Black monitor flicker on the Dell S2716DG

[John721]

Hi guys,

I purchased the aforementioned monitor less than a week ago.

Got it home, hooked up, and calibrated, and everything looked great!

Until I noticed occasional black flickering when on the desktop. It doesn't do it in games, but on the desktop I get intermittent black flashes on the screen that don't last for more than a second or so.

 

I've had two 1080p monitors before this that never had any such issues (They were 60Hz, BenQ monitors. Not sure about the model number), and I'm a little frustrated at this point.

I still have one of them set up next to the S2716DG, and it's just fine.

 

I've already done some digging, and it looks like it could be a few different factors.

The monitor itself (though, there don't seem to be many documented cases of this for the particular monitor.), the included DisplayPort cable (previous and secondary monitors were/are on DVI cables.), my GPU (not likely in my mind, because as I've said, it was working fine with my older monitor. But I'm well aware that I could be very wrong here.), and finally the drivers (again, the least suspect to me due to everything running just fine before this monitor. But I do realize that there could be some driver issues that arose when the monitor's drivers came into play.).

 

As for specs of the relevant hardware, to try and help narrow things down:

AMD XFX R9 390 (planning on updating to the 1070/80 later, that's why I bought a G-Sync monitor), and the monitor is the Revision A03.

Monitor and GPU drivers are up to date on the newest versions at the time of writing.

 

Any input before I go swapping cables, clean installing drivers, updating my GPU early, or exchanging the monitor would be greatly appreciated.

[John721]

Oh! One more thing.

I did briefly try the ASUS PG248Q before this, and it also worked just fine.

in desktop, and in games.

The only reason I exchanged it for the S2716DG is because the colour looked washed out no matter how I calibrated it. And given that I would be making the jump to the 1070/80, I figured I could go ahead and bump the resolution and be more than fine.

[BroliviaWilde]

I've had this monitor since April of this year, never had an issue with it.  I've got a 980ti and keep it on the latest drivers and on display port connection.

Are you running the monitor at 144hz on desktop?  I normally have mine set at 120hz on the desktop and gsync in game and never noticed flickering.  But then again, I only had it at 144hz for all of 5 min when I first got it and set it at 120 and left it at that.

 

on a sidenote, I discovered that with my 980ti(and it's not just my card, many others do it too) that when 144hz is desktop, the card will ramp up the clock rate a good bit.  Bumping it down to 120hz on desktop solved this. 

[John721]

I do keep it at 144hz.

I did try downshifting to 120, but oddly enough that brought the flicker into games.

144 doesn't flicker in games, and 120 flickers slightly better in desktop, but terribly in games.

Which revision do you own, if you don't mind me asking?

Also, did you install the latest driver for the monitor from Dell, or did you just plug and play?

[John721]

Quick update.

Tried running the monitor at 60hz on HDMI.

No flicker.

So it's either the cable or the monitor itself, at least as far as I can gusss.

[John721]

Turns out I was right.

I swapped the display at Best Buy, and the new one has been working great since this weekend.

Hopefully it stays that way.

really don't want to make a third monitor exchange. -__-

[John721]

Hate to bring this back up, but now the second S2726DG is flickering too.

Which leads me to believe that I was wrong about my hardware/drivers being the problem.

I'm going to be swapping my CPU/MOBO soon, and I'll be doing a fresh install. So that will serve as a Driver issue check.

 

And if that doesn't fix it, I'm looking to get a GTX 1080 in mid January, but that will be the nail in the coffin if it doesn't fix it.

I find it rather unlikely that I can buy two different monitors, from two different Best Buy locations, and have the same issue.

 

Sure, it could be a batch problem, but if that's the case, I probably won't get it fixed until they roll out another batch anyways, right?

And I just cannot wait that long to replace this thing.

 

Anyone else have any other ideas?

I really like this monitor, and I want to keep it.

But the entire screen cutting out is a deal breaker.

[Glenwing]

4 hours ago, John721 said:

Hate to bring this back up, but now the second S2726DG is flickering too.

Which leads me to believe that I was wrong about my hardware/drivers being the problem.

I'm going to be swapping my CPU/MOBO soon, and I'll be doing a fresh install. So that will serve as a Driver issue check.

