Dell Alienware AW3423DW 34″ QD-OLED 175Hz (3440 x 1440)

I didn't say it was OK as-is lol, I want them to fix it. But I'm enjoying my monitor anyway and it's hardly the least convenient thing I've dealt with in PC hardware. YMMV!
What's really unfortunate is that Dell won't fix it. They don't allow user serviceable firmware upgrades.
 
No Gsync module and their horrific track record with VRR + terrible HDR performance does not inspire confidence. Not to mention in NA, Samsung displays only carry a 1 year warranty vs 3 with Dell.
At this point for me no G-Sync module is a plus. Nvidia has really dropped the ball in its continued development where it has a miserable set of inputs and requiring a fan (rather than say a beefier heatsink) sucks as well.

Samsung is not my favorite display company though as their firmware updates and general quality has been a bit disappointing.
 
VRR works fine on the S95B. I notice zero difference between this and the CX. Rtings confirms in their review:

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/s95b-oled

"The Samsung S95B supports all current variable refresh rate formats, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any source that supports VRR. The VRR feature works across a very wide range of refresh rates. Below about 40Hz low framerate compensation (LFC) is automatically enabled, so even if your framerate drops very low, you still won't see screen tearing."
 
Does anyone here have an issue where the monitor keeps defaulting back to HDR 400 True Black? I must have set HDR 1000 in the menu at least a dozen times now but it seems to randomly switch back to HDR 400.
 
Does anyone here have an issue where the monitor keeps defaulting back to HDR 400 True Black? I must have set HDR 1000 in the menu at least a dozen times now but it seems to randomly switch back to HDR 400.
I heard that this is a UI glitch, and it is still on HDR 1000. It’s been mentioned on Reddit posts that after a pixel refresh the bug happens.

Found a post, check out the quirks section of this owners checklist post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ultrawidem...0neb/alienware_aw3423dw_new_owner_checklist/t
 
A 40-42" 4K with this panel would be end game.

EDIT: 1440p remains gross on desktop along with the subpixel layout making everything look soft (I'm too far to notice fringing) but in game DLDSR with DLSS saves the day and makes games look pretty close to native 4K in terms of fidelity.
It’s a shame so many games are not supporting exclusive full screen now making DLDSR a no go. Hopefully DLAA rolls out in more titles soon because it’s damn nice in No Man’s Sky. I keep hoping D2R gets it since DLSS disables the scaling option.

Personally I’m hoping for something 34-38” @ 5k2k with a polarizer down the road for QDOLED.
 
It’s a shame so many games are not supporting exclusive full screen now making DLDSR a no go. Hopefully DLAA rolls out in more titles soon because it’s damn nice in No Man’s Sky. I keep hoping D2R gets it since DLSS disables the scaling option.

Personally I’m hoping for something 34-38” @ 5k2k with a polarizer down the road for QDOLED.
Set your desktop to the DLDSR res before launching the game, then set it back when you're done. Works just fine.
 
Set your desktop to the DLDSR res before launching the game, then set it back when you're done. Works just fine.
Switching the resolution every time I fire up a game and then again afterwards isn’t really a acceptable workaround imo. That’s about as broken as windows 11 burying the spatial audio toggle in settings > audio > device whenever you want to switch from headphones to speakers or back again.
 
Switching the resolution every time I fire up a game and then again afterwards isn’t really a acceptable workaround imo. That’s about as broken as windows 11 burying the spatial audio toggle in settings > audio > device whenever you want to switch from headphones to speakers or back again.
Hi, i have never used DLDSR but i have some similar cases where i need to switch to a certain resolution to use specific games and then switch back, i do this automatically with this method, maybe you find ir useful:

i use a exe file called "nircmdc.exe" which allows me to change resolution - refresh rate via command line, so for example i want to launch a game at 1920 x 1080 60hz , but my typical desktop resolution is 1920 x 1200 60hz, so i create a batch from a text file, in this case i put extension "cmd" when saving the text file, and create the following lines inside it

nircmdc.exe setdisplay 1920 1080 32 60 -updatereg
game.exe
nircmdc.exe setdisplay 1920 1200 32 60 -updatereg

so that way, when i click that batch file, display resolution wll be switched to 1920 x 1080 at 60hz, and launch the game, and when i exit the game, it will be switched back to 1920 x 1200 60hz automatically, without me needing to do that manually, just by a single click
the "nircmdc.exe" needs to be in the same directory of the game executable as well as the batch file.
 
Anyone else's fan pulsing at random? No rhyme or reason for it occuring. Rarely happens during HDR gaming but just sitting on the desktop browsing and it will pulse from 0 to high RPM repeatedly for minutes on end.
 
