LCD overclocking

Is it safe to overclock an LCD panel? By that I mean run it at a higher refresh rate than is specified eg running a 60Hz panel at 100Hz. I've googled quite a bit but most of the answers fall along the lines of "it's probably safe but do so at your own risk". Also saw a few reports of people running their 60Hz panels at 95Hz for several years without issue.

I'm using an AUO B173hW01 v4 panel in my P370SM. Picked this because I can't stand matte, but of course the tradeoff is that it's a 60Hz panel. Luckily I can overclock it to 110 Hz without issue, but that's very close to its limits as at 113 Hz images start getting heavily distorted. I'd be happy with 100Hz, but I don't believe in free lunches . Which reminds me, when I'm overclocking the panel, what exactly is getting overclocked?

 

It's probably safe but do it at your own risk

But seriously, if you can actually overclock it (you sure it doesn't just drop frames - you can test with movies, if they have visibly sharper motion then it's overclocking) it will probably work fine.

I can get my external monitor to 75Hz without distortions, 80-85Hz tops it starts distorting. If your laptop panel goes to 100, that's pretty impressive...

As I understand, when overclocking the refresh rate, it's just your video card updating your monitors picture at a certain rate (it's not the GPU, but the RAMDAC/TMDS system after it). The faster it's updated, the faster you see the changes on screen (= sharper image with less motion blur). The panel is usually the bottleneck - the video card can deliver practically any reasonable refresh rate.

 

Good point about frame dropping. I did notice some jerkiness with 100 Hz in certain movies initially, but after going back to 60, the jerkiness became more apparent, so it appears this is an issue with the movie and not the LCD itself. I can't say the motion is visibly sharper, but parts that tend to "judder" do seem more smoothed out at 100 Hz. Or maybe it's just the placebo effect kicking in.

But seriously, going from 60 to 80 there is a noticeable improvement in the smoothness, especially when dragging windows around or even just moving the cursor around. From 80 to 100 the improvement is much more subtle, and I'm still uncertain if I'm actually seeing an improvement, or if my brain is just perceiving it.

 

I've heard of LCD overclocking before but never understood how it was even done? Is there an app for that? :sly:

Sent from my XT1049 using Tapatalk

 

It's easy to do from the nVidia Control Panel - assuming your LCD panel can be overclocked (most are locked at 60Hz, basically ignoring anything higher).

In Nvidia CP, go to change resolution, then click Customize - you can create your own resolution with your desired refresh rate.

With AMD drivers, it's more complicated - you can't do it from the Control Panel as far as I know.

The possible benefits are a "clearer" picture in videos (basically less motion blur, I believe the effect also depends on the video's original framerate - look up judder and 2:3 pulldown), smoother animations and less blurry text when moving windows (not that useful, but more pleasant to the eye) and higher framerate limit in games (if you have a powerful video card you'll never *see* over 60 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, increasing the refresh rate to 80Hz will let you get a maximum of 80 FPS, for example)...

@Rhutor The difference between 60 and 75Hz is noticeable for me.

Another way to know it's working is the artifacts, in my case as I set higher refresh rates my monitor shows vertical lines (more like visible vertical spacing between the pixels), then some crazy green pixelation and image tearing, and then it just shuts off - which scared me cause I thought I broke it , never went over 85Hz since.

 

You can actually damage a LCD's controller if you overclock it improperly, much like overclocking a CPU/GPU, and I think it's probably slightly more risky. However the risks are still low. I have my two desktop panels from korea that can get to 120Hz but I don't use it normally because it makes the picture darker (and I'm too lazy to try the various fixes to it ).

Just know the signs of when you're going too far and when to back off and you should be fine. I personally don't care for the difference past 60 up until 90+, it's noticeable, but not better enough for me to be bothered.

 

@Kuu, that certainly makes sense. Just like with GPUs, it's best not to push it too high - I'd say as long as there are no artifacts or visible changes (except the refresh rate), the panel should be fine. But there's a reason why a lot of them have protection specifically against this...

 

I did overclock it but it didnt show much difference also when the refresh rate went over 80 my screen started to flicker .
Not worth!

 

Stumbled upon a nifty program called Refresh rate multitool and it's great for checking whether the LCD is dropping frames (you'll need a reasonably decent digital camera though).

I'm happy to report that I don't see any dropped frames even at 100Hz. 114Hz is when I start getting distortion, and at 115Hz only scrambled lines are left. Currently running it at 95 Hz to leave a 15% headspace so as not to push the panel/controller chip to its limits (knocking on wood furiously here). But in any case, the AUO B173hW01 v4 panel rocks.

Although I have to say, after experiencing what 100 Hz can do I'm actually toying with the idea of buying a 144Hz external LCD, external speakers and keyboard and running the P370SM as a true desktop replacement.