Having flickering/artifacting issues with my new Acer Nitro VG270UPbmiipx

I received my new Acer Nitro VG270UP on the 20/02/2019

At first it was an excellent monitor with my only complaint being the poor quality stand. However after a couple days of use I've started to notice some pretty severe flickering or artifacting.

The artifacting appears as a thin vertical black line that flashes on the display for a fraction of a second before vanishing, often it is too quick to get a good view of it before it disappears, similar to how you would see lightning in the sky. It usually appears about 1/3 of the way from the right side of the display. I notice it most often while browsing the internet due to the white background although I suspect that I get the issue in games too without noticing on a darker background.

My PC specs are Windows 10, Ryzen 7 2700x, 2x8GB DDR4 RAM, EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra. I have the issue both with the Display Port provided with the monitor, as well as with my own Display Port that has had no issues with previous monitors. I am running the latest NVidia drivers (419.17) but have had this issue with the previous drivers too. I have Freesync enabled in the OSD and have set it up in the Nvidia control panel as instructed by Nvidia.

Hopefully there is some sort of firmware update that will resolve this issue within the next 14 days or I will have to return this monitor, which I would prefer not to do seeing as how the actual display, colour and freesync functionality are excellent.

Regards,

Spedz

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unknown

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Antoine008

Hey guys, same monitor, same problems...

I installed my monitor yesterday, and I've been experiencing weird horizontal artifacts, or flickering, don't know how to call them.

I'm running on a brand new MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z, so the performance is clearly not a problem here.

To let you guys know, I did try some stuff, and here's what I found :

The flickering appears sometimes on my desktop (every 5 to 10 seconds), not a lot on a blank website like a Google search page, but did appear a lot on the homepage of Discord for some reason (darker theme and animations?) ;
Changing my video card output port didn't change anything ;
I tried activating or deactivating Freesync, or Gsync compatibility, and it didn't change anything, nor did playing with the VRB options, or responsivness ;
I tried to downgrade to 60 Hz and 120 Hz, and the flickering was not happening at all, to the best of my knowledge.

That's where I left it yesterday. I tried to call Acer support hotline today, but they said they couldn't help me without my SNID number which I did forget to take a picture of, like an ****...

If you guys have any news from Acer, that would be much appreciated!

MechDragon

Antoine008 said:

Hey guys, same monitor, same problems...

I installed my monitor yesterday, and I've been experiencing weird horizontal artifacts, or flickering, don't know how to call them.

I'm running on a brand new MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z, so the performance is clearly not a problem here.

To let you guys know, I did try some stuff, and here's what I found :
The flickering appears sometimes on my desktop (every 5 to 10 seconds), not a lot on a blank website like a Google search page, but did appear a lot on the homepage of Discord for some reason (darker theme and animations?) ;
Changing my video card output port didn't change anything ;
I tried activating or deactivating Freesync, or Gsync compatibility, and it didn't change anything, nor did playing with the VRB options, or responsivness ;
I tried to downgrade to 60 Hz and 120 Hz, and the flickering was not happening at all, to the best of my knowledge.

That's where I left it yesterday. I tried to call Acer support hotline today, but they said they couldn't help me without my SNID number which I did forget to take a picture of, like an ****...

If you guys have any news from Acer, that would be much appreciated!

Hey, if you have it so often, then maybe you can take it off on the phone / camera? Then it will be easier for other people to understand what we mean and they will be able to say for sure whether they had it or not. I think that many people may not notice these artifacts or not attach importance to this.

Antoine008

Hey guys,

You're right, it will probably be easier to identify for other and for Acer to genuinely take care of that problem. I took some pictures to show you guys what is happening:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/g6/62f8mfzeq3se.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/hv/alo5qx5p12g2.png

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/jo/sbf490fkk6zv.png

The two first photos are from a full screen video playing on my computer, the last one is from my desktop.

As you can see, the artifacts happens at different places, and for some reasons I found that when on my Windows desktop they were located on the bottom of the screen, but when on a different program they tend to appear in the middle of the screen. As I said earlier they are happening quite often, and in very quick succession.

Since setting the display to 120 Hz, I have not experienced any flickering yesterday. Have you guys tried that and can you confirm it?

Just to let you know, I called Acer French technical support just this morning. The person I had on the phone was quite professional, and seemed to know what was the issue (did he hear of the same before?): he told me I needed to send the device in repair for a quick firmeware update, which wouldn't take more than 5 business days. I received a prepaid coupon to send the parcel to the repair center, and I'll try to send it ASAP, hopefully by this evening.

This is different than updating your display drivers, and this update can only be done by Acer apparently.

I'll let you guys know how the situation evolves as soon as I have more news, in the meantime be sure to let us know if you have the same problems, what tests did you run, and if you called Acer support.

unknown

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welp01

mine looked different, not horizontal...i think this is something else but might be wrong, if its firmware issue then aorus wouldn't be affected

MechDragon

Antoine008 said:

Hey guys,

You're right, it will probably be easier to identify for other and for Acer to genuinely take care of that problem. I took some pictures to show you guys what is happening:

The two first photos are from a full screen video playing on my computer, the last one is from my desktop.

As you can see, the artifacts happens at different places, and for some reasons I found that when on my Windows desktop they were located on the bottom of the screen, but when on a different program they tend to appear in the middle of the screen. As I said earlier they are happening quite often, and in very quick succession.