Anyone else's fan pulsing at random? No rhyme or reason for it occuring. Rarely happens during HDR gaming but just sitting on the desktop browsing and it will pulse from 0 to high RPM repeatedly for minutes on end.
how loud is it at full speed? I have my server running behind me which isn't too loud and haven't heard the monitor fans at all.
IMG_2285.JPEG
 
Anyone else's fan pulsing at random? No rhyme or reason for it occuring. Rarely happens during HDR gaming but just sitting on the desktop browsing and it will pulse from 0 to high RPM repeatedly for minutes on end.
Yes.
 
how loud is it at full speed? I have my server running behind me which isn't too loud and haven't heard the monitor fans at all.
View attachment 474688
It's pretty loud and annoying to me given my PC makes no noise. Sounds like a laptop fan letting off just as it goes full tilt over and over. I'm going to keep an ear to it and see if it gets worse because it happening more frequently.
 
It's pretty loud and annoying to me given my PC makes no noise. Sounds like a laptop fan letting off just as it goes full tilt over and over. I'm going to keep an ear to it and see if it gets worse because it happening more frequently.
Kinda sounds like the heatsink isn't seated quite right, or maybe a firmware bug.
 
Never heard my fan ramp up and I run HDR at max brightness for most of the monitors life.

Then again I keep my house at 63F too.
 
Kinda sounds like the heatsink isn't seated quite right, or maybe a firmware bug.
It's the top fan thats suppose to only trigger at a certain temp to evacuate heat from behind the panel, not the one on the Gsync module. Not sure exactly what's causing it.
 
It's the top fan thats suppose to only trigger at a certain temp to evacuate heat from behind the panel, not the one on the Gsync module. Not sure exactly what's causing it.
Do you have the latest driver for it ? I'm running 1.1.0.0 with a driver date of 3/14/2022 as seen in Device Manager.
 
Do you have the latest driver for it ? I'm running 1.1.0.0 with a driver date of 3/14/2022 as seen in Device Manager.
Yeah but that driver seems to only be for it's D65 color profile. The fan behavior is 100% baked into the monitors firmware. I'm hoping they address both the power off after pixel refresh and fan behavior with a firmware update in the future.
 
Yeah but that driver seems to only be for it's D65 color profile. The fan behavior is 100% baked into the monitors firmware. I'm hoping they address both the power off after pixel refresh and fan behavior with a firmware update in the future.
Yah, I actually removed the D65 color profile and force reference mode in NVIDIA control panel. Some people were mentioning that the driver changed the behaviour of the fan a little. Anecdote yes, and probably not related, but was still worth a shot at this point.

There's a couple of quirks like that they should definitely try to fix with a firmware update.
 
I posted about my card expiring while waiting on backorder and was expecting a cancellation email. Well, just got an email thats its being shipped and have a tracking number and delivery day. Wasn't expecting this. I'll just cross my fingers to make sure it actually has been shipped and I'm not jumping the gun.

If it DOES ship, they did with outdated card info, so I'm pretty confused.

Edit: My cancel button is also grayed out
This happened to me as well. Just got the shipping notification this morning and that card number is long dead. Even funnier was I cancelled that order and have confirmation from two dell reps it was cancelled… so no idea what’s going on at dell lol
 
Not sure what happened but the fan breathing / ramp up bug has gone away for the past day. I wasn’t trying to fix the fan, just messing with stuff and noticed it went away.

I cycled the eco mode off then on again. Not sure if that did it or cycling auto brightness off then on again (I’ve done this before with no change though). Only other thing I did was change gamma from 2.2 to 2.4, but reverting back doesn’t seem to trigger the fan.

Could be random but sharing just in case.

EDIT - it is just tied to temperature. Once the temp hits the threshold the fan turns on and 'ramps up' - the fan turning on drops temps below threshold again, so the fan ends up 'breathing' until warm enough that the fan is just running continuously at a lower volume.
 
Last edited:
Not sure what happened but the fan breathing / ramp up bug has gone away for the past day. I wasn’t trying to fix the fan, just messing with stuff and noticed it went away.

I cycled the eco mode off then on again. Not sure if that did it or cycling auto brightness off then on again (I’ve done this before with no change though). Only other thing I did was change gamma from 2.2 to 2.4, but reverting back doesn’t seem to trigger the fan.

Could be random but sharing just in case.
Might be worth a shot to do a factory reset as well ?
 
Oh for fuck sake, Dell just shipped mine after I had cancelled it (or so I thought) almost 3 weeks ago.

Right after they told me it was delayed until the end of June, I cancelled vs accepting the delay. I went with the LG 38GN950 from Costco, another monitor I've been eyeing for a while. I'm not sad about going that route. The extra resolution is nice and the text is super crisp. Less of a curve too. I hate curved monitors. I'm only sad that I was "only" going to pay $1125 after tax, thanks to my Dell rep. Anyway, I asked them to intercept and return the package. We'll see if they do. They couldn't seem to cancel it correctly so I'm not holding my breath. Otherwise I have to take it to a Fedex location and ship it back. PITA.
 
