Dell AW2518HF - Service menu tutorial

[Shrib]

As to opening the service menu I must first give a disclaimer that it may mess up your FreeSync a little bit. I'm not sure why, and I'm not quite sure if this is normal or indeed whether or not it was opening the service menu that caused it (might be AMD driver related), but I don't recall the frame counter fluctuating like this - see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KO-2cL ... Deb_Cq7mLd. Furthermore, I could no longer adjust Overdrive via the OSD setting, only via the service menu. I've tried powering off the monitor (to reset service menu settings) and restoring the range limits using CRU. Something to note if you plan to sell it at some point (and might well not be necessary unless you want to manually adjust the OD gain on the 'Dell' mode).

Anyway to open the service menu turn off the monitor, then hold down the 3rd and 4th button (from the left) whilst you turn the monitor on. Then press the 3rd button from the left which will open the menu. Perhaps this is also applicable to the other 240hz monitors which use the same panel.



Changes to the OD gain setting won't persist after a resolution change, originally I was actually using my CS resolution on desktop. 7F is the maximum OD gain setting (not sure how it compares to the OSD Super Fast since I lost that capability a while ago lol)

Another thing of note is DEBUGMEG, enabling this the monitor will accept higher refresh rates than 240hz though I couldn't get any refresh rates stable. I also had a fair few issues with frameskipping, I could get 1920x1080 stable at 240hz (as opposed to default 239.760) using https://www.blurbusters.com/wp-content/ ... _240hz.png but not for instance 1280x960 with same timings or even adjusted ones, it seems quite finnicky. 1280x960 wouldn't even work at 239.760 hz with the default non-frameskipping shipped 1920x1080 239.760 hz timings. I'm not sure what dictates whether it frameskips or not, has anyone found out the reasoning behind this?
It rejects all timings with vertical totals past 1250ish no matter HDMI/DP/Debugmeg on or off (I suppose that's normal and within the limitations of the monitor). I was curious to see if increasing the vertical totals would improve motion or/and overdrive quality, since I'd read people say that the 'reduced blanking timings' added blur. Hmm, looking back, it seems that I did test this, I just found a 1280x960 240hz resolution with 1226 vertical totals that doesn't frameskip. As to my verdict on whether it made a difference, at the time I thought so, perhaps you too can experience this glorious placebo! - https://imgur.com/IIK9pqV. Hopefully that means we can have non-frameskipping 240hz (as opposed to ocd triggering 239.760hz) at lower resolutions by upping the vertical totals or by double minus polarity.

[Chief Blur Buster]

That's some risky monitor tweaking!

Thanks for posting these findings, Shrib.

[crossjeremiah]

The input lag on this monitor is pretty slow to most 240hz frame pacing just feels weird , I thought money just went down the drain. I did lagom test with a s10 phone camera.
And my xl2430t runs faster by like 5ms or so. But I found I've successfully changed my pixel clock of my 60hz to a little above of the 144hz setting (350.69mhz). Which causes the panel to scanout faster at 60hz, and plus you get to use ulmb which causes single strobing at 60hz.

Works wonders with scanline sync (I use 999 )
It makes dolphin and all your emulator titles that run at 60fps smooth as butter.

So I found that the verticals can be tweaked drastically at really low refresh rates. But if you try incrasing the vertical of any rate over 100hz it will black out.

[Shrib]

The input lag on this monitor is pretty slow to most 240hz frame pacing just feels weird , I thought money just went down the drain. I did lagom test with a s10 phone camera.
And my xl2430t runs faster by like 5ms or so. But I found I've successfully changed my pixel clock of my 60hz to a little above of the 144hz setting (350.69mhz). Which causes the panel to scanout faster at 60hz, and plus you get to use ulmb which causes single strobing at 60hz.

Works wonders with scanline sync (I use 999 )
It makes dolphin and all your emulator titles that run at 60fps smooth as butter.

So I found that the verticals can be tweaked drastically at really low refresh rates. But if you try incrasing the vertical of any rate over 100hz it will black out.

