LCD – For the Novice and the Expert
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 4, 2003 12:13 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
Fixing a dead (sub)pixel?
The largest fear an LCD consumer has is that a dead pixel will ruin the display. While older LCDs used to be plagued by dead pixels, manufacturers are getting pretty good at producing monitors with (almost) no defects.When analyzing LCDs for dead pixels, there are a couple of pretty easy rules to follow.
1.) In almost every case, the monitor is shipped with a dead pixel. Very rarely does a pixel actually “burn out”. Thus, when buying an LCD, especially from a retail store, ask to see the LCD on before actually carrying it out the door. If a sales rep gives you a hard time, be persistent. It doesn’t cost Best Buy anything to ship a monitor back to Samsung, and they would rather make money off your purchase than see you walk out the door.
2.) “Stuck” pixels have no easy fix. Sometimes you can get the store to take the monitor back, but if you order online, it can be difficult.
As an act of desperation, some people recommend “rubbing” the pixel to see if it will come back to life. We have seen dozens of monitors and dead pixels, but unfortunately, this has not worked once. From the experience of others, the majority of dead pixels that are stuck red seem to be totally broken and no amount of rubbing will fix them.
Click to enlarge.
Above, you can see an image of an LCD screen. We attempted to rub out a red pixel (seen in the lower-center of the image). However, not only were we unsuccessful, we ended up scuffing the monitor, which is also visible.
Other pixels stuck off or on seem to have much greater chances of success. Personally, it seems that rubbing the pixels does more harm than good so continue at your own risk. Take a piece of lint free cloth and wrap it around your index finger. Push about 1/4 of an inch above the broken pixel with about as much force as would take to depress a doorbell. Pull your finger down past the pixel to about 1/4 of an inch below the broken pixel. Repeat in a left to right manner as well. If you’ve tried it about 10 times and are still without success, then you most likely are not going to be able to bring that pixel back to life (and you will probably have a light scuff mark on your anti-glare coating as well).
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Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
A good article.I my self use CML174.Made a lot of difference to my eyes compared to CRT.
Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Outstanding reading, thanks.mechBgon - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Nice work, Kristopher. : )KristopherKubicki - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
#5 fixed it - sorry.#7 fixed that one too. Yeah rubbing pixels really doesnt do much good. I think NewEgg is going to be pissed when they find out I messed up their monitor pretty good.
#6 Say it aint so!! We want to be the only ones ;)
Kristopher
Shalmanese - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Finally! It took long enough for you to get this out :). Great article, finally an article about LCD's which isn't full of opinion and hearsay.dvinnen - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
ok, maybie you did mean that. Hard to tell, you say you scuffed the monitor, then go on to tell other people how to do it...I problay just need some sleep...
dvinnen - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Rubbing the pixils does more good then harm then?<<<Personally, it seems that rubbing the pixels does more good than harm so continue at your own risk.>>>
Might want to fix that one
dvinnen - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
good to hear it. Seems like alot of the hardware sites are getting there act together.Anonymous User - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
On page 6, where you talk about the cables in the picture (the sentence right below the picture), shouldn't the good cable be the *upper* one or am I missing something?KristopherKubicki - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link
Yeah, new editors and kind of a revamped AT staff. We went through a lull period after we lost Matthew, but now we have some really good writers and a lot of great content to write about.Just wait till Computex and COMDEX - 3 and 4 reviews per day sounds about right.
Kristopher