LG 31MU97 4k Display

[SaxPlayer]

Have another problem, cannot adjust the Contrast, it is "grey color" and cannot adjust it, is there any setting I miss or it is a defected monitor? Email to LG tech support, but not yet get reply.

I don't want to fiddle with the settings on my LG 31MU97 as I've got it looking just right so I haven't tested this, however I seem to recall that this may be tied to the Picture Mode. I use AdobeRGB on mine and my Contrast setting is unavailable so this is something to do with the firmware of the monitor and not a problem with your screen. Try one of the other Picture Mode settings; I *think* the contrast option may be available depending on which one you select.

If that doesn't work, post again and I may change my settings to see how to get Contrast back (I did manage it myself at one point but can't be certain it was changing the Picture Mode that did it). I calibrate my screen so tend to find that manipulating the contrast isn't necessary for me.

 

[Lichqueen]

I don't want to fiddle with the settings on my LG 31MU97 as I've got it looking just right so I haven't tested this, however I seem to recall that this may be tied to the Picture Mode. I use AdobeRGB on mine and my Contrast setting is unavailable so this is something to do with the firmware of the monitor and not a problem with your screen. Try one of the other Picture Mode settings; I *think* the contrast option may be available depending on which one you select.

If that doesn't work, post again and I may change my settings to see how to get Contrast back (I did manage it myself at one point but can't be certain it was changing the Picture Mode that did it). I calibrate my screen so tend to find that manipulating the contrast isn't necessary for me.

All Picture Mode not work.

Updated: Finally I know what's the problem, if Super Energy Mode is Low or Off then it can adjust, I never think this function can control the Contrast on/off.

Anyway LG tech support seems sucks, UK support said have Vivid mode under Picture Mode, our local support even dunno the native resolution and ports(He ask me is there any VGA or DVI on this mon) on this monitor.

 

[SaxPlayer]

All Picture Mode not work.

Updated: Finally I know what's the problem, if Super Energy Mode is Low or Off then it can adjust, I never think this function can control the Contrast on/off.

Anyway LG tech support seems sucks, UK support said have Vivid mode under Picture Mode, our local support even dunno the native resolution and ports(He ask me is there any VGA or DVI on this mon) on this monitor.

My Super Energy Mode is off but my contrast is greyed out so other settings may also trigger this. My best advice would be to calibrate and then you don't really need to worry too much about it (unless you have particular personal reasons to need to alter the contrast, of course).

I hear what you're saying about LG support. They seem pretty typical of the support you get from most big businesses. The people you speak to as first line support are generally non-technical and have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, LG aren't alone in that.

 

[Lichqueen]

My Super Energy Mode is off but my contrast is greyed out so other settings may also trigger this. My best advice would be to calibrate and then you don't really need to worry too much about it (unless you have particular personal reasons to need to alter the contrast, of course).

I hear what you're saying about LG support. They seem pretty typical of the support you get from most big businesses. The people you speak to as first line support are generally non-technical and have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, LG aren't alone in that.

Forgot mention that seems only Custom Picture Mode can adjust the Contrast when Super Energy Mode low or off, choose other mode the Super Energy Mode will greyed out and Contrast greyed out too.

My personal reason to adjust the Contrast because this LG mon quite bright to me(Especially background white when browse website), I still have not get hardware device to calibrate, after calibrate will ok?

Our local support is technical support department, he call me directly after I leave a message to customer support, umm...maybe himself is non-technical lol

 

[SaxPlayer]

Forgot mention that seems only Custom Picture Mode can adjust the Contrast when Super Energy Mode low or off, choose other mode the Super Energy Mode will greyed out and Contrast greyed out too.

My personal reason to adjust the Contrast because this LG mon quite bright to me(Especially background white when browse website), I still have not get hardware device to calibrate, after calibrate will ok?

Our local support is technical support department, he call me directly after I leave a message to customer support, umm...maybe himself is non-technical lol

Yep, that makes sense. My Super Energy Mode is greyed out too. For me calibrating helped to set up my monitor perfectly although YMMV. I went with a Datacolor Spyder Pro 5 although there are other options out there and as I haven't used any of the competition I can't say which hardware is best.

