Attention: All Samsung 204B owners

n19htmare

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 17, 2006
Messages
122
After much trouble shooting, research and browsing forums It is now quiet apparent that the Samsung 204B [R] S models made in china have PROBLEMS WHEN RUNNING DVI with majority of new Nvidia/Ati cards.

Other users have had similar issues, and this needs to be addressed. Samsung apparently is "aware" of the problem but fail to announce it.

I have 2 china made 204Bs... both fail to run on DVI with the following cards i tested.
7900GT
7600GS
X1600Pro
I tested all cards in 3 different systems with same result.
THEY ALL FLICKER WITH DVI... by flicker i mean turn on and off on and off.

Other video cards include x1900xt, x1800, x1300....

apparently these LCDs worked fine on my 7800GT, which i dont plan on keeping.
Any new Video card i try, they flicker.

There are some users here with these problems. Rest assure that it's not your video card.. IT'S THE CHINA MADE 204B.. CHeck on the back and see if it says 204 [R] S.

Apparently the ones made in Mexico do not have this problem.
If you are having this problem, I urge you to call Samsung. 1-800-726-7864
Pick option 2-4-3-1-1

Thanks.
 
I have Dual 204's

mine both say 204B [R] S

and the both work fine with DVI...

Powered by a 7900GT

Works fine..never had a problem..Both Play BF2 and CoH fine...dont see any problems.

Are you sure your running yours at 60HZ? and at NAtive resolution...1600x1200

I did run a game..would only run at 800x600(monopoly) and it would cause my Monitor to turn off and back on...But that because of Going from a digital res to a Analog res.
 
Col_Hogan said:
I have Dual 204's

mine both say 204B [R] S

and the both work fine with DVI...

Powered by a 7900GT

Works fine..never had a problem..Both Play BF2 and CoH fine...dont see any problems.

Are you sure your running yours at 60HZ? and at NAtive resolution...1600x1200

I did run a game..would only run at 800x600(monopoly) and it would cause my Monitor to turn off and back on...But that because of Going from a digital res to a Analog res.

Are they made in China?

Both of my 204Bs flicker with 7900Gt, X1600Pro and 7600GS....
None of them flicker with 7800GT.
And yes they are running 60hz 1600x1200
if i lower the resolution to 1280 x 1024 then it wont flicker... THis monitor is meant to be run at this res so it's useless.

Seems as if this batch of the 204Bs are screwed up. all the people who report problems bought in the last few days/weeks.
 
I'm so glad to find other people having this problem.

I have a China made 204B as well (purchased Aug. 30th 2006). I use an ATI x1300 video card with digital output. I only got the flicker at 1600x1200. I found, after hours of troubleshooting, that what appears to have solved it for me, was installing M$'s .net framework 2.0, latest directx end-user runtime, and the latest catalyst driver from ATI.

I know the presumption is that this is a hardware problem but, if I were able to fix it with software, isn't it worth verifying that we're using the very latest software?

My copy of XP was not legit, so I had to download the updates off a machine that was legit. I hope that this helps someone!
 
I was getting very intermittant screen blanking in Windows but every now and then I would get that mode not supported message on the monitor when using 1600*1200 32 bit esp when running a game at1600*1200. This is with 7900GS vidcard. After some reading, I tried setting a custom refresh rate using the Nvidia new control panel for 1600*1200 at 60hz but reduced horizontal frequency- there is an option under advanced for CVT reduced blank which seemed to reduce the horizontal frequency from 74.5 to 74.1. Did this Yesterday and the screen has not twitched since.
Might be worth trying.
I did originally wonder if it had something to do with the single link DVI cable supplied as the bandwidth max of one of these is 165Mhz very close to the required bandwidth of 162 Mhz at 1600*1200 32bit.
Does seem that Samsung has a bit of a QC problem though with these monitors. Ones from China seem to have the screen blanking problem and ones from mexico seem to have dirt under the protective layer or suffer from whole rows of pixels dissappearing.
Brian V.
 
DVI most always causes issues with any monitor/card I have found. In fact I never use DVI period.
 
BadDog said:
DVI most always causes issues with any monitor/card I have found. In fact I never use DVI period.

..you must have some other problem. You're definitely the exception, not the rule.
 
Tutelary said:
..you must have some other problem. You're definitely the exception, not the rule.

No, you will find many reviews of LCDs mentioning the fact DVI introduced anything from noise to fused text.
 
BadDog said:
No, you will find many reviews of LCDs mentioning the fact DVI introduced anything from noise to fused text.


