You're sitting at your desk, cup of coffee in hand, and you nudge the mouse to wake your Dell U2723QE from sleep. Nothing. The screen stays black. The power LED might be blinking or solid amber. You press the power button — still nothing. So you do what everyone does: you grab the USB-C cable, yank it out, count to three, plug it back in, and the monitor springs to life. Annoying, right?
I've seen this exact scenario on at least a dozen client setups, especially with the U2723QE and its older sibling, the U2723QX. It's not a hardware failure — the monitor itself is usually fine. The problem is in how the monitor handles the USB-C connection when your computer goes to sleep. Let's break it down.
Why the heck does this happen?
The U2723QE is a USB-C hub monitor. That means one cable carries video, data, and power to your laptop. When your computer sleeps, the USB-C link goes into a low-power state. The monitor's internal hub, which handles the USB-C negotiation, sometimes gets stuck in that state. It doesn't wake up when the computer sends a wake-up signal. The monitor's firmware is the culprit — early revisions had a bug where the USB-C receiver didn't renegotiate properly after sleep. Dell has released firmware updates to fix this, but a lot of these monitors shipped with older firmware that never got updated.
The other big factor is the power management settings on your computer. Windows 10 and 11, in particular, have a feature called USB selective suspend. It tells the USB ports to cut power when idle to save battery. On a monitor's USB-C port, that can kill the connection entirely. Same story on macOS — the power nap and display sleep settings can interfere.
The fix — step by step
Here's what I do when I run into this on a client's setup. Follow these in order — they build on each other.
- Update the monitor firmware. This is the #1 fix. Go to Dell's support site, search for U2723QE, download the latest firmware (as of writing, M2T105 or later). You'll need a USB-A to USB-A cable (yes, the monitor has a USB-A upstream port) or you can do it over USB-C if your computer supports it. The update tool walks you through it — takes about 5 minutes. I've had monitors go from waking up every other time to rock solid after this. Don't skip this step.
- Disable USB selective suspend on Windows. Go to Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings. Look for USB settings > USB selective suspend setting. Set it to Disabled. This stops Windows from cutting power to the USB-C port when your computer sleeps. If you're on a laptop, you might have to do this for both the plugged-in and battery profiles.
- Turn off the monitor's USB-C charging feature (if you don't need it). On the monitor's OSD (On-Screen Display), go to USB > Charging > USB-C Charging. Set it to Off. This is a hidden trick — the monitor's charging circuitry can interfere with the wake signal. If you're not using the monitor to charge your laptop, turn it off. If you are, leave it on and try the next step instead.
- Change the monitor's USB-C mode. In the OSD, go to Display > USB-C Priority. Set it to High Resolution instead of High Data. The monitor has to choose between max video bandwidth and max data speed — sometimes the high-data mode keeps the link in a weird state. High Resolution is more stable for wake. I've seen this fix it on a few stubborn units.
- Update your graphics drivers. This sounds unrelated, but the GPU driver controls the display wake signal. If you're on a Dell laptop with an Intel iGPU, download the latest Intel graphics driver. If you're on a desktop with an NVIDIA or AMD card, do the same. I've seen a stale driver cause the exact same symptom.
Still failing? Here's what to check next
If you've done all of the above and you still have to unplug and replug, don't throw the monitor at the wall yet. There are a couple more things to look at.
Check your USB-C cable. The U2723QE is picky about cables. A cheap cable without proper E-marker chip (the thing that tells the monitor it's a high-speed cable) can cause all sorts of weirdness. Use the cable that came with the monitor, or buy a certified USB4/Thunderbolt 3 cable. I've replaced cables on client setups and fixed the issue instantly — the original looked fine but was marginal on the data lines.
Try a different port on your computer. If your laptop has multiple USB-C ports, try the other one. Some ports are wired to the GPU, some to the chipset, and they can behave differently. I saw a Dell XPS 15 where only the left port worked correctly with the monitor — the right port had the wake issue every time.
Check the monitor's power settings. In the OSD, go to Power > Standby Mode. Make sure it's set to Normal, not Energy Saver. Energy Saver is more aggressive and can completely kill the USB-C link. I had a client whose monitor was set to Energy Saver from the factory — took me 5 minutes to find it.
If all else fails, do a factory reset on the monitor (Menu > Others > Factory Reset). It clears out any weird settings that might have gotten corrupted. Then re-apply the firmware update again, just to be sure it took.
The U2723QE is a solid monitor — when it works. The wake issue is annoying as hell, but it's solvable. I've fixed it on every setup I've touched with the steps above. The firmware update is the big one — do that first, and I bet you'll be done.