Unfortunately the Spyder 5 doesn't work with LG's own calibration software (or at least it didn't when I tried it back in July). LG support weren't helpful when I reported that to them, although the first line support person did say he'd tell the engineering team. The only advantage of using LG's software is that the calibration data is held in the monitor itself so it makes no difference what device you plug in to it, the screen will always look correct. Spyder 4 works with LG's software, apparently.

However, I found it no problem using Datacolor's own software as I always have my "trash can" Mac Pro plugged in to the LG. It saves a profile down to OS X, which works fine for me.

 

[willtothewong]

Hello all,

I am finally taking the plunge into 4k and this monitor seems to be "the one".

The only limitation that I know of is the 50hz max refresh rate on my MacPro 5,1. I purchased a 980gtx (non-efi) and I can not wait to pair these two together.

For all who have this monitor, how has it been holding up?

Thank you!

 

[SaxPlayer]

Removed. New comment added below. I wish I could work out how to delete this one.

 

[SaxPlayer]

Hello all,

I am finally taking the plunge into 4k and this monitor seems to be "the one".

The only limitation that I know of is the 50hz max refresh rate on my MacPro 5,1. I purchased a 980gtx (non-efi) and I can not wait to pair these two together.

For all who have this monitor, how has it been holding up?

Thank you!

I've had mine for 6 months now and am very pleased with it. All going fine. I was thinking of buying a second one to go along side it, however I've decided not to for the time being as it's such a nice wide screen that having 2 of them seems overkill! Good luck with yours.

 

[willtothewong]

I've had mine for 6 months now and am very pleased with it. All going fine. I was thinking of buying a second one to go along side it, however I've decided not to for the time being as it's such a nice wide screen that having 2 of them seems overkill! Good luck with yours.

Thanks for the feedback!

What GPU are you running it off of if you do not mind me asking?

Thanks again.

 

[SaxPlayer]

Thanks for the feedback!

What GPU are you running it off of if you do not mind me asking?

Thanks again.

I've got mine hooked up to a trash can Mac Pro with D300 cards; I get 60Hz under Yosemite. I can't comment on running it with a cheese grater Mac but hopefully someone else may be able to comment on that.

 

[PitBullCH]

Hello all,

I am finally taking the plunge into 4k and this monitor seems to be "the one".

The only limitation that I know of is the 50hz max refresh rate on my MacPro 5,1. I purchased a 980gtx (non-efi) and I can not wait to pair these two together.

For all who have this monitor, how has it been holding up?

I get 60Hz using DisplayPort (DP) 1.2 on my MacPro 2008 w/ Titan X - DP a better option than HDMI if your card has such outputs.

Monitor is holding out fine so far - my only issues remain the annoyingly placed joystick control under the panel itself, and the slow control responses (I do switch between Mac and Windows PCs daily and can be annoyingly slow to switch).

Actually I noticed one more issue quite recently: if I switch from HDMI 1 (company Windows laptop) to DP, I often get no picture detected - have to switch to Mini DP (Windows gaming desktop), wait for a picture there, then switch back to DP. I only recently discovered this as only recently got this Windows laptop with HDMI output. I haven't yet tried to see if it's the same with HDMI 2, nor have I tried swapping DP and Mini-DP over to see if it's a general HDMI-DP switching issue.

 

[SoundForSoul]

I am on a hackie with a GTX 970, but at this time I can use it only with win 7, for the Yosemite partition I have to install Nvidia web drivers. I tried to calibrate this monitor using the monitor's True Color Pro (so that the settings are stored in the monitor itself, and it remains calibrated no matter to what it is connected to). As hardware calibrator, I have used X-Rite ColorMunki Display, but the device is recognized as X-rite 1i Display Pro, which is a very similar product from X-Rite, and I got this message from True Color Pro saying that I sould re-connect the calibrator (Colormunki Display) to a different usb port, even though it is clearly connected and functional with its own software. I have plugged it in to different usb ports, and nothing happens. Searching on internet I got on these settings: http://prohardver.hu/dl/cnt/2014-12/114158/measurement_report_2_6_0_0_31mu97_custom_mode.html but I have no clue on how to use them. Any hint would be greatly appreciated!