Oh for fuck sake, Dell just shipped mine after I had cancelled it (or so I thought) almost 3 weeks ago.

Right after they told me it was delayed until the end of June, I cancelled vs accepting the delay. I went with the LG 38GN950 from Costco, another monitor I've been eyeing for a while. I'm not sad about going that route. The extra resolution is nice and the text is super crisp. Less of a curve too. I hate curved monitors. I'm only sad that I was "only" going to pay $1125 after tax, thanks to my Dell rep. Anyway, I asked them to intercept and return the package. We'll see if they do. They couldn't seem to cancel it correctly so I'm not holding my breath. Otherwise I have to take it to a Fedex location and ship it back. PITA.
Really amazing how chaotic dell seems to be these days.

My tracking has been updated that it’s being rerouted so I assume dell has realized their mistake.
 
Well, my dad has one now. No complaints about text fringing or anything else. (Though he has it a little further back towards the wall.)

Best I can tell, appears to just think the display is awesome though. Flight Simulator must be amazing on it.
 
This thing takes an eternity to switch resolution, enable/disable HDR, etc.
That's one of its biggest downside imo. Are you on Windows 10 or 11 ? I'm still on 10 and wondering if the HDR/SDR switch would happen less often, or more quickly, on Windows 11.
 
Playing Ghostwire Tokyo, hitting Shift and Caps Lock at the same time does some weird resolution change or something, and the monitor always acts like it, and takes a good 3-4 seconds to change with a black screen, its kind of annoying. Otherwise, it looks really good on this monitor with HDR set for 1000 nits with DLSS and Ray-tracing on.
 
That's one of its biggest downside imo. Are you on Windows 10 or 11 ? I'm still on 10 and wondering if the HDR/SDR switch would happen less often, or more quickly, on Windows 11.
Windows 11. It's the Gsync module because this long delay occurs on every hardware Gsync module monitor I've used except it's even longer with the AW.

It's pretty jarring because on my C2 I can swap between 16:9 and 21:9 or HDR in what feels like less than a second.
 
Windows 11. It's the Gsync module because this long delay occurs on every hardware Gsync module monitor I've used except it's even longer with the AW.

It's pretty jarring because on my C2 I can swap between 16:9 and 21:9 or HDR in what feels like less than a second.
Active cooling requirement, DP 1.4 limitation, long delays on HDR/SDR switching.... the list of downsides caused by that Gsync module is starting to pile up!
 
Active cooling requirement, DP 1.4 limitation, long delays on HDR/SDR switching.... the list of downsides caused by that Gsync module is starting to pile up!
TBH I think my time with this monitor is done. The fan pulsing has gotten obnoxious and I'm noticing that it just doesn't play nice when both my C2 and it are connected. Turning on the C2 sometimes causes the AW to black out 3-4x like it's swapping resolutions and takes forever to settle. Those issues and the fact that for my use the C2 does everything it does as good or better makes it pointless to keep. If the fan wasn't so dumb I would resell it to a friend but at this point I think I'm just going to send it back.

I'll wait for a smaller 4K QD-OLED.
 
In defense of the g-sync module:
The latest gsync module that is installed in the acer predator x38s monitor has absolutely 100% inaudible fan. I even thought that it was broken since it never emitted any sound what so ever, but if when I placed my hand behind the monitor I could feel warm air actively coming out from the vents, and that was definitely not a passive dissipation. In comparison, the fan on the x38p was very loud.
No delay on hdr/sdr switching. No glitching either during the switches.
Supports 3840x1600 10bit Full RGB HDR 175hz resolution, thanks to DSC.


The monitor had red tint on the left side and also black clouding on top edge of the screen (just like the x38p did. The center clouding was fixed.) so I returned it. By the time I got refunded all the x38s were sold out and I couldn't try another one, also decided that proper HDR is important, thus the 42" OLED will probably be the endgame display for longtime. Probably. The SDR image quality and gaming performance of the x38s was mindblowing. HDR, though, was ridiculously bad because of the total black level crush. You could lift details with built in tech (shadow details recovery or smth like that), but that would brake the rest of the image. SDR, on the other hand, looked perfect. Also in 10 bit color, whatever people say, games do look better. I extensively compared the Elden Ring in SDR 10 bit vs SDR 8 bit, and it definitely looked better than in 8-bit resolution. Certain locations looked definitely better on the X38S SDR 10bit, than on the OLED C7 with 10 bit HDR. Certain locations! OK? Not all game. 😁
 
This thing takes an eternity to switch resolution, enable/disable HDR, etc.

Plus, they put that large UI box saying DisplayPort input dead center of the screen so often, even worse when it covers up the countdown box confirming if the screen change worked.
 
Back
Top