Dell UP3017 randomly misbehaving

[tony359]

I have a Dell UP3017 which is mostly working but intermittently it starts flashing/misbehaving.



The amount of corruption/flashing depends on the content being displayed, it seems to be worse when dark content is being displayed.
I can remove/increase the issue if I tweak the CONTRAST (NOT the backlight). So for example the monitor begins flashing, I turn CONTRAST from 70 to 69 and it stops. If I go back to 70, it starts again.

It's 100% a monitor issue, I have a different computer on a different input and when the monitor misbehaves, the same issue happens on the other input as well.

Yesterday I could see a "ticktok" logo somehow "stuck" under every image I could put on the monitor, even on a different input. Power cycling the monitor (removing the plug for 10 seconds) did NOT remove that. The computer which had the ticktok logo was unplugged. HOW is that even possible.

The issue normally fades out slowly within 5/15 minutes. The monitor works 100% the rest of the time.

That shows that the issue is not the backlight but the image processing. Some kind of a buffer that gets corrupted I'd imagine.

This ONLY happens at night. In fact, it kept happening at 22:32 for a while - NOT every night. Yesterday it happened past midnight and it was different, with that tiktok logo stuck on everything. I cannot think of anything mains-related happening at that time. Everything on my desk, including two other Dell monitors are working perfectly fine.

This is going to be impossible to diagnose of course until it starts doing it permanently. But I'd be curious to hear your input on this.

See attached some images/videos (Onedrive player is awful, to see without compression please download the files )

https://1drv.ms/v/c/0f215fbb023f1ee9/EQ6BTAGuyaVDmxerqmLq8nIBXEWs4aKetS6dWmjwTvr28Q?e=Ps6uGf

https://1drv.ms/v/c/0f215fbb023f1ee9/ESzeNMVOMcpJoymOutAr4Y4B5le5o3Q5rgox6F5qmmmNgA?e=Mf68Uj

https://1drv.ms/v/c/0f215fbb023f1ee9/EQ6BTAGuyaVDmxerqmLq8nIBXEWs4aKetS6dWmjwTvr28Q?e=miKzEY

[dodolizard]

I have the same monitor and the same problem.
Similarly, it happens at the end of the day after it has been on for hours. Also can confirm that the problem persists by unplugging the monitor from its input and plugging it to a different computer.
For the last couple times when it happens I've started the LCD Conditioning (From monitor menu Others>LCD Conditioning), it just cycles colors on the entire panel. When that starts the problem is NOT present during the conditioning. I stop it after some time and the problem is fixed, at least temporarily, one time the problem came back a few minutes later.
I also noticed that before there is image retention there is some degradation as if the pixels were coarser in some parts of the image, along with some flickering.

Some thoughts on why this could be happening
- Component degradation, monitor is old
- Heat, after working for several hours some components may just hit some temperature that causes the malfunction.

Some things to try out:
- Im using HDMI input, will try to switch to DisplayPort when the issue is present and see what happens
- Use the monitor only at the end of the day and see if the issue is time related.
- Apply some percussion therapy to trigger or solve the issue. Could be just some component with solder failure that is not doing proper contact and with heat (cold?) it fails, so banging the monitor around could also trigger the issue.


 

[beatman]

Check the buttons on monitor some may be stuck.I have same problem on lenovo monitor and i replace all the inpout menu control tact switches.Problem is gone.

[tony359]

@dodolizard

Very interesting.
I am on DisplayPort so I don't think it's an HDMI issue.

Also, it happened in the evening when I was out all day and I turned it on later in the day so it doesn't seem to be linked to heat.

What I cannot understand is how is it possible that it ONLY misbehaves in the evening, around 22:30. I've seen it misbehaving at 23:30. NEVER before 22:30. NEVER EVER, despite being on from 8am. It blows my mind!

It's impossible to replicate so impossible to diagnose. But it lacks any logic. If it was random, I'd understand. But why always around 22:30, that really escapes me.

@beatman
If it was buttons, it would be random I suppose. Why would a button get stuck at 22:30? I know, it doesn't make sense and it points at something external. But I tried a different computer on a different input and it still happens. Plus, it's now 2 of us

[Traceless]

I have a Dell UP3017 which is mostly working but intermittently it starts flashing/misbehaving.