 

[thiskiwicanfly]

In case it helps anyone, I originally purchased an early 2015 13" MacBook Pro in late March to use with the LG 31MU97-B at its full native resolution of 4096x2160 @ 60 Hz refresh. As we now know, the monitor will support only 3840x2160 @ 60 Hz, without the option of choosing a lower refresh rate to increase the resolution. Additionally, the monitor will not support any 17:9 resolution below 4096x2160—only 16:9 resolutions are supported.

Fast forward to today... the monitor works at its full native resolution, 4096x2160 @ 60 Hz, with a mid-2015 15" MacBook Pro with AMD Radeon R9 M370X graphics. And yes, it is a beautiful thing. I haven't had any signal dropouts, flickering, or other issues previously discussed when using either the included LG DisplayPort cable or the StarTech 3 ft. HBR2 DisplayPort cable (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003TSTDI0).

I had a support incident open with Apple the entire time, and they tried to help get this monitor work at its native resolution with the 13" MacBook Pro, but nothing we tried (we read every post in this blog, and reached out to Stephane from SwitchResX) could get it working past 3840x2160.

So in summary, it sounds like for now this monitor requires a Mac with a discrete GPU to function at full spec. It's possible that a future OS X update may address this limitation for non-discrete GPU Macs, as even with my current 15" MacBook Pro, System Information shows that the integrated Intel Iris Pro is driving the pixels, so clearly the integrated GPU can handle it. However, note that the 13" MacBook Pro Intel Iris 6100 GPU may be weaker, may overheat, or may have some other issue that is affecting Apple's decision to ultimately support it at the full DCI 4k spec.

Happy to answer any other questions about my experience.

When the monitor displays 3840x2160 resolution (via the MacBook Pro 13" Early 2015), does it show black bars on each side of the screen? Or does it "stretch" the display to fit the 4096 x 2160 resolution monitor screen size? Does the display still look good even with 256 less horizontal pixels across?

Can anyone confirm if the MacBook Pro 13" Early 2015 now takes advantages of the full 4K Cinema (4096 x 2160 resolution) under OS X El Capitan?

 

[ScratchyMoose]

Hi Everyone,

Just thought i'd chime in with a quick review of my LG which i've had for about 3 months now.

I'm a photographer, and i was very worried that it wouldn't stack up well (colourwise) in comparison to my NEC Multisync, but i'm really happy to say that it's fantasticly accurate with colour.

Here's a screen grab of a profile for it that was generated by my basICColor app (great app btw). The app verify's the profile, and spits out a chart for you, so you know how accurate the profile is. What you want are short bars, as (supposedly) the human eye can't distinguish variations less that 1 Delta E. This, i must admit, is the most impressive calibration that it's done, but i've always managed to get well under 1 with it (apart from once, when i just had to rerun the calibration).

So great news there!

The other really, really fantastic thing about this monitor (from a photographic point of view) is the resolution. Because it's so high, when i'm sorting shots, i can readily see which ones are in or out of focus, without having to zoom in. Also, because you're not noticing the pitch / pixels / resolution, the whole the process of editing and also processing, is so much better / enjoyable. It's a bit like going from 35mm neg to 54 transparency (for the oldies here!). This has been a real revelation for me, and i wouldn't now go back to a normal monitor.

The only downside is LightRoom's ability to process to these high resolutions, as far as previews are concerned. The whole LR workflow was just too terribly slow for me at first - so slow in fact that i trialled both C1P and Photomechanic. I much prefer LR, and only when i figured out that the previews would still be sharp if i set the Standard Preview Size to 2880, did i give up on the other apps, because i then had a regular LR speed (don't start me on how slow LR is though ...!).

About 2 mins after switch on, the monitor almost always blacks out for about 2 seconds. There's also a little glitch that always happens about 2-5 mins later, but both before and after this the monitor always works well, with no other glitching.

I'm on a nMP with 500s, Mavericks, 60 Hz.

Hope this is of some interest!

 

[zmoothg]

OMG, updating to EL Captain finally allowed me to use 4096 x 2160 native resolution on my LG 31MU97 monitor with a Macbook Pro 13" Early 2015 rMBP. I've been waiting for this day for a long long long time.

 

[reader50]

zmoothg, which version of the 31MU97 do you have?