..or not. Seriously, other people dont have these mystery problems with DVI that you do, its that simple. (when theres not an obvious hardware issue like this thread has)
 
I don't know about Nvidia cards, but if you use the "Reduce DVI Frequency" function in Catalyst you can solve the problem.

Still it's worth trying to get a new monitor, because if you ever reinstall Windows you will have to run on analog until you can get Catalyst installed unless your flickering is not too bad. Mine is so bad now I get a regular screen once in a blue moon.

I had some real weird stuff with Catalyst 6.10 trying to get Reduce DVI Freq to work with both the analog and DVI connectors plugged in. You have to swap monitors in Catalyst (secondary=>main, right mouse button over the pictures of the monitors) to get it to activate.

I already had one replacement Samsung 204b, as my first had a line of dead pixels. Maybe that was a Mexican one, because it didn't exhibit the flickering problem though. Now I have the (R), unfortunately...
 
I've got 4 of these monitors and 2 of them started exhibiting the flicker problem in less than a week after I bought them; another one broke down after a month. The 4th (which is also the oldest one of them) works fine, it never flickered once. I have two identical 7950GT cards (XFX, if I recall correctly), one 7900GT (Asus) and an X1950XT (Asus as well). The monitor that never had problems runs on the 7900GT; I can't test it on the other cards because it's not in the same location as the other 3. All 4 monitors are made in Slovakia.

I've sent 2 of the monitors back to the dealer after one of them also suddenly got a vertical line of dead (green) pixels. They replaced the one with the destroyed panel and they said they "fixed" the other one which flickered so they gave it back to me. I bet they didn't even open up the "fixed" one, because it started flickering the day I got it back. To top the cake, the 3rd monitor, which worked fine up until this point, also started flickering. I've done the DVI frequency reduction trick and it worked, now none of them has problems anymore. I guess it's a question of luck, because the replacement they sent instead of the one with the dead pixels has been running fine for a month now without doing the frequency trick.

The trick is easy to do on ATI, it's just a checkbox in the Catalyst Control Center. For NVidia you have to go to Screen Resolution & Refresh Rates, click on Advanced Timing, agree that NVidia are not to blame if messing with that stuff sets your house on fire and then lower the refresh rate below 60 Hz (I use 56). I don't know where that setting is if you're using the fancy NVidia control panel, I use the classic version.
 
i had similar problems with the 225BW on DVI with an FX5900.
I figured it was the card's problem but now i don't know.
Funny thing is the monitor would black out when displaying certain images...like it was getting overloaded or something.
For example it could not display this image. It would simply black out. I ended up connecting it vga cause i didn't feel like dealing with returns etc.
 
I was having the flickering problem on my new Samsung 204B in conjunction with my 7900GT card.

To fix it (hopefully for good but i have to see):
In the Nvidia Control Panel (using the Classic one, not sure about the other)
there is a option named "Screen Resolutions & Refresh Rates"
In there under "Advanced Timings" there is an "Timing Standard" select box,
try the "General Timing Fromula (GTF)"

this changes some stuff resulting in a lower pixel clock. seems to have fixed it...

can some one please try this fix as well and post if it worked as well?
 
Raven737 said:
I was having the flickering problem on my new Samsung 204B in conjunction with my 7900GT card.

To fix it (hopefully for good but i have to see):
In the Nvidia Control Panel (using the Classic one, not sure about the other)
there is a option named "Screen Resolutions & Refresh Rates"
In there under "Advanced Timings" there is an "Timing Standard" select box,
try the "General Timing Fromula (GTF)"

this changes some stuff resulting in a lower pixel clock. seems to have fixed it...

can some one please try this fix as well and post if it worked as well?


I am using a PCIe 7900GS and this only helps for a little bit. The problem still occurs just much less frequently for me on my 20.1B. I am going to call the Samsung hotline tomarrow, then tackel Toshiba :mad: :mad: What exactly happens with the sammy?? can they send you a new one?
 
My 204b was made in China. I used the Nvidia control panel to set the refresh to 58 hz and this cleared everything up. However, in Quake4 the game sets it to 60hz automagically and I had to edit my cfg to get it to use 58.

Do all games modify the refresh rate along with the resolution?

I am still debating if I should return the monitor. I still have 14 days left on my return.

Jan 9:

I RMA'ed the LCD to Samsung. They sent me an LCD made in China (Dec 2006). It has no problems. Samsung was pretty good about the return. They ship it to you first and give you labels to ship the broken one back.
 
Hey Everyone,

Just wanted to share what I found out about the 204b's with the black screen problem.

I bought a 204b that was made in Malaysia in Oct 2006. When I used her in Vista or XP with Digital 1600x1200 the screen would drop out all the time.