(Attachment Link)
Yesterday I could see a "ticktok" logo somehow "stuck" under every image I could put on the monitor, even on a different input. Power cycling the monitor (removing the plug for 10 seconds) did NOT remove that. The computer which had the ticktok logo was unplugged. HOW is that even possible.

The issue normally fades out slowly within 5/15 minutes. The monitor works 100% the rest of the time.

According to this Dell document the UP3017 uses an IPS panel. The early IPS panels had a lot of issues with image retention, i.e. you'd see an afterglow of previous images quite some time after the screen content changes. This has nothing to do with aging. I had this issues with a brand new Lenovo X240. Here is an example of the problem. Whatever causes the weird late evening misbehavior must be a separate issue.

To test for the image retention problem wait till the monitor does not misbehave. Display a checkerboard pattern and leave it on the screen for a while, you could use this site or this one for instance. Then switch to a uniform grey background. If the checkerboard pattern remains the display's panel has the early IPS panel retention issue, which will look like this.

The time dependent misbehavior seems really odd. Just a thought - Have you enabled a "night light" mode in your OS that changes contrast/brightness and blue level in the evening? Maybe that triggers whatever the second problem is, which does look like a hardware issue to me.

--
Cheers Traceless

[tony359]

IPS panels have been around for a while. The 3017 was released in 2017
I'm familiar with what you say and similar issues with overdriving LCD panels leaving all sort of shadows behind but this is not the case. My OTHER Dell monitor, U3014, has some "overshooting" when scrolling while a twin U3014, but on a different revision, does not.

What you linked would drive me crazy, I can assure you that this is not the issue.

Yes, I do have night shift on my computer and indeed I assumed it was something related to that. But I can assure you I unplugged EVERYTHING from the monitor and when I plug MAINS back in, even the MENU is showing the same issue with NO INPUTS connected. I've also tried switching to my Windows PC while the issue happens and it also happens there.

So yes, I fully agree with you that this doesn't make any sense whatsoever and it HAS to be related to an OS or an external event but it happens with nothing connected to it.

I can only think of mains. Maybe there is something on my mains supply that happens at 22:30 or whereabouts but I don't see or experience anything around that time, I don't have anything happening at that time. I live in the UK, mains power is good.

I am puzzled!

[Traceless]

IPS panels have been around for a while. The 3017 was released in 2017

My X240 with the image retention issues was released in 2015. I consider IPS panels from that era early. Sure the technology is older but it took a while for it to become prevalent. TN panels were just much more common throughout the earlier yearssdl.

I'm familiar with what you say and similar issues with overdriving LCD panels leaving all sort of shadows behind but this is not the case. My OTHER Dell monitor, U3014, has some "overshooting" when scrolling while a twin U3014, but on a different revision, does not.

What you linked would drive me crazy, I can assure you that this is not the issue.

It absolutely did drive me crazy. I had the display swapped twice. The first swap was against an identical display (part no.: 00HM111) which showed exactly the same image retention issues as the original display. My third display then was an 00HM745, which judging by the specs is an identical IPS panel, however it did show no image retention at all and works flawlessly to this day. So I assume that those 00HM745 display either are an updated revision or came from a different supplier. Either way you can't necessarily assume that two screens use identical hardware just because they are part of a device with identical maker and model number.

Of course I don't know much about the backstory of your monitors. Did you recently acquire the misbehaving one or do you own it for a longer period of time? The "tiktok"-logo issue just sounded very much like bad IPS-panel quality issues. However if you have owned the misbehaving monitor for a longer period of time and had no "ghost images" prior, this rules out the IPS-image-retention issue. If you have a bad IPS panel this issue will have been present since the day the screen left the factory.

IF you recently acquired the misbehaving monitor you could try to swap the panel over to the working one. If the issue moves with the panel it is the panel itself otherwise it has to do with other components like the PSU or the main-board. I'm not familiar with the UP3017 so depending on how much effort a panel swap is you might want to save this as a last resort though and try other things first. For instance swapping the main board and/or power supply may be easier than swapping the panel on that screen model.

