440 @ 120hz right?

Unless there are other factors that come into play here I'm not aware of. I can swap it out for the cable that came with the Dell as it's an easy test.
 
Ollie_B_2000 said:
Not sure at all if it's certified, it came with my previous monitor. I wouldn't have thought it isn't up to the job as maxed out 1440p @165hz should surely require more bandwidth that 3440x1440 @ 120hz right?

Unless there are other factors that come into play here I'm not aware of. I can swap it out for the cable that came with the Dell as it's an easy test.
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Cables that come with monitors will not be VESA certified. If you really want to make sure the issue is not with your monitor, you'll need to try a cable from this list: https://www.displayport.org/product-category/cables-adaptors/
 
TheReflex said:
Cables that come with monitors will not be VESA certified. If you really want to make sure the issue is not with your monitor, you'll need to try a cable from this list: https://www.displayport.org/product-category/cables-adaptors/
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That's kinda rdiculous though. I understand where you're coming from but if they can't give me a cable of adequate quality with an £1k monitor then I'm not sure that's a company I'd want to buy from again. Gotta wonder what other corners have been cut.

It's seemingly an issue the techs are aware of though, just told me I have to choose between 120hz or G-sync.
 
FWIW I tried buying a new cable just in case and my issue persisted, although it's far from certain I was getting the same thing as you of course.
 
Ollie_B_2000 said:
That's kinda rdiculous though. I understand where you're coming from but if they can't give me a cable of adequate quality with an £1k monitor then I'm not sure that's a company I'd want to buy from again. Gotta wonder what other corners have been cut.
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Yup I get your point. From a corporate point of view, they can probably mass-buy DP cables from somewhere for 1c each that will work, say, 95-99% of the time. And some brands don't even supply DP cables! VESA-certified are pricey, but totally worth it in the end
 
TheReflex said:
Yup I get your point. From a corporate point of view, they can probably mass-buy DP cables from somewhere for 1c each that will work, say, 95-99% of the time. And some brands don't even supply DP cables! VESA-certified are pricey, but totally worth it in the end
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Yeah I'll look to try invest in one, I'll likely be sticking with DP for the next several years anyway. Even if it doesn't solve this problem, it will all ensure that the cable is ruled out of the equation.
 
Am i right in thinking that dell monitor is an 100hz panel and is overclocked to 120hz ?

As i remember when the first Asus & Acer 34" 100hz UW monitors (PG34Q & x34) came out and they could be overclocked to 100hz but not all of them could do 100hz stable without issues
 
chaparral said:
Am i right in thinking that dell monitor is an 100hz panel and is overclocked to 120hz ?

As i remember when the first Asus & Acer 34" 100hz UW monitors (PG34Q & x34) came out and they could be overclocked to 100hz but not all of them could do 100hz stable without issues
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That was the previous model I believe, this one comes as 120hz out of the box without OC
 
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