I happed to run three screens and when I went to buy the second 204b, this model was made in Nov 2006. The Nov model did not have this bug at all, I can run 60 Hz 1600x1200 DVI in vista and XP without any problem. With the exact same cable and hardware setup the 204b made in Oct would go black all the time.

Not sure if this info is of any help to you guys. But I now have three 204b's made in Nov and none of them have a problem.

I took back the Oct made model and had it replaced for an Nov made.
 
I have this same problem as well.
My original monitor was a 204BW which is the same thing but silver. I sent it back to Samsung and got this here monitor that has decided to do the same thing in DVI. Then I plugged into VGA and viola!! No problems. How wonderful to get defective product after defective product. This monitor was made in October, and in China which seems to be around where all the other defective products ya'll have were made. I guess I'll have to call Samsung tomorrow and ask for a newer monitor. It's nice to see what the problem was b/c I RMA'ed my 7950Gt already and they just sent that sucker right back to me.
B.
 
Had to register because of this.
I bought Samsung Syncmaster 204B a week ago and I also had the flickering problem with DVI and 1600x1200 resolution.I also tried to lower the frequency rate below 60Hz, but that didn't work.
 
Yet another user that has been affected by this problem with the SyncMaster 204B. Problem manifests when connected to DVI on most higher-end cards regardless of manufacturer - personally I have verified it on a Matrox P650 and an Nvidia 7600GS, but go check out some of the posts at the nvnews.net forums to see others having the same problem. I spent a lot of time troubleshooting this and it is dissapointing that Samsung has done nothing to directly address this issue.

The phone number is (800) 726 7864 and the options are 4-5-2, but be prepared for a long delay, both on the phone and in getting your warranty claim processed.
 
Thanks for the updates folks...Has anyone else gotten their replacements yet? Can you give us the country of origin regardless of whether it's fixed or not?

I have not called mine in yet since I had to go abroad for a month, but I am doing it Monday morning and will ask for one with a recent manufacture date and from somewhere other than China.

If they give you crap or happen to have run across this thread with the "Fix DVI frequency" tricks tell them you are building a new computer and that you can't see anything because of the screen flickering.

This is totally true - if you try to install Vista on DVI, you won't see a darned thing until you can get your monitor drivers installed and alter the frequency settings.

Tsido - can you explain exactly what you did ? I don't remember ever seeing an "analog" option for the monitor driver. You installed an "analog" driver while the DVI was connected but you were getting your display using the VGA (analog) connector? Is this right?
 
Just in case anybody is tracking all the different cards that are having problem with this monitor, you can include the Sapphire x1900gt as well. I also have a monitor that was built in China in August of 2006.
It doesn't matter which drivers or control utility you use either. I've tried ATI and Omega drivers, and have used ATI Tray tools, CCC drivers and ATI Control panel. Any time I try to load new drivers I will get the "Out of range" error as soon as I reboot my machine.
My work around has been to shut down once the new driver install is complete; swap the dvi cable for the vga (This monitor luckily happens to have both connector types on it); reboot; once rebooted you can then connect the dvi cable again; bring up the option to "Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays" from the contol panel; shut down again; remove the vga cable and reboot once again.
I even tried a different operating system (Linux) to see what it would do and can't even run native resolution on that without configuring graphics settings.
If anybody at Samsung is reading these posts, is it possible that a firmware update could fix this problem? I have noticed that whenever any of the control panels bring up the LCD panel attributes, it always shows that the monitor's maximum supported resolution and refresh rate as 1600x1200 and 75Hz!! I can see that if using the analog cable, but not with DVI.
But I don't know that much about DVI so I could be mistaken.
 
Sorry about the "fix" earlier. It didn't work after all.
I have received a new monitor and this one also has this flickering problem. Both monitors are made in Slovakia. I am going to take this piece of crap back to the shop and ask for a refund and then buy an LG monitor which supports 1600x1200.
Also when i called customer support and the person there told me that this flickering problem can be fixed with a firmware update. Is there any way to DIY?
 
i have a 204bw. is there anyway to manually recreate the problem? or does it just happen?
 
I don't know if this is something that can be reproduced. My monitor has been doing this since I got it. But it does appear to progressively become worse over time. I guess I really didn't think too much about it because once the reduced dvi frequency option is selected, the monitor works great.
Does anybody know if there is a firmware update for the 204B available? I have not been successful in finding one to see if that would remedy the problem.
Maybe I'll have to look into getting a replacement on this monitor after all...:(
 
Oh my.

I was thinking of buying this monitor, but I may look elsewhere now. It seems nearly every LCD out there has problems!
 
Oh my.