 

And if that doesn't fix it, I'm looking to get a GTX 1080 in mid January, but that will be the nail in the coffin if it doesn't fix it.

I find it rather unlikely that I can buy two different monitors, from two different Best Buy locations, and have the same issue.

 

Sure, it could be a batch problem, but if that's the case, I probably won't get it fixed until they roll out another batch anyways, right?

And I just cannot wait that long to replace this thing.

 

Anyone else have any other ideas?

I really like this monitor, and I want to keep it.

But the entire screen cutting out is a deal breaker.

It certainly sounds like a software issue to me, if the flicker depends on whether you're ingame or on the desktop.

[John721]

The only program that I thought would be interfering, was Display fusion.

but it flickers wether or not that's one.

So it certainly could be something else.

Guess we'll see with the fresh install.

[cbr]

Hi John721, hi guys,

 

I'm having a similar setup than you and I'm also experiencing the same problem. (If I'm not misstaken I think I also experienced it once while playing GTA V)

 

My Setup is: http://skinflint.co.uk/?cat=WL-759411. Most relevant I guess is the "Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Xtreme Gaming" and "Dell S2716DG".

This is my second GTX 1080. I had the "Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 AMP! Extreme" (which I only had one week because the fans are a mess) before and also experienced the same issue. Before the GTX 1080s I had an "EVGA GeForce GTX 980 SuperClocked ACX 2.0" which had the same issue.

 

I had the GTX 980 since beginning of 2016 and in the beginning I can't remember that I experienced this issue. But I'm not really sure when it happened the first time.

 

Since you already exchanged the screen and I did the same with the GPU it really seems to be a SW issue.

What I tried till now was to deactivate G-Sync on the Desktop, but this didn't solve the issue.

 

Reading that 144Hz will result in ramping up the clock rate of the GPU I now changed the refresh rate to 120Hz... Let's see....

 

Did you already come to any additional conclusions or could you narrow down the issue to a SW?

[cbr]

I intensified my search for this issue a little and found the following two threads:

• https://hardforum.com/threads/black-screen-flash.1868459/

Also in the second thread a video was posted which shows the problem:

 

 

In both threads the solution seems to be to change the DP cable. In the second thread the solution was this cable:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003E2U8EE

 

I already ordered the following cable (yesterday where I didn't know about the second thread yet):

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00A4LPM9Y/ref=pe_386171_51767411_TE_dp_1

Also in the reviews for this cable somebody posted this (sorry to lazy to translate it myself - original text is in German - translated by google ):

Quote

My problem so far: with some games I had a "flicker" under the above-mentioned configuration (image expedited in short black pictures every few seconds) Not reproducible, not by changing CPU / GPU values. I have ALL forums durchkämmt. On top of that, I have been working in the field of GPU / SLI for a long time, and I have thought through a lot of testing and reading and using reallife.
My mistake: So far I have worked exclusively with DVI-D. Gsync, however, uses Displayport exclusively. DP offers only HD in its SPEC. The WQHD @ 144Hz is officially supported only as of DP 1.3 (only available since Sep 2014 as Spec and as available cable since Nov 2014). So if you, as I say, that with the purchase of an (at that time still) 800, - € monitor the included connection cable the necessary Spec fulfilled: NÄÄÄÄhh.
The good news, this cable is working. And it radiates (in the 3 meter execution) unrestricted. For the "rough" test, I stapled it over a meter in parallel to a 220V power cable (to provoke interfering) and charged. No misfits.
So: For the combination SLI (dual) GPU @ Asus Rog Swift Gsync and NonSync (tested in various engines up to about 200 FPS with dual SLI 780 ti / driver 350.12 nonsync / GSync 120/144 fps / Vsync 144 FPS) clear recommendation!

I'm getting this cable on Monday... Will post back here most probably by end of next week and tell you if it fixed the issue.

[cbr]

Just wanted to let you guys know that the issue seems to be solved with the new DP cable (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00A4LPM9Y/ref=pe_386171_51767411_TE_dp_1). I used that one now for 5 days and the issue didn't occur.

Hope I could help some people having the same issue on the interweb