Yeah unfortunately I couldn't seem to find a way around this. A pixel clock over 600Mhz, or horizontal scanrate over 294khz gets rejected.
Interestingly if you use the default CRU setup, a 1920x1080 resolution at 239.760 (actual: 239.760) exceeding said pixel clock/scan rate shows a black screen (with a few DisplayPort loses connection messages), whereas a refresh rate not at 239.760 will show a timing error message. I don't know if there's any significance in that but it seems like the monitor is setup at 239.760 for a reason and that perhaps it's a specially configured mode (you can use lower resolutions by keeping the same horizontal/vertical totals of 1080p resolution). To quote from the LG 27GK750F-B thread that probably uses the same panel:

Workaround for frameskipping bug/buffering out of order/stuttering-juddering:
In CRU under extension blocks find a 240hz resolution. By default its Actual Refresh rate is 239,759hz or 239,764hz or may be other number depending on your system, GPU, driver etc. You need to round it and get Actual refresh rate number exactly 239,760. Note that this refreshrate is also stated in user's manual. VT1304 resolution above is already 239,760.
You also may use lower values like 1182-1184 (only 2-4 above default 1180), the point is to get exact 239,760 if it is not exact at defaults.

------------------------------------------

More specific to your issue: I read that for emulation on the PC with most 240hz panels (at the moment) you want to use the max refresh rate resolution as opposed to 60hz, since otherwise there will be quite severe latency due to the configuration. Why don't you switch to max refresh rate? The emulator can still be capped or played at 60fps. On a console you don't have the luxury of configuring your refresh rate hence being stuck with latency at 60hz.

[Caronizeeee]

Guys, do you modify any value on this Alienware AW2518HF secret menu? Do you use CRU? I'm from Brazil, I don't understand much of the subject and I don't speak English very well, if you can give me the settings for me to define and test here.

I copied the values ​​of the topic creator, mine were totally different from the one in the print. Is there any problem? Has any benefit? I need to use CRU in conjunction with these settings, as I don't use CRU. I was recommended to leave the default settings and just turn off the OD to be able to use the monitor without freesync and without ghostings and overshot. If I do something wrong, just click on "RESETBID" and the settings will return to the default? Thank you

[Caronizeeee]

Can anybody help me? Thanks =)

[Willie]

As to opening the service menu I must first give a disclaimer that it may mess up your FreeSync a little bit. I'm not sure why, and I'm not quite sure if this is normal or indeed whether or not it was opening the service menu that caused it (might be AMD driver related), but I don't recall the frame counter fluctuating like this - see here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KO-2cL ... Deb_Cq7mLd. Furthermore, I could no longer adjust Overdrive via the OSD setting, only via the service menu. I've tried powering off the monitor (to reset service menu settings) and restoring the range limits using CRU. Something to note if you plan to sell it at some point (and might well not be necessary unless you want to manually adjust the OD gain on the 'Dell' mode).

Anyway to open the service menu turn off the monitor, then hold down the 3rd and 4th button (from the left) whilst you turn the monitor on. Then press the 3rd button from the left which will open the menu. Perhaps this is also applicable to the other 240hz monitors which use the same panel.



Changes to the OD gain setting won't persist after a resolution change, originally I was actually using my CS resolution on desktop. 7F is the maximum OD gain setting (not sure how it compares to the OSD Super Fast since I lost that capability a while ago lol)

Another thing of note is DEBUGMEG, enabling this the monitor will accept higher refresh rates than 240hz though I couldn't get any refresh rates stable. I also had a fair few issues with frameskipping, I could get 1920x1080 stable at 240hz (as opposed to default 239.760) using https://www.blurbusters.com/wp-content/ ... _240hz.png but not for instance 1280x960 with same timings or even adjusted ones, it seems quite finnicky. 1280x960 wouldn't even work at 239.760 hz with the default non-frameskipping shipped 1920x1080 239.760 hz timings. I'm not sure what dictates whether it frameskips or not, has anyone found out the reasoning behind this?
It rejects all timings with vertical totals past 1250ish no matter HDMI/DP/Debugmeg on or off (I suppose that's normal and within the limitations of the monitor). I was curious to see if increasing the vertical totals would improve motion or/and overdrive quality, since I'd read people say that the 'reduced blanking timings' added blur. Hmm, looking back, it seems that I did test this, I just found a 1280x960 240hz resolution with 1226 vertical totals that doesn't frameskip. As to my verdict on whether it made a difference, at the time I thought so, perhaps you too can experience this glorious placebo! - https://imgur.com/IIK9pqV. Hopefully that means we can have non-frameskipping 240hz (as opposed to ocd triggering 239.760hz) at lower resolutions by upping the vertical totals or by double minus polarity.

Yoooooo!!!!
I’m trying to access my service menu on my Alienware AW2518H. I tried holding down the 3rd & 4th button from the left. Then,I powered on my monitor while still holding those buttons. As it powered on I release the buttons then pressed the 3rd button but nothing happen. Any help?