Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED - black screens, connection losses, and more

[ElfVierzehn]

Hello,

I have the G9 OLED for two days and have really lousy problems:

- when I start a game in fullscreen mode with the native resolution of 5120x1440, the monitor sometimes shuts down. There's no way to restore the image until I'm somehow able to either blindly quit the game or restart the PC - sometimes only the reset button helps.

- When starting certain apps or fullscreen applications, I hear a sound like a device is connecting and disconnecting. I also hear this randomly - it stopped, when I disconnected the USB cable from the monitor and ramains happening when I start full screen applications and exit them.

- I randomly have black screens every now and then without doing anything specific. And quite extreme: If I watch a video via any media player, enter fullscreen and move the mouse, the screen goes black for 3 seconds and then returns. If I move the mouse again, the screen goes black again. This goes on and on.

- I am using an RTX 4090 with this monitor. When I set it to 240 Hz, the GPU memory clock rate is not downclocked when the PC is idle. That means the GPU memory clock (not GPU clock) is always running at max clock, which is not ideal for power consumption and temperatures.

I use a Display Port 1.4 cable with 32.4 Gbit/s, but also have an HDMI 2.1 cable with 48 gbit/s. This happens with both cables. As soon as I lower the monitor Hz to 120, the memory MHz goes back to the correct idle value, as it should. Is this a normal behavior?

- when I turn off VRR on the monitor, it is no longer possible to set the native resolution.

The monitor is running on the latest firmware version 1023.

These are honestly such massive problems that I am almost determined to return this monitor to Samsung as soon as possible.

Any input from more experienced Samsung users who have been able to remedy these issues?

Thanks so much!

[Ricardogc96]

Someone know how to downgrade the fw of the g95sc? Im having the black screen problem, so i want to back to an older version (1305.5, i have the file) but the steps are the same that when you update? Thanks

[Alex452]

I also wanna try the downgrade, I guess the procedure is the same. You can use the converter you find in the box and a normal USB.

In fairness, today I never got a blackscreen, didn't do anything different, no driver update either

[Zanaida]

I'm having this EXACT issue with my GPU connected using displayport as well. It's so frustrating.

[Alex452]

It's a couple of days that I'm trying the HDMI cable that came with the monitor.

A part the fact that it is unsettling short and it can barely make to the GPU, things are definitely improved.

Now black screens are rare and when they happen they are temporary, after a few seconds the screen starts working again, I will try in different scenario to be sure. But it seems more or less like it was before the update, so maybe they broke only the DisplayPort.

Maybe you can also try and see if it gets better.

I've also been told that the Samsung support will call me and do a remote maintenance, if they actually do it, I will let you know. I also told them (again) to check this thread and see if they can help us.

[Members_5RWRcsx]

I'd add my input to this : 

• Windows 11
• i9 13900KF
• RTX 4090 Gainward 
  • Nvidia Drivers 551.86 03-2024 (backed up to this version as latest ones are really messed up
• 64Gb DDR5 Corsair CMK64GX5M2B5600C40
• Mobo Asus PRIME Z790-A
• 2 x 2To CT2000P5PSSD8  NVME SSD

So it's a quite heavy duty high end Computer indeed.

Main computer is plugged on DP 5120/1440@240Hz 10bits RVB HDR on VRR on, Firmware version 1402 and can certify I had 0 issues with my previous screen (g7, same configuration, same port)

I do have random black screens on my G9 on some games (I get it quite often on Project Zomboid for instance) but they are quite spare and some don't have much or even don't have any. I noticed that I do get more black screens if I have 2 computers plugged (one on HDMI one on DP)

Other issue I noticed is that sometimes, when my computer goes out of sleep mode, the screen doesn't catch the DP signal even when I try to force it, only solution is either to unplug / replug DP (which is boring to do it blindly) or the power plug of the screen, there is nothing you can do about if from the main interface. It sees the DP screen, but will go to "no signal, automatically sleep in 1min...")

