XB321HK - Is the flickering/artifact issue still a thing?

Slammed

All,

I'm looking to purchase an XB321HK. I know there are complaints about flickering/artifacts. There's numerous clips showing this particular issue. Acer initially left customers with the impression they refused to acknowledge the issue but seemed to have adjusted their stance. All good, no need to get back to that.

My questions at this point are:
1. Do all XB321HK suffer from this issue or is it traced back to particular production batches/lots?
2. If I buy one off Amazon (UK) at this time, can I be sure it's a recent enough model to not have this issue?

Thanks,

Slammed

I mistyped in the post title, obviously it should say XB321HK, instead of XB321HJ.

Slammed

Curious. A monitor of which reviewers speak very highly to date but a significant number of user reports can be found online regarding this issue.

I'm giving Acer the chance to convince me to spend 800 bucks on their product and nobody bothers to reply?

RidingTheFlow

What do you expect? Of course, Acer sales reps will tell you everything you'd like to hear, to make you buy it - that "issue is fixed and only minor amount of people were affected anyway, and if you have problem, we will fix it easy". Question is - will you trust them on it?

After you've bought it and they have your money, it becomes your problem and hassle after you encounter issue and has to return/get it fixed. Looking at experiences of anybody who tried it on these very forums don't paint very encouraging picture...

I was monitoring and bringing awareness over the issues with these panels almost after it was first spotted, and I am not aware of any significant changes. Lately most of people simply moved on newer monitor models with different panels lately which are free from the issue. But AFAIK, recently bought monitors with these old panel model still experience the glitch - either due to being impossible to 100% determine if panel is "fixed" one (shops are completely useless in this respect), or there was actually no meaningful fix at all except usual Acer damage control speak.

Slammed

I am not as naive as to trust a sales rep based on his winning smile, but some tangible feedback like e.g. lot 1 to 20 suffered from the issue, and we're now producing lot 25 and higher in which we've fixed the issue would be nice. Or any other feedback that's not solely based on trust.

In any case, I'm guessing it's still a risk. That and the fact that we're indeed talking about a 3 year old product raises some red flags. I guess I'll wait for another 32" 4K IPS gaming panel.

RidingTheFlow

Point is, Acer can write any number here in very honest and serious manner (like they already did over past years) - but you'll have zero means to verify it.
But try to find a single feedback from person saying that Acer actually fixed their glitch completely and in sane timeline - you won't be able to. The most positive experience you will get from someone who claiming they haven't got the glitch (which mostly actually getting it rarely enough so not bothered about it, or simply convincing themselves its "fine enough").

Personally I would stay away from any 32" 4K panel and go with 31.5" instead - the only sure way you will not get one from AUO with their famous "works for me" TCON "quality". On the other hand the whole experience with Acer made me say goodbye to their brand forever, no less due to skimming over these community forums in additional to atrocious personal experience.

adamlreed93

Well said RidingTheFlow....I still have the xb321HK with flickering when G-Sync is on...As you know I didnt follow your advice at the very beginning of the NOW closed thread (if you remember) and I'm still going around the internet and posting my extremely bad experience with Acer support and the monitor...DO NOT BUY ACER xb321hk

jamse101

I've had my second XB321HK couple days now. It's from October 2018 patch. Haven't yet seen the small glitch that I saw pretty much daily with my XB321HK that was manufactured in September 2016.

(Besides the small random glitch, there were more serious flickering that caused the whole screen to black out sometimes. It was caused by interference from electrical network or static electricity. It was fixed by better "8K rated" DisplayPort cable. I haven't tested the new monitor with old "4K cable".)

Edit: And the old one is still in use but the new one is my primary monitor now.

jamse101

I still haven't seen the glitch. So it really looks like the issue has been fixed sometime before October 2018.

jamse101

adamlreed93 said:

Well said RidingTheFlow....I still have the xb321HK with flickering when G-Sync is on...As you know I didnt follow your advice at the very beginning of the NOW closed thread (if you remember) and I'm still going around the internet and posting my extremely bad experience with Acer support and the monitor...DO NOT BUY ACER xb321hk

In the now closed thread you said that you were using Mini DisplayPort cables:

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/441879/xb321hk-weird-artifact/p5

"Input cables : varies I have bought 3 different brands all mini DP to DP on the monitor"

As I said, my blacking out issue was fixed by better "8K rated" cable. I checked all the retailers I usually use and none had 8K Mini DisplayPort cables available. 

