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

Interesting thread.

I am a small minority,. I can have ocular migraines due to lights flicker.
I noticed that these became much more frequent with oled, but never made the connection.
Could it be the emulated pwm flicker that is being talked about? I'm not sure, but it would make sense for me.
I am sensitive to display flicker, and from what I feel, the OLED flickers like the old pwm modulated LCD. I am too busy and too lasy to prove this scintifically but I am almost positive it does. Prior to the lg 42 I had the acer predator s38 and that didnt flicker for sure. Amazing experience. Unfortunately, I want a working HDR (that includes no blooming), so the lg 42c2 is my only choice. Or, this is the way, in monitor sense. I will live with this flicker. I have seen worse flickering displays than this. It is bearable.
 
I don't have any reference monitor, but I tried it on my 42" LG C2 which I am using as a PC monitor. Manually activated HDR (I run SDR only when on the desktop), then opened the pictures with Windows Photo.
Sky_high easily looks much better - it has much higher range (difference between dark and bright parts of the picture) and color reproduction. That being said, I think sky_low could still look a lot better even in pure SDR compared to how it looks on that picture - it's really muted for some reason.

When I opened both while having Windows in SDR, then sky_low didn't look all that different (still kinda bad), but sky_high was blown out to kingdom come, totally ridiculous.

So, what's the conclusion from this? The C2 is a decent HDR screen since sky_high looks much better than sky_low?
Because most monitor cannot display a wider color space in SDR at a higher luminance. In order to let you see what I see on my monitor, you need to be in HDR mode to view both images.

Sky_Low in HDR looks the same as the sky SDR picture I posted before.

But Sky_high looks a lot better in HDR. What you see in Sky_high HDR is what a monitor can do if it uses a wider color space at a higher luminance in SDR.

OLED is very good at this considering it has pixel-dimming zones. It could at least make SDR look a lot better. The problem with OLED is the ABL hammers the HDR experience. I wish it could at least deliver fast vivid SDR images. But this one flickers with a QD layer at a little bit higher brightness.
 
Last edited:
Interesting thread.

I am a small minority,. I can have ocular migraines due to lights flicker.
I noticed that these became much more frequent with oled, but never made the connection.
Could it be the emulated pwm flicker that is being talked about? I'm not sure, but it would make sense for me.
Same problem here ... I'm not sure what it is but the AW3423DW makes me feel ever-so-slightly dizzy or out-of-focus. It's a difficult feeling to explain but I never had this problem with my other monitors. I feel like I'm also in the minority though.

The HDR experience is truly next-level but fuzzy text, fan noise, and VRR flickering are the reasons I'm sending it back.
 
When I got my first oled TV 4-5 years ago I also got the slightest bit of a “dizzy” feeing while watching my first movie or two. I got over it in a week or so and haven’t had it sense.

Not trying to discredit anyone but more saying give it a week or two if you haven’t in case you get used to it.
 
When I got my first oled TV 4-5 years ago I also got the slightest bit of a “dizzy” feeing while watching my first movie or two. I got over it in a week or so and haven’t had it sense.

Not trying to discredit anyone but more saying give it a week or two if you haven’t in case you get used to it.
Likely this is caused by the difference in motion clarity from the faster response of the pixels on OLED.
 
i must have a good one i have not noticed any flicker. every thing sharp and vibrant,
 
When I got my first oled TV 4-5 years ago I also got the slightest bit of a “dizzy” feeing while watching my first movie or two. I got over it in a week or so and haven’t had it sense.

Not trying to discredit anyone but more saying give it a week or two if you haven’t in case you get used to it.
I can't speak for others, myself have been using oled screens for years and the AW for a couple of months.
Again, I am in a minority, but maybe worth taking on board for others with sensitive eyes.
 
i must have a good one i have not noticed any flicker. every thing sharp and vibrant,
For me, I don't necessarily have to "see" flicker.
I get ocular migraines from lights etc that are flickering, but I can't immediately detect it.
The biggest give way for me is I get an ocular migraine.
Won't be a concern for 99.9% of people, just throwing it out there for other people like myself, and I am just speculating from the new info I saw a couple of pages back.
Tbh, getting the migraines haven't put me off using the monitor :D
 
Yeah, I have absolutely no doubt that there are people who are affected by it.

But yeah, for the vast majority of people it's not an issue.
 
Primarily use the AW for PC with some console side duties. With the PS5 officially supporting 1440p, visually a much better experience now. So far my favorite HDR display for both PC and console now.
 