Since setting the display to 120 Hz, I have not experienced any flickering yesterday. Have you guys tried that and can you confirm it?

Just to let you know, I called Acer French technical support just this morning. The person I had on the phone was quite professional, and seemed to know what was the issue (did he hear of the same before?): he told me I needed to send the device in repair for a quick firmeware update, which wouldn't take more than 5 business days. I received a prepaid coupon to send the parcel to the repair center, and I'll try to send it ASAP, hopefully by this evening.

This is different than updating your display drivers, and this update can only be done by Acer apparently.

I'll let you guys know how the situation evolves as soon as I have more news, in the meantime be sure to let us know if you have the same problems, what tests did you run, and if you called Acer support.

How could you make a photo? These artifacts do not disappear immediately?

Antoine008

MechDragon said:
How could you make a photo? These artifacts do not disappear immediately?

They do, I took screenshots of a 1 min long video to show you guys what's happening

unknown

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Antoine008

Hey guys,

To give you some update, I did send my monitor for repair last Thursday night.

I'm yet to receive a confirmation by Acer of reception, but my tickets status is still marked as "In Transit to Repair Center".

I'll be sure to update you when I have news!

Criffen

I recently purchased the vg270up aswell and I am experiencing the same flickering/artifacting as described by the above users. My monitor comes from the november 2018 batch.

tom6561

I am having the same issue with flickering, hopefully there is a fix for the problem

romero52

Hi.
Any solution provided?

Antoine008

Hey guys,

A little update on my side: the reason Acer gave me at first, the firmware update, was misdiagnosed. As my ticket was pending for a long time already with "Under repair" status, and the 5 working days delay they gave me at first was long expired, I called Acer support to know what was going on.

On the phone, they told me they had to order a new panel to replace the previous one which was apparently faulty; so it's more than just a firmware update. The support apparently ordered the new piece 2 days after receiving my monitor, so around the 5th of March, but up until today, I have no news about the new panel arriving and my monitor being ready to ship! Acer offers you a Customer self-service for you to check the status of your repair, but can't even give you more update to let you know how the repair is going...

What they told me was that they were gonna receive the new panel this week, and my product should be ready to ship next week... Which means that for almost a whole month, I had to live without my monitor.

Since we're talking with a bunch of people that experienced the exact same issue, I wonder how well Acer does it's QC? Or do they think they can leave that part for the users? The least of things Acer could do is officially recognize the issue and address an apology message. I can understand if the faulty panels are not their responsability, but their supplier's; but the burden is not to bear by the client.

I really hope my monitor is returned soon to me, and in perfect condition, fully functional. I'll be updating you guys when I do (if I do??) with the state of the monitor. I'm warning Acer that if my monitor is not functional again when I receive it, I'll be asking for a full refund, no question asked, and I'll write my bad reviews on all possible websites.

BobbyMcJackson

Antoine008 Any updates? I have the same problem and I will send my monitor to Acer today. I'm worried that they will just swap my panel for another faulty Innolux one because I have yet to hear from someone who got theirs fixed.

unknown

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Antoine008

BobbyMcJackson said:

Antoine008 Any updates? I have the same problem and I will send my monitor to Acer today. I'm worried that they will just swap my panel for another faulty Innolux one because I have yet to hear from someone who got theirs fixed.

Hey,

Last friday I received a message from Acer telling me my monitor was ready to be shipped! Can't believe it only took them a month to repair it... lol

Earlier ast week I called after I didn't get any news about the panel replacement, and they said the problem was still occurring even with the new piece, and that they would try and replace the motherboard now. The replacement was supposed to be done between last week and this week, and they kept their promess apparently; it might be due to the fact that I told them I was extremely discontent with the delay that it took and the lack of info...

I will be picking up my monitor at the store this evening, I hope I'll have some time to test it before tomorrow, otherwise I'll post a comment as soon as I can to tell you guys how I received it.

BobbyMcJackson

Antoine008 said:

BobbyMcJackson said:

Antoine008 Any updates? I have the same problem and I will send my monitor to Acer today. I'm worried that they will just swap my panel for another faulty Innolux one because I have yet to hear from someone who got theirs fixed.

Hey,

Last friday I received a message from Acer telling me my monitor was ready to be shipped! Can't believe it only took them a month to repair it... lol

Earlier ast week I called after I didn't get any news about the panel replacement, and they said the problem was still occurring even with the new piece, and that they would try and replace the motherboard now. The replacement was supposed to be done between last week and this week, and they kept their promess apparently; it might be due to the fact that I told them I was extremely discontent with the delay that it took and the lack of info...

I will be picking up my monitor at the store this evening, I hope I'll have some time to test it before tomorrow, otherwise I'll post a comment as soon as I can to tell you guys how I received it.

Very interesting so the fault isn't the panel after all but the motherboard? ****, I don't want to wait a whole month...

Please let me know if they could fix your monitor.

Manny-Acer_Retired

Hi all,

We are sorry you're experiencing issues with you Nitro Monitors, we recommend contacting your local Acer service center for technical assistance. You can go to our page https://www.acer.com/worldwide/ where you can select the country of your location and under support tab you can find the available service centers and technical support phone numbers.