S3221QS, switching off randomly every 20 seconds

Question

I have been having for over a year (close to 3 years now actually since the day I bought this at my local Microcenter) now the exact same problem with my Dell S3221QS monitor described under this thread =
S3221QS, black screen, replacement fix the issue

Unfortunately, I didn't think soon enough that it could be a monitor issue and I am now past warranty. It is such an intermittent problem happening randomly but consistently and I have been in touch with NVIDIA thinking it was an RTX 3060 Ti card issue, to the point where I replaced my Nvidia card unnecessarily.

I also have had a ticket open with my motherboard's company, MSI, without any luck with them either. Nobody thought to check with the monitor, I didn't either.

Does Dell have any recommendation on how to fix this problem permanently? I have been living with a workaround where I switch off and on the monitor manually from the power button when this problem occurs, and this seems to fix it, until the next round that it will start happening again.

I am really really annoyed and disappointed with this any help would be appreciated.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

Does Dell have any recommendation on how to fix this problem permanently?You saw our troubleshooting on the older S3221QS thread. Then end result was that user got an exchange while in warranty that solved their issue. Your S3221QS was built on September 26, 2020. Have you tried updating to the May 26, 2022 firmware M2C103 to see if it helps?

makmanos · Answer

Thank you for your reply.
I just updated the firmware per your instructions. I don't know if that will help. I will have to give it a little time to see if I experience the intermittent screen black outs again.

As I wrote, my monitor is past warranty. Unfortunately, I didn't think that my problem could be a monitor related issue for a long time. I thought it was an NVIDIA, MSI, cable issue (I changed a few cables including both dataport and hdmi ones) Power supply issue and I just kept being patient for too long. When out of frustration I searched harder for solutions I came across the above user's thread, when I found his youtube video demonstrating the exact problem I am having.
Since I still have it and since it clearly seems is a Dell monitor issue, I decided to write here to see if you have found a solution to it other than replacing the monitor or having to put a repair request if it even is repairable. If you can honor some sort of credit if I shipped it back, that's something I would also consider. It's just a shame I didn't think it could be a monitor issue soon enough while in warranty, since I never had any such weird issues with monitors before.

DELL-Chris M · Answer

Dell has never repaired monitors, only exchanged them while under warranty. Once out of warranty, we could not take it back.

Monitors

S3221QS, switching off randomly every 20 seconds