Regarding the black screens, I guess it has indeed something to do with G-Sync / Adaptive Frequency as the black screen duration can easily be compared to what happens when you switch resolution / frequency from the configuration panel or when you alt tab from full screen apps/games. I guess disabling these should resolve the issue (but hey we paid more than 1k for this screen, it'd better work with all the features a <200€ screen has :D)

Regarding the flickering sometimes occuring, I noticed there are some movement of the whole image and I guess it has to do with the OLED screen burning protection, I noticed it happens when you are on the desktop and I personnaly don't mind it as it is for the best, but sometimes after a black screen or after going out of sleep mode, it happened to loop quite fast on one half of the screen. Unplugging / replugging power supply fixed it. But I guess the software part of this feature has some issues as well.

I did some analyses nothing spikes on my CPU/GPU when black screens occurs except it could make a game not handling hot resolution / frequency switches crash (then a CPU spike of course)

From my perspective this is totally a software / firmware issue on input signal handling. It either comes from the "smart TV" (that nobody asked for and nobody needs) part (that should be skippable !), or the firmware driving the HDMI/DP signal to the software part.

In guess there is a design flaw on this screen, it feels like the screen OS (Tizen ?) act as a proxy somewhere on the hardware/signal part (GPU -> Tizen -> Screen) and that some standards like G-Sync is implemented there software wise instead of on an underlying layer then its stability / reactiveness isn't good enough for handling 240Hz refresh rates. But well that's just a feeling and I bet this could be fixed with some strong optimizations

Hope this helps

[Members_5RWRcsx]

Can't wait for your update then !

[Cthugha]

The Odyssey OLED G9 G93SC has the same issue with the 3-5s black screen (but I haven't seen the other issues you are describing). This model is the same but without the "smart" Tizen features, so at least the black screen issue isn't linked to Tizen.

I've tried almost everything and the next thing is for Samsung in-home service to come and switch out the mainboard.

[Alex452]

I think I fixed my issues, this is how:

1. dich DP and use only HDMI (cable in the box)

2. Disable G-Synch custom setting for specific monitor from NVIDIA panel, but let G-Sync enable with the generic profile (both Fullscreen and windowed)

3. Double check that VRR is off, but don't disable it from the monitor panel, this happens automatically at point 2

4. 10bit color, but I don't think it matters

Remarks:

It seems to me that the options change based on the cable used.

From my last testing, I had temporary blackscreens and sever flickering when I used desktop application like UnrealEngine or in general, anything accelerated by the GPU, this issue disappears entirely if VRR is off, but pay attention, if you disable VRR from the monitor you lose a lot of customizations, you have to disable the G-Sync custom profile, at that point the VRR is disabled automatically, but you retain all the gaming settings.

Also note that with DP, if you set VRR off you are locked at 120Hz and can't use G-Sync, this doesn't happen with HDMI.

Not sure how much VRR matters, but it's unusable. With my current setting I had zero issues so far, I'll go on trying and see if it stable. In any case, this mess is a disgrace.

[Kriminal]

If you disabling the "G-Sync custom settings for specific monitor from Nvidia panel" the G-Sync won't works anymore.
You can check this with "Nvidia G-Sync Pendulum Demo".
With G-Sync off or 120Hz the G9 works correctly without issue.
To check the issue without waiting use Cinebench 2024 with CPU test, after few seconds black screen issue will appear.

With HDMI cable black screen will appear every few seconds, with DP cable black screen won't go away until stop the process or reboot the computer.
I also tried three different HDMI 2.1 certified cable, maybe one it's better but black screen issue are still present.
Tomorrow the Samsung technician will take my monitor to test it in the laboratory, I'm not happy about this because it's not just my monitor that has this problem, but I'm tired of doing tests and try to debug.

Samsung promise to bring me back the monitor after two days, finger crossed.

[Ricardogc96]

Indeed, it seems that the solution for my case has been to disable Gsync.

Right now I'm on HDMI and what I did was the following:

disabled the GSYNC in Nvidia Control Panel, set the 12 bit color and in the monitor OSD i set the VRR Control to "Enabled" and the game mode "Auto"

I guess we'll have to wait for Samsung to do its job and release a fw update, because ultimately it doesn't seem to be a hw problem.