PC Drivers & Software

[requiem551]

I just bought an Alienware AW2518Hf 240hz monitor

When paired with my AMD RX 580, the monitor will flicker on and off randomly when playing games with the monitor's refresh rate set anywhere above 60hz. It's more of a 'blink' than a flicker, where the screen completely goes black and then turns back on a second later, almost like the signal is being interrupted from the GPU to the monitor.

I've tried almost every fix I can think of. Changing HDMI and Displayport cables, plugging into different ports, turning Freesync on and off, upping the power limit on my GPU, reinstalling drivers, etc...

I changed my GPU to a spare nvidia GTX 1050 I have and lo and behold, it runs games flawlessly at 240hz+ (obviously on lowest settings possible) with this monitor. It's not that the AMD card has trouble pushing the frames, it seems like a compatability issue.

I'm guessing this is a driver issue AMD is having. Can anyone who works at AMD comment on this and let me know if it's a known issue or not?

Thanks for any help.

System specs:
i5-6600k
RX 580 8gb
8gb RAM
XFX TS 650w Gold power supply
Windows 10 64-bit

Edit:

After looking more into the issue, it seems like it's a power issue with the AMD card. When set at a refresh rate above 60hz, the AMD card requires more electricity for some reason. In my case, I had to increase the available electricity by +30% in AMD's Wattman software in order to eliminate the screen blinking with this monitor.

I'm not sure if it's an issue with my individual card or a driver issue like I suspect, because I have no other AMD cards to test with. I will note that when the monitor is set to 60hz but the card is not frame limiting itself through vsync or another frame limiter, but still pushing max frames as it would when the monitor is set to 240hz, there is no blink. When the monitor is set back to 240hz with the exact same settings, the blink starts up again. So it seems to me it's an issue with AMD's driver still, and for some reason the card requires more electricity when the monitor is at 240hz for no additional performance gains.

I'll report this to AMD myself, and it would be nice if anyone with the same issue does too. Like I said, it might just be my card, but I kind of doubt it since it performs fine and doesn't need extra electricity when the monitor is at 60hz.

[pokester]

I do not believe it is an issue with anything but the drivers. If you search the threads this has already be talked about numerous times. Nobody has a workaround unfortunately. The FreeSync seems to work fine from like 45-75 but anything over that, it flickers. On the Vega the consensus is that it doesn't work at all. AMD has said nothing officially that I have seen in these forums addressing these current issues. It was only recently that the lower FreeSync range worked for me again on my RX 580 so it is at least some progress. Unfortunately and I wish it were different, but telling us here about this is just telling your peers not AMD as we are not employees, just the community. Please do let AMD know as the more people that do hopefully it gets fixed quicker: Email Form

[requiem551]

Even with FreeSync disabled, the monitor still flickers on and off. As well, when I'm getting frames in that frame range you said (45-75) with FreeSync on, the monitor still flickers on and off just as it would at higher refresh rates. Thanks for the email form, I'll be trying to get in contact with AMD any way that I can.

[pokester]

You bet, good luck, not much else to say since you know it all works good with another card. Best wishes!

[tang0]

Hi guys,

I have the same issue with my Alienware AW2518HF 240Hz monitor here. I´ve tested it with different DP and HDMI cables, with and without FreeSync...the result is always the same. It shows a black screen for a second, then it works for a couple of minutes, then black screen again and so on.

144Hz mode works but not the 240Hz mode. I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 hoping that might fix it, but it didn´t. Would be nice if there soon will be a solution for it.

System specs:

Intel Xeon E3-1231 v3 3.40GHz

8GB Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro+ with Radeon 18.3.4

16GB RAM

Windows 10 64-Bit

[pokester]

The forum here is just a community of your peers not AMD employees. Please do let AMD know as the more people that do hopefully it gets fixed quicker: Email Form

[tang0]

Hello. I have the same monitor, but unfortunately have not much experience with the setting of the GPU (Wattman), but my monitor has the problem only in 240Hz mode. Then the picture becomes black for a moment and then normal again. Running the monitor in 144Hz mode works well. Unfortunately my english is not so good to write directly to AMD ... sorry. So I write to you and let you know, that you´re not alone with that!!!

8GB Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro+ with Radeon 18.3.4

​Best regards

​Thore

[requiem551]

Hi,

To access AMD's Wattman software, right click your desktop and open AMD Radeon Settings. From there, click Gaming, then Global Settings, then Global Wattman. Scroll to the bottom (or maximize the window), and at the bottom of that page there is an option under Temperature that says Power Limit (%). Try to increase that to +30% or higher and see if your screen still flickers at 240hz. When you're done playing, turn it back to 0%.

If it works for you, you can set individual Wattman profiles for each game that will only activate the additional power consumption when playing those games so you don't manually need to adjust it every time.

Let me know how it goes.

[tang0]

Hi requiem551 and thank you for your help!

I did what you suggested and increased the power limit to 30%. It seems to work in Battlefield and other games. In Windows it still flickers. I also think that it is a problem with the driver.

[kingfish]

You should have your Power Limit disabled by using the Max + value..all the way to the right...for any intensive use such as gaming.

AMD graphics performance

[tang0]

It´s a great advice for playing games, but I also have the flickering monitor while using Windows software like Office or programs like Firefox and Photoshop. How can I disable the flickering outside the games? It only works when I switch to 144Hz mode, then I don´t have any issues using Windows.

[bastianpp]

disable the freesync, is useless lol

[robcus21]

So does anyone know if possibly the update last month rectified this issue?

[tang0]

I'm not sure if the update fixed the problem, but no more flickering here. However, I tried five different DP cables and three HDMI cables. They all caused flickering, but in the end the HDMI cable that came with the monitor seems to work now.

Strange...

[pokester]

Unfortunately there is huge disparity in cable quality. HDMI is pretty forgiving of this at 60mhz as you found out the higher you go, not so much. Display port is highly messed with, by cheap cables. Doesn't mean the price you paid was cheap. If you google there are a few sites out there which tell you what cable makers to stick with as being proven to follow the standards.

[okegameg]

I'm having the same issue

[bastianpp]

i have rx 580 flickering with my chg70, i'm waiting one year for update and nothing !!

[pokester]

have you loaded the current firmware? Are you using the monitor specific driver? In Radeon Settings are you setting your min and max to yourr freesync range in chill, it helps.

Curved Gaming Monitor (CHG70 Series) | Owner Information & Support | Samsung US

[bastianpp]

yeah, i have the current firmware Version 1020.0 .

The min are 44 and max 144, that is for default.

[okegameg]

try undervolting your vram and core clock

[pokester]

What card are you on. Undervolting your core on a 580 is typically a horrible idea. Most of them need to have the power limit raised. jIf you are on a Vega that's a different story. The same advice does not apply unilaterally to different AMD cards. 

[okegameg]

I'm on a 580, undervolted to 1100mv on core and 900mv on vram. completely stable and I don't have the flashing issue anymore. Latest driver version.

[okegameg]

OP did your issue ever get resolved with a driver update? Your fix of increasing the power limit didn't work for my RX 580 and Acer KG251Q.

[okegameg]

Hey guys, I found a potential fix. Undervolt your core and VRAM!