Yes, I do have night shift on my computer and indeed I assumed it was something related to that. But I can assure you I unplugged EVERYTHING from the monitor and when I plug MAINS back in, even the MENU is showing the same issue with NO INPUTS connected. I've also tried switching to my Windows PC while the issue happens and it also happens there.

Okay that pretty much rules out the night shift mode as a culprit.

So yes, I fully agree with you that this doesn't make any sense whatsoever and it HAS to be related to an OS or an external event but it happens with nothing connected to it.

I can only think of mains. Maybe there is something on my mains supply that happens at 22:30 or whereabouts but I don't see or experience anything around that time, I don't have anything happening at that time. I live in the UK, mains power is good.

I am puzzled!

Considering your theory that a mains issue could be the cause you could take a look at gridwatch to see what happens around 2230h. Maybe you have access to or can borrow a battery like this or a similar one and test it connected to that. If the issue goes away that would strongly support your theory of mains being the issue.

If I had to guess I'd say a mains related issue is unlikely in this case, I'd rather consider something thermal, e.g. your heaters go to energy save mode and your room temperature drops by one or two degrees triggering the issue. Maybe you can experiment with a hot air station/hair dryer and cold spray to see if you can reproduce the issue reliably.

[tony359]

Thanks
I've had this monitor for years, it only started doing this recently.

I can assure the issue has nothing to do with image retention. The whole panel starts flashing, depending on how bright the content is. It flashes when I'm browsing darker pages. It usually begins pretty quickly, within 1 minute and slowly fades off in like 5-10 minutes. You can see that in the second video, the flashing is not a camera-induced effect, it just flashes like crazy and - you might be able to see that in the picture I attached on the first post - it shows some lines as if some of the lines were not being drawn.

After it's back to normal, it behaves ok until the next day around 22:30 - but it doesn't happen every day.

This monitor is mostly on from 10am to midnight every day. And I don't remember seeing this issue happening outside of that narrow window around 22:30!

Gridwatch is cool, thanks! I don't see obvious spikes on frequency, I can keep an eye on it. And unfortunately I don't have a battery or a UPS.

If the issue happened randomly, I would be happy to diagnose the issue a bit more but because it only happens around 22:30 and only once a day - when it happens - I cannot find any logic behind that and I don't really know what to do.

[Traceless]

I'd rather consider something thermal, e.g. your heaters go to energy save mode and your room temperature drops by one or two degrees triggering the issue. Maybe you can experiment with a hot air station/hair dryer and cold spray to see if you can reproduce the issue reliably.

This monitor is mostly on from 10am to midnight every day. And I don't remember seeing this issue happening outside of that narrow window around 22:30!

Gridwatch is cool, thanks! I don't see obvious spikes on frequency, I can keep an eye on it. And unfortunately I don't have a battery or a UPS.

If the issue happened randomly, I would be happy to diagnose the issue a bit more but because it only happens around 22:30 and only once a day - when it happens - I cannot find any logic behind that and I don't really know what to do.

How about your heating system? If it goes to sleep/eco/shutdown at night and the ambience temperature drops this could be as simple as a cold joint.

After it's back to normal, it behaves ok until the next day around 22:30 - but it doesn't happen every day.

Do you have different heater settings configured for different days, e.g. no or later shutdown at the weekend?

If you have a temperature probe/thermometer with logging function you could monitor ambient temperatures and see if there is a change in temperature during that time window. Alternatively you could test the display at a relatively cold place in your home. If this is linked to lower ambient temperature the issue might show up then outside that time window.

[tony359]

I tend to turn up the heating after dinner but we're talking about +1C - I doubt this could be the cause. Also, the temperature I reach in the evening is often normally reached during the day because of natural heat. The monitor is not too close to a radiator.

Today is a summery day in the UK, we have 23C. I never have 23C in winter with heating on so I don't see a correlation here.

If it was a temperature related issue, I wouldn't see that those days I'm out and turn on the monitor at 9pm This really doesn't make sense, I appreciate that!

I can try and stick a fan on top of the monitor. it might give some data points.

Thanks for the inputs so far.

[tony359]

I made a little "repair attempt" video on this monitor. It's now been replaced with another one - I'd be tempted to test the UP3017 again to see whether opening and closing it helped! 😀