Heads up, current versions are Rev A03 made in August and on firmware 102, I just got my replacement (was on A00, firmware 101). Now when the screen goes to sleep via the OS, and a pixel refresh runs, it stays in sleep/standby mode after it is done. Previously they would turn off so you would have to press the power button to turn it back on again.

Finally someone at Dell saw the light.
 
Holy cow and I thought the technology just wasn't there yet to get it in standy after pixel refresh.
 
Holy cow and I thought the technology just wasn't there yet to get it in standy after pixel refresh.
It's not all good news though, because if you are using the monitor and a pixel refresh message pops up, and you click to proceed, then once it completes, the display will turn off lol instead of going back into where you were in its on state.

Baby steps I guess, maybe they will add a return to previous feature in Rev A04 for this scenario :ROFLMAO:
 
It's not all good news though, because if you are using the monitor and a pixel refresh message pops up, and you click to proceed, then once it completes, the display will turn off lol instead of going back into where you were in its on state.

Baby steps I guess, maybe they will add a return to previous feature in Rev A04 for this scenario :ROFLMAO:
I hate when that pops up in the middle of an Overwatch match, there is no cancel, you have to wait for the menu to go away.
 
Heads up, current versions are Rev A03 made in August and on firmware 102, I just got my replacement (was on A00, firmware 101). Now when the screen goes to sleep via the OS, and a pixel refresh runs, it stays in sleep/standby mode after it is done. Previously they would turn off so you would have to press the power button to turn it back on again.

Finally someone at Dell saw the light.
That's good. How long did you wait between the end of the refresh and waking it back up? I'm just curious if that behavior will still stick if you let it go into standby overnight after the pixel refresh drops it into standby. Let us know if you find out one way or the other. Thank you!
 
That's good. How long did you wait between the end of the refresh and waking it back up? I'm just curious if that behavior will still stick if you let it go into standby overnight after the pixel refresh drops it into standby. Let us know if you find out one way or the other. Thank you!
Oh it was within a minute but it was properly in standby/sleep mode (white LED pulsing) so it would stay that way all through the night if I left it at that really.
 
Oh it was within a minute but it was properly in standby/sleep mode (white LED pulsing) so it would stay that way all through the night if I left it at that really.
So one thing I have noticed is that with Eco on (which is how it should be), the monitor doesn't really go into deeper standby for at least 10-15 minutes even though the LED is pulsing white. You can tell by sticking your head to the left side of the monitor to see if the g-sync fan is still running. It usually runs for 10-15 minutes after the pixel refresh runs when Eco is on. It runs 24/7 if Eco is off. When Eco is off it never really enters true standby and the fan runs 24/7.
 
mine yesterday had 3 circles of light about an inch each one,on screen when i turned the monitor off they were still there, but eventually disappeared today i just had two more in a different place, they only disappear when i turn the monitor off for a few minutes,
 
So one thing I have noticed is that with Eco on (which is how it should be), the monitor doesn't really go into deeper standby for at least 10-15 minutes even though the LED is pulsing white. You can tell by sticking your head to the left side of the monitor to see if the g-sync fan is still running. It usually runs for 10-15 minutes after the pixel refresh runs when Eco is on. It runs 24/7 if Eco is off. When Eco is off it never really enters true standby and the fan runs 24/7.
Sounds about right, also it seems that the internal timer still counts the hours even when the monitor is in sleep/standby. Woke up this morning turned it on only to see a pixel refresh prompt even though I did one when I put it to sleep last night. I do wonder if this is by design as long as power is flowing through the monitor, even in standby...
 
Some days I use this monitor for 15-16 hours straight. I must be a superhuman because I don’t get eye strain from it. Maybe I am the next Superman.

That is what I wanted to know maybe I'll be able to use bigger displays with Oled tech. Just picked up a Cellphone for COD MW 2 but it's a stinking lcd but have pros and cons LCD has more depth OLED just look distinct.I still want something smaller though for readability In games. Like with a FPS shooter all you see us the hand and gun with larger display with a smaller screen you can take in the whole game area.
 
Sounds about right, also it seems that the internal timer still counts the hours even when the monitor is in sleep/standby. Woke up this morning turned it on only to see a pixel refresh prompt even though I did one when I put it to sleep last night. I do wonder if this is by design as long as power is flowing through the monitor, even in standby...
Yeah, it makes no sense at all, but that is how it works. It'll count all those hours overnight against the big panel refresh too. When eco mode is on it works as expected and only counts "on" hours against refreshes. It's best to just leave Eco on unless it is causing you other problems. I don't believe Eco impacts the brightness at all, but I have not seen any objective brightness measurements done.
 
