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U32D970, 2013 MP and Screen Blink/Flicker

A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
So after returning a color-issue laden LG 4K monitor I picked up a Samsung U32D970 and let me tell you it's beautiful. Whites are white across the screen, barely any uniformity issues except slight darkening around the 4 corners, near full Adobe RGB I'm in love.

So what is wrong? BLINKING! Just randomly flickering or blinking whatever you want to call it and this is running at native or scaled resolutions.

I bought a second mDP to DP cable (the monitor comes with a DP to DP with a mDP adapter) and using both cables, different ports on the monitor and nMP same issue no matter the combination.

Things will be fine then suddenly tons of screen flicker/tearing that lasts a millisecond but it's incredibly annoying especially trying to retouch images in Photoshop.

I tried to embed the video but I keep getting video error so here's a link:

http://youtu.be/Rj8QwgzogqQ


I installed SwitchResX to try and use 50Hz or even 55/56hz but for the life of me it refuses to save custom resolutions or use them running 10.10.1.

If anyone has a fix for this I'd great appreciate it. Thank you in advance.
 
Last edited:
A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
jbregar said:
I get the same behavior with a 2014 rMBP and an LG 31MU97.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that, are you keeping the display? I'm debating on either doing an exchange or just returning it, giving up on 4K despite the nMP being a 4K ready system and picking up a QHD NEC and waiting a year before Apple decides to support more screens.

EDIT: My copy of the LG didn't flicker but it had two white points (warm left, cool right) so I returned it.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
AppleDroid said:
Sorry to hear that, are you keeping the display? I'm debating on either doing an exchange or just returning it, giving up on 4K despite the nMP being a 4K ready system and picking up a QHD NEC and waiting a year before Apple decides to support more screens.

EDIT: My copy of the LG didn't flicker but it had two white points (warm left, cool right) so I returned it.
Click to expand...

My LG seemed pretty good and uniform across the screen, but it seems a little buggy on my rMBP:

There seem to be some weird bugs with the Mac OS X implementation of SST at high resolutions.

If I hot plug the monitor into my machine, I get 4096x2160 @ 50Hz.

If I then reboot, the FileVault unlock screen is retinized full-screen. Unlock that and it boots to the desktop at 3840x2160 @ 30Hz.

Go into system prefs and option click "Scaled" and there's no option for 4096x2160.

Unplug/plug the MDP cable from the Mac and now I'll get 4096x2160 @ 50Hz as an option.

This behavior remains through two cable swaps (three different cables, including the one that came with it).

I also occasionally get "glitches" that range from little flashes of bars of static to a full screen "blink".

I'm pretty sure Apple's SST implementation is to blame here... because it's acting like a software issue.

This is on a 2014 15" rMBP with the discrete graphics chip. Mac OS X 10.10.1. Lid closed.

I also have a Dell UP3214Q that, while it's MST, seems to work just fine and aside from the occasional wake from sleep weirdness that's always remedied by a power cycle on the screen.

I'm also considering returning BOTH of them and just getting an LG UltraWide or a pair of 2560x1440 27" of some flavor to wait out the bugs. I'm pretty sure this is an issue with Apple's drivers.
 
A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
jbregar said:
I'm pretty sure Apple's SST implementation is to blame here... because it's acting like a software issue.

I also have a Dell UP3214Q that, while it's MST, seems to work just fine and aside from the occasional wake from sleep weirdness that's always remedied by a power cycle on the screen.

I'm also considering returning BOTH of them and just getting an LG UltraWide or a pair of 2560x1440 27" of some flavor to wait out the bugs. I'm pretty sure this is an issue with Apple's drivers.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I'm starting to think you're right. Very strange that my MP didn't blink with he LG but as stated on their site limited to 50hz which is noticeable. What isn't in Apple's control is the wildly varying QC from LG/Dell and others with white uniformity and color uniformity.

I have my monitor packed up and ready to head back to Amazon question is do I do an exchange THEN for a refund if a 2nd model does the same thing or just give up and stick with QHD? A big reason I picked up a new machine was for more screen real estate for Lightroom and Photoshop, seems a shame to go back to standard resolutions.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
AppleDroid said:
Unfortunately I'm starting to think you're right. Very strange that my MP didn't blink with he LG but as stated on their site limited to 50hz which is noticeable. What isn't in Apple's control is the wildly varying QC from LG/Dell and others with white uniformity and color uniformity.