I was thinking of buying this monitor, but I may look elsewhere now. It seems nearly every LCD out there has problems!

Oh HELL, YES!!

Flickering, dead pixel lines (not just one or two DP's, 1000's of them), dvi-a/dvi-d problems, back-light bleeds, back-light flicker (not necessarily the same as the first problem). Some even have software ONLY adjustments (!! - get into a game and want to adjust the brightness/contrast? Watch the game crash when you try to alt-tab to run the monitor software..)

Then the makers LIE about the colour depth, calling 6 bit/pix panels a full 16.7 mill colours, they LIE about the ms refresh, with nearly all the sub 8ms panels giving upwards of 30 to 40 Ms on some transitions (usually close shades - it seams like the pixel has to cycle it's full range to go from a shade to another near shade).

It's an expensive way to have sex - 'cos you're gonna get screwed when you buy an lcd monitor!
 
You can add another graphics processor to the long list of cards that don't work with this stupid monitor. The EVGA 8800 GTS. I have gone through three monitors and still haven't got one that works with DVI. I'm going to go crazy very soon if I can't get this technology to work. I paid a lot of money for this monitor.
 
I have an EVGA 8800GTS with the 204bw. In the first 2 days of use I experienced the flicker numerous times.. I was ready to take the monitor back, but instead first just switched to my DVI cable from my old monitor. Since then I have not seen the monitor go off and on. Its been fine for a month now, no problems at all.

I noticed the DVI cable they suppplied was thinner and just looked a little cheap in general. Now if I could only do something about that horrible stand.
 
OP here.

Seems like all of a sudden problems are coming back.

I called Samsung back then and informed them of the issue. At first they were not aware of it, I told them to look into it further and they told me that their department is aware of it.

They send me 2 Replacement monitors with-in 3 days. They also mailed me labels to ship old ones back. My experience with them was top notch.

The 2 Replacement monitors I got were also made it China. BUT had no flickering issues what so ever. Used them for about 4 Months before I got a Widescreen monitor.

This is a Hardware issue, NOT a software issue. I did not change a single thing on my computer and the New monitors worked fine, as soon as plugged in the old ones, they flickered.


Samsung should replace it at no cost.
 
I just bought one thru Amazon , I've had it only 3 days and it is doing the flicker thing. Manufacture date is Jan 2007. Made in China.

Everything seemed to work fine in 1280x1024 (I think that's what it is) and worked for a while at 1600x1200. That was until I logged off my account and tried to log into my wifes account. Within 5 secs of logging into account the screen went blank and would flicker on and off or stay off. :confused:

I tried rebooting but that did no good. I updated my video drivers, disabled the DVI Freq reduction option (as a test) and shut the computer off for a couple of hours. Restarted the computer and I left on all night crunching away at World Community Grid. In the morning the monitor woke up when I moved the mouse and it seemed to work fine. But as soon as I logged off my account and tried to log into my wifes, BAM!, right back to a blicking or totally black screen. :mad: I had to go to work so I couldn't mess around with it some more. When I get home I'm going to boot only into her account and see what happens then.

I'm using using an ATI 9800 PRO right now. I'm building a new system with an eVGA 8800 GTS but I'm still waiting on the new MB. So I don't know if this is an ATI thing also or just the continuing monitor problems.

I'm also wondering if it could be a PSU problem also in my case. Right now I have a 350W PSU running 2 optical drives, 2 HDD, 1 floppy, 10 USB 2.0 ports, Audigy 2, NIC, and a ATI 9800 PRO. Though in truth I don't see this being a problem.

I think I will return it to Amazon for a replacement and see what happens. If the new one does the same thing, back it will go for a refund.

This monitor looks so good. It's a shame Samsung hasn't fixed the problem yet after this long.

I'm not sure what other monitor I would get to replace this if it continues.

Mike
 
You can add another graphics processor to the long list of cards that don't work with this stupid monitor. The EVGA 8800 GTS. I have gone through three monitors and still haven't got one that works with DVI. I'm going to go crazy very soon if I can't get this technology to work. I paid a lot of money for this monitor.

You couldn't have paid a lot of money for this 204B, as 204B is the low end 20" from Samsung. If you did, you get rip off

At the end of the day, when you paid less money to buy something cheap, these will be the kind of problems you face. Do a search at the display forum, you see anyone having problems w/ 244T or 204T? Think about it this way, if the 204B can do the job, who on earth is going to buy the 204T?
 
Well I switched to the VGA cable for my ATI 9800 PRO, and guess what, I got the blinking screen on waking up the monitor after a couple of hours. Now I'm really PO'ed. I thought it was just a DVI problem!

Anyway I dropped my res to 1280x1024 and I'm going to see what happens in the morning.