Quoting myself from the closed thread:

"I experienced screen black outs with XB321HK that were caused by:

1. Interference from electrical network: switching on/off light in the closet of the room where
the monitor was or plugging something into another AC outlet in the same room.

2. Static electricity: Moving Adidas tracksuit pants in the front of the monitor from 2 meter distance
to 0.5 meter distance. The pants are the like that easily collect static charge.

The black outs disappeared completely after replacing DP cable with higher quality one.

Here's specs for the old cable:

http://www.deltaco.eu/en/products/deltaco/deltaco-prime/DP-1020

And the new one:

http://www.deltaco.eu/en/products/deltaco/cables-adapters/displayport/displayport/DP8K-1020

But the smaller distortion that this thread seems to be mostly about still happens with the
new cable also."

And now my XB321HK manufactured in October 2018 is free of that "smaller distortion".

jamse101

jamse101 said:

I checked all the retailers I usually use and none had 8K Mini DisplayPort cables available. 

But such cables do exist:

https://www.delock.com/produkt/84927/merkmale.html

jamse101

adamlreed93 said:

Well said RidingTheFlow....I still have the xb321HK with flickering when G-Sync is on...As you know I didnt follow your advice at the very beginning of the NOW closed thread (if you remember) and I'm still going around the internet and posting my extremely bad experience with Acer support and the monitor...DO NOT BUY ACER xb321hk

In the now closed thread you said that you were using Mini DisplayPort cables:

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/441879/xb321hk-weird-artifact/p5

"Input cables : varies I have bought 3 different brands all mini DP to DP on the monitor"

As I said, my blacking out issue was fixed by better "8K rated" cable. I checked all the retailers I usually use and none had 8K Mini DisplayPort cables available. 

Quoting myself from the closed thread:

"I experienced screen black outs with XB321HK that were caused by:

1. Interference from electrical network: switching on/off light in the closet of the room where
the monitor was or plugging something into another AC outlet in the same room.

2. Static electricity: Moving Adidas tracksuit pants in the front of the monitor from 2 meter distance
to 0.5 meter distance. The pants are the like that easily collect static charge.

The black outs disappeared completely after replacing DP cable with higher quality one.

Here's specs for the old cable:

http://www.deltaco.eu/en/products/deltaco/deltaco-prime/DP-1020

And the new one:

http://www.deltaco.eu/en/products/deltaco/cables-adapters/displayport/displayport/DP8K-1020

But the smaller distortion that this thread seems to be mostly about still happens with the
new cable also."

And now my XB321HK manufactured in October 2018 is free of that "smaller distortion".

jamse101

Uh...I haven't posted anything here yesterday. The post I've made at July 21st now appears again as posted at July 30th.

BTW. Those links to cable details no longer work, but the product codes for those two cables are DP-1020 and DP8K-1020 and using those codes they should be easy to find.

Tearfall

Would like to add this is still an issue, bought a new Acer XB321HK - when doing office stuff and programming it's fine. As soon as you play any game you risk it flickering between a black screen and what should be visible. It doesn't happen every time, but when it does happen it does not stop. Some games it happens with all the time, others rarely. In short.... if you want to buy this very expensive GAMING monitor, and want to game on it.... purchase a different monitor. If you want an office monitor, purchase a different monitor until they have solved it somehow (and users can confirm it works).
For the amount of money I spent on it, I am very dissatisfied.

jamse101

Tearfall said:

Would like to add this is still an issue, bought a new Acer XB321HK - when doing office stuff and programming it's fine. As soon as you play any game you risk it flickering between a black screen and what should be visible. It doesn't happen every time, but when it does happen it does not stop. Some games it happens with all the time, others rarely. In short.... if you want to buy this very expensive GAMING monitor, and want to game on it.... purchase a different monitor. If you want an office monitor, purchase a different monitor until they have solved it somehow (and users can confirm it works).
For the amount of money I spent on it, I am very dissatisfied.

This sounds like different issue. Could be video card problem or perhaps G-sync related issue in the monitor.

With the artefact like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFDtw8jh-Cw

It didn't matter if it was desktop or game.

Also the black outs that were solved for me by better cable happened equally no matter what was displayed on the monitor.