m18 R1, display problems

Looks like this post isn't getting much interest but I took a photo of this jagged edge display problem. Has anyone else seen this?

@alal19808​ I have the same issue with my m18 R1. I pretty much have the same specs of yours with some added storage. I think this is an issue with the 4090 since it only seems to happen when the GPU is in use. I haven't called dell yet but am close to doing so.

I think I was able to track down the issue to the Advanced Optimus feature of the Alienware m18. After disabling it in the bios I have yet to have the blurry screen issues. After looking at the issues on my own system I noticed the mouse was never blurry when everything else was.

Same exact issue here as well. And from what I've seen online, we are not the only ones. But there is no official fix. Dell seems to ignore this issue, or give pedestrian advice or troubleshooting steps.

I've had this happen to me multiple times now. My alienware m17 decided grenade itself, I have to assume from some type of similar issue, because the test would blur the same way. My m18 decided it wouldn't turn on anymore. And I had to disassemble it to the point of disconnecting the battery and allowing the capacitance to fade before getting it to turn back on. A separate time, it decided it wouldn't allow me to sign in anymore, as it was stuck in an infinite error on startup loop. 

Now, I'm having this same issue once again. I've discovered that when it randomly starts blurring the screen, if I open the NVIDIA control panel, and click Manage Display Mode, and then click NVIDIA GPU only. It stops. All is well. We'll, leave it to alienware and nvidia to throw curveball on the regular that eat up your precious spare time. Today, I opened the nvidia control panel and half of the tabs on the left side were not there (super wierd) and the option to select Optimus, was gone... I rolled the dice and restarted the computer to try and open the bios by holding down f2. Of course it didn't go to the bios, because why would it do what it's supposed to do now? So I boot windows and wouldn't you know it, I open the same exact nvidia control panel, but this time all of the options are there. And I can select nvidia GPU only. Sigh... I guess Alienware's view is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it is broke, we'll just wait for you to go away or give up.

@Mikeakaspike​ I have been attempting some ways of getting it to show up. The easiest way I can get my display to glitch out is through browsing Facebook, especially when videos are loading. I think that this may be tied to the display refresh settings so have lowered it down to 120hz which seemed to help. I do know that if you have a glitched out display and remote into the system the display on the remote computer does not exhibit this behavior which kind of reinforces the whole display panel as the issue. Is your display the 480hz 1080x1200 variety by chance?

@Mikeakaspike Looks like you have this problem much worse than I do. I still see this issue, but much less frequently than my original post. And I've found that (rather than a reboot), I can restore my display by merely closing the laptop lid, waiting a few seconds and then re-opening. Obviously, I'd like to see a permanent fix. Good Luck!

Yeah, I mean the Optimus graphics setting being enabled seems to be the main culprit here. Whether it's the Optimus software not playing nice with the hardware or something much deeper, Im not sure. What I do know, is that a 4k$ laptop from a once well respected brand, should not have an ongoing issue like this without a permanent fix.

Now, I was able to get into the bios, where I was able to go to graphic settings and switch off the Optimus setting permanently. So I don't think I'll have the problem anymore. It's the "hybrid graphics" setting. Just disable that, and the problem should go away. It also means that the turn-key high performance machine that we bought from Dell isn't functioning the way that it was designed to, and that they could care less at this point. But hey, at least we can rely on each other to figure this stuff out.