I did notice one thing and it could be part of the problem for all. When I was looking at the back of the monitor to check cables I wiggled the power cord and the screen went blank. Thinking the power cord was bad I swapped it out, but didn't make any difference. I'm wondering if part of the problem could be the power connection?

My new MB will get here next week and I can build my new system. Hopefully, fingers crossed, that will help, but I'm not going to hold my breath. :rolleyes:

Mike
 
Hello all this is my first post. I too have this problem and this forum helped solve the problem. Just did a major upgrade last weekend swapped over from AMD to Intel. Asus P5N-E SLI MB, MSI 8600 GTS video card, power supply and ram. Booted up fine but discovered the flickering monitor. It worked fine with my old AGP ATI X700. After swapping the card (same one) it did the same thing. I even upgraded to a better power supply but it still did it. Finally after three trips back to the place where I bought everything we discovered this tech note on your site. I called Samsung two hours ago and a new one is on the way. Hopefully, they got it fixed. :)

Thanks
 
Well I guess this thread is dead. I got my new monitor from Samsung yesterday. Pretty quick took less than a week. It was built in China like the last one but no flicker so far. It was built in Apr 06. The old one was built in Oct 06.

Jim
 
so should I buy a "factory refurbished" 204b for ~$200?

I can't seem to find any other lcd monitor that is under $300 and does 1600x1200 with a decent response time :/
 
the 204b's made in mexico DO NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM

that being said, anyone thinking about buying this monitor might want to reconsider since the monitor IS NOT HDCP compliant, Vista compatible.
 
so should I buy a "factory refurbished" 204b for ~$200?

I can't seem to find any other lcd monitor that is under $300 and does 1600x1200 with a decent response time :/

NO NO NO!

I just did this; the refurbished models are NOT covered by Samsung's warranty, and they almost definitely WILL have the DVI problem! Mine did. :(
 
I have Dual 204's

mine both say 204B [R] S

and the both work fine with DVI...

Powered by a 7900GT

Works fine..never had a problem..Both Play BF2 and CoH fine...dont see any problems.

Are you sure your running yours at 60HZ? and at NAtive resolution...1600x1200

I did run a game..would only run at 800x600(monopoly) and it would cause my Monitor to turn off and back on...But that because of Going from a digital res to a Analog res.


the ones made in mexico work fine, made in china and other locales have the video card problems mentioned above.
 
After much trouble shooting, research and browsing forums It is now quiet apparent that the Samsung 204B [R] S models made in china have PROBLEMS WHEN RUNNING DVI with majority of new Nvidia/Ati cards.

Other users have had similar issues, and this needs to be addressed. Samsung apparently is "aware" of the problem but fail to announce it.

I have 2 china made 204Bs... both fail to run on DVI with the following cards i tested.
7900GT
7600GS
X1600Pro
I tested all cards in 3 different systems with same result.
THEY ALL FLICKER WITH DVI... by flicker i mean turn on and off on and off.

Other video cards include x1900xt, x1800, x1300....

apparently these LCDs worked fine on my 7800GT, which i dont plan on keeping.
Any new Video card i try, they flicker.

There are some users here with these problems. Rest assure that it's not your video card.. IT'S THE CHINA MADE 204B.. CHeck on the back and see if it says 204 [R] S.

Apparently the ones made in Mexico do not have this problem.
If you are having this problem, I urge you to call Samsung. 1-800-726-7864
Pick option 2-4-3-1-1

Thanks.

I too have the turning on-and-off problem, which starts up after about 1-2 hours of use. I was beginning to worry that it was the difficult-to-replace Mac-version 6800 Ultra in my G5, since I was unable to duplicate the problem on my PC's 7800 GT thus far. But seeing that your 7800 GT is also immune makes me even more certain that we're having exactly the same issue. So strange though.

Unfortunately, my 204B is refurbished, so I need to find a way for the online seller I purchased from to recreate the problem. This is not only to make sure I actually DO have a defective monitor, but to make sure that the replacement they send isn't similarly defective. Hopefully whatever graphics card they test with will also be problematic with the faulty monitors. But either way they owe me a replacement for selling a refurbished item as "new".

If for some reason I can't get an exchange, I'm totally screwed; I really don't think Mac OS X can be set to a 59Hz refresh. :( I plan on using this monitor on the Mac 95% of the time.


UPDATE: My MacBook Pro also has the flickering problem with this monitor. The first time I tried it worked fine, but that was turning it on fresh. This time I switched to it after using the monitor for several hours in VGA mode, and it was flickering so badly it was completely unusable. Glad to finally confirm my suspicions.
 
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