U2415, flickering to black screen

Question

I am very frustrated with my Dell U2415 purchase.

The monitor display appears to go blank every so often, for about 2-3 seconds, and then the display comes back. This happens intermittently. Best case, the display will go a few hours without flickering. Worst case, it goes to black 3 times every 10 seconds.

I thought it was the supplied mDP-to-DP cable, so I purchased another cable but it didn't resolve the issue. Then I tried hooking it up to a different computer and still the problem persisted, so I knew it had to be the display itself.

I contacted Dell support (which was a nightmare in itself, having ordered online from Canada) until finally speaking with someone on the phone who agreed to open a case for replacement.

Upon receiving my replacement (a month later) and setting it up, it appears the same thing is happening with the new display.

The only thing I have not tried, is trying a different connection method (mDP-to-mDP or HDMI). But I am first contacting Dell to see if I can get a different model altogether, or a refund.

Has anyone else experienced the same trouble with this model? I use an older U2412 at work, which behaves fine with the same laptop.

rsibert · Answer

Having the exact same problem on an optiplex 9020 and two U2415 monitors. First the left screen was flickering and the right one was ok, I change from mDP to DP cable and the left screen start working fine. But today, the right screen (style connected with mDP) starts also to blink ! Very very upsetting. I don't have DP cables left to check if it'd correct the problem. Setup is 5 days old...

BRiGuy78 · Answer

rsibert - What cable set up are you using now?

CD_System_Solut · Answer

I am also having this issue, but not with everyone. We purchased 60 of these u2415 monitors for our devs and other employees. it is not consistent among all of them. For example, I was using an OptiPlex 7010 and have not switched to an OptiPlex 7020. I have not experienced any flickering, or blank screens on either model of PC with these monitors. I now have the two monitors daisy chained to the 7020 with no issue. (I get a crashed display driver more than not, but that does not affect the screens,

one of out developers is using an OptiPlex 7010, and has his right monitor flickering off and on maybe 3 times every minute. we tried two different dell supplied mDP to DP cables (DP in the back of the PC and mDP in the monitor) We have tried a third part DP to DP cable to the monitor., I have updated the gpu drivers, bios and drivers for the monitors. all to not resolve the issue.

I have tried powering off, pulling the power from the monitor, removing the mDP from the monitor, removing the DP from the PC. All the drivers are from dell, so they are the most recent as of 1 week ago.

any suggestions? we want to roll these out to a few VPs and the president of the company, but I cant give them faulty monitors.

the dev is using windows 7 x64 and I am wasusing wind 7 x64 when using my 7010, I am uing win 10 x64 on the 7020.

feel free to ask if you need more information.

thanks

Ian

dleeward · Answer

We bought four of these a few months ago and am having no issues when connected to our Dell desktop computers with HDMI. I am having the same issue with a new monitor for my MacBook Pro.

I thought it was a bad mDP cable because the cable doesn't fit very tightly and will sometimes cause it to blank when wiggled. So I asked Amazon to send me a new cable. Instead they sent me a whole new monitor and cable. Replacing the cable didn't help and swapping the monitor didn't help either.

I just connected a new HDMI to HDMI cable to the MacBook and it solved the issue.

It appears to be a DP compatibility issue. I have seen other posts saying that the monitor doesn't support DP 1.2 on my Macbook but I have this turned off. Here's one en.community.dell.com/.../19564640 I did try it and confirmed it didn't work.

Not sure I will keep the monitor since I had planned to buy a second monitor and I won't be able to daisy chain them together. Also the HDMI connector is on the right side right where I use my mouse.

dleeward · Answer

I need to clarify my previous post. I have a 2014 13' MacBook Pro running Windows 7. The connection that is causing the issue is a Thunderbolt port connected to the DisplayPort connector on the monitor. The cable is mDP to DP.

cosma · Answer

Yes. It is apparently a known issue. If you look online, many many links open up discussing the issue.

Monitors

U2415, flickering to black screen

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