31MU97-B original, HDMI + Displayport
31MU97B-Z Thunderbolt ports
31MU97C-B appears to be a later rev of the first one

This thread was started about the original (-B), which works properly on Windows but not on Mac. The -Z version has worked right on the new MacPro, but we haven't seen reports for any other Mac config. And I see the C-B version on Amazon, but haven't heard anything about it.

 

[zmoothg]

zmoothg, which version of the 31MU97 do you have?

31MU97-B original, HDMI + Displayport
31MU97B-Z Thunderbolt ports
31MU97C-B appears to be a later rev of the first one

This thread was started about the original (-B), which works properly on Windows but not on Mac. The -Z version has worked right on the new MacPro, but we haven't seen reports for any other Mac config. And I see the C-B version on Amazon, but haven't heard anything about it.

I have the original 31MU97-B, bought the first month it was released. it has worked perfectly under Windows but never under MacOSX until El Capitan, now it works flawlessly since the update

 

[felt.]

Waiting for a 4K display with 1ms input lag.

 

[edanuff]

Waiting for a 4K display with 1ms input lag.

Not 1ms, but LG's new 27MU67 27" 4K display is advertised as having an input lag of 9.7ms, which is quite a bit faster than the 31MU97.

 

[reader50]

newegg lists the 31MU97-B as 5ms. They also list the 27MU67 as 5ms. Your LG product page link shows 5ms.

 

[edanuff]

newegg lists the 31MU97-B as 5ms. They also list the 27MU67 as 5ms. Your LG product page link shows 5ms.

Response time isn't the same as input lag. LG promoted an input lag of 9.7ms in their press release for the 27MU67 whereas the Tom's Hardware review for the 31MU97 rates it as quite a bit more.

 

[machilfe.ch]

A friend of mine did buy a LG 31MU97-B together with a MacPro Late 2013, 6-Core, 32GB Memory.
Now I did try help her to figure out some mysterious troubles with this setup.

Behavior:
1) Except with the full 4K resolution 4096x2160, ALL four other lower resolutions do show flickering and small with lightning arrows on the right side of the screen. This also ONLY if the mouse cursor is moved or the keyboard is used.
This doesn't happen with the Apple Thunderbolt display used as test device.
2) The boot process does take about 2-3 times longer (~60-90sec.) then if a Apple Thunderbolt Display is connected (~30sec).
3) After some time of use, suddenly the screen of the LG display gets pitch black, shuts down somehow and lights up again after a few seconds. At the time the LG display screen comes back to life, the intensity of the brightness of the LG display screen is as strong as if you would be dazzling by a argon bulb of a expensive luxury car.
4) If the LG is connected as the single display and as well if the Apple Thunderbolt Display is connected as a second display, after each cold boot (~60sec waiting with Mac Pro power off), the desktop background picture of the LG screen ONLY is lost and set back to an older picture and also to the full 4K resolution.
So each time the Mac Pro 2013 is started up for the days work, background picture and resolution have to be reset again. After a warm boot/restart this doesn't happen at all.

Question:
1) Has anyone seen the same behavior?
2) Any idea how to go further to circling error?
3) With Yosemite 10.10.5, the display settings pan of the system settings doesn't show anymore the "old" resolution possibilities as with older systems. Is this because of the 4K display or is there a way to get the old-style-behavior back?
4) I do not want to completely setup the MacPro from scratch (clean new install) again, as my friend does have installed several apps and with MS Outlook2016 he uses a mail message database of more then 10k of emails and attachments with his very own structure. It took tooooo long the last time to merge that from his old MacBook with MS Outlook 2011...

REM:
1) The picture to be used as background does work properly with the Apple Thunderbolt display and this happens with any kind off background picture. The personal ones as well as with the system provided ones.
2) The use of a second user doesn't change this behavior at all.
3) PM reset has been executed several times.
4) Both way of repair of system access rights and user access rights have been executed several times in recovery mode as well.
5) File structure repairs have been executed several times and in recovery mode as well.
6) According LG, the provided mini Displayport to Displayport cable (supplied in the LG Display box) has specification 1.2 and has been changed as well.
7) All the above happens with a HDMI to HDMI 1.4 cable without any difference.
8) Not to mention, that this LG display does work perfectly and without any glitches on a WIN10 PC with a NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2,0 GB graphic card.