On the wake up after refresh topic - I've had so many of these now that I've lost track of what works and what doesn't. I have a July 2022 Rev A01 build with M0B102 firmware. I shut down my PC last night and the screen did a pixel refresh and then went into standby. It turned on by itself when I hit the power button on my PC this AM. Eco mode is on. So either this has been fixed since 102 or I've somehow managed not to get into a state where it doesn't work.
 
The one thing about leaving Eco mode on is that when the screen comes out of sleep, the colours are more vivid until you go back into creator mode and merely display the OSD screen showing colour space/gamma menu. This is assuming others like me are in SRGB Creator mode (the most accurate colour mode to be in for 99% of usage).

With Eco mode off, the same vibrancy happens, but the screen automatically drops back into the correct colour within a few seconds and you do not need to do the whole OSD dance.

This is why I left Eco mode off previously, I just forgot why at the time.
 
Also, I have now updated to Windows 11 22H2 and noticed that Windows Update installed the Alienware command centre crap again, any way to completely get rid and stop this?

nmI8v3A.png


I have uninstalled it the usual way, but notice in Device Manager that some entries still remain and manually uninstalling them from Device Manager and hitting refresh just puts them back which is slightly annoying.

zmghoUg.png
 
The one thing about leaving Eco mode on is that when the screen comes out of sleep, the colours are more vivid until you go back into creator mode and merely display the OSD screen showing colour space/gamma menu. This is assuming others like me are in SRGB Creator mode (the most accurate colour mode to be in for 99% of usage).

With Eco mode off, the same vibrancy happens, but the screen automatically drops back into the correct colour within a few seconds and you do not need to do the whole OSD dance.

This is why I left Eco mode off previously, I just forgot why at the time.
Oh yeah - that is a good point. I just learned the other day that the color space will go back to sRGB if you toggle in and out of HDR mode (alt + win + b). That's a little slower than fumbling around with the OSD, but less wear and tear on the joystick. I usually just turn the monitor off at night and back on with the power button to avoid it altogether, but there are times when I forget or am AFK long enough for my computer to go to sleep.
 
Also, I have now updated to Windows 11 22H2 and noticed that Windows Update installed the Alienware command centre crap again, any way to completely get rid and stop this?

View attachment 512558

I have uninstalled it the usual way, but notice in Device Manager that some entries still remain and manually uninstalling them from Device Manager and hitting refresh just puts them back which is slightly annoying.

View attachment 512559
Only thing I can think of would be to not hook up the USB, its a function of the USB device/hub to force Windows to download the application, the monitor should have an option in the settings to disable this... but it doesn't.
 
Just came back to post that after trying the 42C2 side by side on the same setup, the AW is superior for majority of the DT use cases, returned my c2 and pulled the aw back from FS section, detailed observations on the 42 oled thread.
 
It is kind of interesting that Alienware is releasing a slightly updated model so soon after the first one.

Have they done this before? Released just a little bit different version of the same monitor 6 months later?

Does that mean that current model has known issues and the only way to fix them is release a new updated displayw ith slightly updated tech?

I'm in the market for an OLED screen like this, but makes me worried is it just not the one to buy. Are there too many issues? Better to wait for a new panel?
 
I agree with Vegeta535 that it's a cheaper Freesync alternative more than an update, even though I'm sure Dell took note of the comments. Still I'm looking forward to hear some user feedback on this alternative. I have a feeling a lot of the annoying quirks of the original model will be lessen. At the same time it is still using the same panel, so there are limits to how much improvement we'll see. I don't expect much difference for text clarity for example, if that was something you were sensible too. It'll also be interesting to see how much of the problems of the original came from the GSync module and if any new problems arise from the lack of module.
 
I wonder if no gsync module = no fan
I'm curious too. The AW3423DW has two fans right? We know that one fan for sure is for the g-sync module. The 2nd fan could be a supplemental fan because of the excess heat the module releases and it will no longer be needed, or it could be purely another form of burn in protection and will be present in the new model. Time will tell.

My gut tells me I'd be happier with the freesync version because I've been able to hear the g-sync fan on 4 different AW3423DWs. But... I wouldn't go so far as to say that I regret being an early adopter.
 
Back
Top