I have my monitor packed up and ready to head back to Amazon question is do I do an exchange THEN for a refund if a 2nd model does the same thing or just give up and stick with QHD? A big reason I picked up a new machine was for more screen real estate for Lightroom and Photoshop, seems a shame to go back to standard resolutions.
Click to expand...

I'm leaning heavily towards just going back to QHD monitors. While these are nice when they work, they're buggy and I don't want to get stuck with a $1500 buggy monitor down the line.

If you really want to stick with UHD, I can recommend the UP3214Q. It's pretty stable, even though it is MST.
 
A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
jbregar said:
I'm leaning heavily towards just going back to QHD monitors. While these are nice when they work, they're buggy and I don't want to get stuck with a $1500 buggy monitor down the line.

If you really want to stick with UHD, I can recommend the UP3214Q. It's pretty stable, even though it is MST.
Click to expand...

Yeah I think the lesson here is that if the monitor isn't listed on Apples 4K official support page buy at your own risk.

Amazon currently has used Dell UP3214 from their Amazon warehouse for sale under $1300 but new is above my pay grade.

Side note Amazon's return policy is pretty amazing. We can exchange my Samsung for the same model and then return that replacement for a refund if it doesn't work. I just don't think it's worth my time to try an exchange even if I so desperately want it to work. It's a beautiful, even lit screen.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
Yeah. I'm pretty bummed about the overall options for 4K displays. I make myself feel better by realizing that two 2560x1440 displays are almost as many pixels as the single 4K display.

I should also note that the LG _is_ listed on Apple's official 4K support page. It should be able to do 4096x2160 at 50Hz. My experience is that it's buggy doing that... and buggy in ways that are pretty annoying.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
Mattstrete said:
Well, I just got myself a Samsung U28D590 for my nMP and it's working flawlessly.
Click to expand...

It's pretty clear from doing a lot of reading on UHD/4K on Macs that Apple's video drivers are kind of flaky... Especially with SST. The LG probably makes it worse because it's both an oddball resolution and refresh rate.

It is odd that Apple lists it as supported though because it seems to have some serious problems.

For now I'm back to my MST Dell UP3214Q. Seems to be working great and it's also a killer panel.
 
A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
Well I got my replacement Samsung U32D970 and I have the exact same flickering issue running any normal or HiDPI at the default 60hz.

I purchased SwitchResX and set a custom UHD at 56hz and all of the flickering has gone away. Great news right? Well sort of it only works at the default setting. Trying to run at any scaled resolutions (custom at 56hz) does not give you HiDPI but horribly fuzzy scaled sizes. All HiDPI are listed in SwtichResX at 60hz and you cannot create a new, custom HiDPI mode with a different refresh rate.

So my question is can you hack the EDID so OS X reads this as a 56hz monitor? I know the LG I returned is recognized as a 50hz screen. Im' guessing because Apple can't figure out how to get these SST screens running at 60hz yet.

Any advice welcome.
 
A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
Unfortunately, or fortunately for you, not getting any hits so I must be one of the first guinea pigs.

SwitchResX guys got back to me and there's now way to set the screen 50Hz as a default so the screen is going back. Native at 50Hz was less glitchy but I was still getting flickering but much less frequent and the only HiDPI mode that worked was 1080p at 50Hz which is much too large on the display.

So it looks like if I/you need a wide gamut 4K display running at 60hz it's Dell 32in UHD or bust. If the price would come down I may consider it but I'm going to stick to the dark ages 1920x1200 until Apple decides to get around to supporting new technologies.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
My UP3214Q is humming along pretty well. MST is king right now, I guess.

I paid $1300 for it as a "Used Like New" on Amazon from their warehouse deals site. It's a great screen though.
 
A

AppleDroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 10, 2011
631
84
Illinois
jbregar said:
My UP3214Q is humming along pretty well. MST is king right now, I guess.

I paid $1300 for it as a "Used Like New" on Amazon from their warehouse deals site. It's a great screen though.
Click to expand...

Hey you're back ;).

I am seriously considering that but from Amazons policy the used deals from Amazon Warehouse don't include the manufacturer warranty unless Dell makes an exception? It would worry me to have a $1300 screen that isn't covered for at least 3 years.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
Dell's warranties are transferrable. Mine shows it's covered for about another 2.5 years or so.
 
J

jbregar

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2015
19
1
You don't have to register it... the Dell warranty checker just asks for the service tag number.

----------

I just registered it to my account. It shows 1049 days left on the warranty...
 
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