LG's $1,300 5K monitor foiled by Wi-Fi: Screens go blank near hotspots

Splashed big bucks for a fancy display? Let's hope you have a big office too

LG's space-age monitors are suffering from an engineering flaw that causes the screen to become unusable when placed too close to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Owners of the top-end displays writing on Apple's reviews page say they have found that, when placed within two metres of a router or wireless access point, an UltraFine 5K monitor becomes virtually unusable.

According to stiffed punters, when the 27-inch monitor, which normally retails for around $1,300, gets too close to an access point, it becomes subject to frequent disconnections and can even cause the connected Macs to freeze, requiring a restart.

"When I first plugged it in, it wouldn't turn on. Moving the monitor to different positions helped, but the display would still turn on and off frequently," writes one customer in a review posted to Apple's website.

"I moved my router back a little bit and pointed my antennas away from it (they were straight up) – seems to have mostly solved the problem."

"After days of non-stop screen flicker, I tried messing with the Wi-Fi channels on my Airport. Jogging through various Wi-Fi channels did actually seem to affect the amount of flicker," reports another customer. "In my case, the issue ceased completely after I separated my 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks and set them both to Automatic."

The issue appears to be an engineering gaffe unique to this specific 5K display model, as it is not said to affect any other LG monitors.

El Reg has contacted LG USA for comment on the matter, but, like others reporting on this story, we have yet to hear back. ®