Thank you all in advance for anyones help and suggestions to solve this.

Kind regards
Thomas Thaler

 

[ilandmac]

A friend of mine did buy a LG 31MU97-B together with a MacPro Late 2013, 6-Core, 32GB Memory.
Now I did try help her to figure out some mysterious troubles with this setup.

Behavior:
1) Except with the full 4K resolution 4096x2160, ALL four other lower resolutions do show flickering and small with lightning arrows on the right side of the screen. This also ONLY if the mouse cursor is moved or the keyboard is used.
This doesn't happen with the Apple Thunderbolt display used as test device.
2) The boot process does take about 2-3 times longer (~60-90sec.) then if a Apple Thunderbolt Display is connected (~30sec).
3) After some time of use, suddenly the screen of the LG display gets pitch black, shuts down somehow and lights up again after a few seconds. At the time the LG display screen comes back to life, the intensity of the brightness of the LG display screen is as strong as if you would be dazzling by a argon bulb of a expensive luxury car.
4) If the LG is connected as the single display and as well if the Apple Thunderbolt Display is connected as a second display, after each cold boot (~60sec waiting with Mac Pro power off), the desktop background picture of the LG screen ONLY is lost and set back to an older picture and also to the full 4K resolution.
So each time the Mac Pro 2013 is started up for the days work, background picture and resolution have to be reset again. After a warm boot/restart this doesn't happen at all.

Question:
1) Has anyone seen the same behavior?
2) Any idea how to go further to circling error?
3) With Yosemite 10.10.5, the display settings pan of the system settings doesn't show anymore the "old" resolution possibilities as with older systems. Is this because of the 4K display or is there a way to get the old-style-behavior back?
4) I do not want to completely setup the MacPro from scratch (clean new install) again, as my friend does have installed several apps and with MS Outlook2016 he uses a mail message database of more then 10k of emails and attachments with his very own structure. It took tooooo long the last time to merge that from his old MacBook with MS Outlook 2011...

REM:
1) The picture to be used as background does work properly with the Apple Thunderbolt display and this happens with any kind off background picture. The personal ones as well as with the system provided ones.
2) The use of a second user doesn't change this behavior at all.
3) PM reset has been executed several times.
4) Both way of repair of system access rights and user access rights have been executed several times in recovery mode as well.
5) File structure repairs have been executed several times and in recovery mode as well.
6) According LG, the provided mini Displayport to Displayport cable (supplied in the LG Display box) has specification 1.2 and has been changed as well.
7) All the above happens with a HDMI to HDMI 1.4 cable without any difference.
8) Not to mention, that this LG display does work perfectly and without any glitches on a WIN10 PC with a NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2,0 GB graphic card.

Thank you all in advance for anyones help and suggestions to solve this.

Kind regards
Thomas Thaler

Hi Tom,

I have exactly the same config, late 13, 6 core, 32 Gig memory.

Using the provided "Real 4K x 2K" is a must.

With mavericks, I had a problem on the right side of the screen, mine was a blurry column about half
an inchon the right side when the apple cinema display had no issue.

El Capitan fixed that. Do not ask me how.

Now, the LG is slower on boot or wake. Not much you can do on boot. On wake I just extended the screen
saver delay and it comes back instantly.

Actually the new options for display resolutions pretty well gimmick the old one if you hover your mouse
on the 4 options AND look at the info displayed under the screen image on the right.

Your problems with desktop background images have to be linked to not having a clean install in my
opinion. Bite the bullet now if you have the time.

I stayed with Yosemite for only a couple of hours & moved to El capitan when it came up, with then
no issues with the LG screen, it's superb except for the funky knob on the bottom that took me a
while to get where I wanted to with screen settings.

ilandmac

 

[gglillo]

Hi,
it's a very long discussion to follow.
Resuming, for photo editing and 4k/3k/2k movies watching, is' it a good choice this monitor?
thanks

 

[turbineseaplane]

Hi,
it's a very long discussion to follow.
Resuming, for photo editing and 4k/3k/2k movies watching, is' it a good choice this monitor?
thanks

?

You're too lazy to read all the information in the thread and want someone to summarize for you?

C'mon man. That's ridiculous.