Care and feeding of LCD screens

[vometia]

I've just discovered a new phenomenon which I thought was worth mentioning here: "LCD burn in". I really didn't think it could happen, but it does; the good news is that it's apparently unlikely to be permanent, but I can't help feeling that it's at best undesirable and not worth taking the risk.

I noticed when playing Oblivion, and if the sky was very blue I could see horizontal lines across the top of the screen. At first I thought the screen had smears from the last time I cleaned it, but couldn't wipe them off. Then I decided that since I only saw them then, it must be some sort of graphics overlay from a weather mod or something, but still wasn't convinced. I paid more attention when I pressed ctrl/alt/del which brings up a blue splash-screen and saw them there too; and if I looked really closely I could see a shadow of the small "x" logo of the X-terminal I keep in the top left of my screen for reading email. The longer lines were from the border of my Firefrog window since that also stays in the same place.

It seems the solution is to move them about occasionally and use a screen-saver that has some sort of animation (I've started using some ribbons-type thing) to exercise all of the screen. Hopefully it'll go away again of its own accord.

I Googled it and found this article which gave some enlightenment.

[jaggedbubbles]

Yeah, LCDs can have images burned in. They're more prominent in plasma screens (TVs), though.

I usually just turn off my monitor when I'm not using it for a period of time rather than using a screensaver. If I forget to turn off the monitor, it sleeps after fifteen minutes or so.

Sorry to hear about your screen. That is pretty lame.

[_echo]

Yup. LCDs do burn in sometimes. Just got to watch out and not let any single image stay for too long.

Easy enough to make it a habit to turn of the monitor when you walk away.

[vometia]

I think the surprising thing is I have my monitor set to power off after 20 minutes inactivity, and it's not like the windows are that static... though I guess it's possible they are, vertically speaking.

I don't think it'll be a major problem in terms of going away again, and the lines aren't all that bothersome anyway other than being a random curiosity. They're not as bad as stuck pixels, anyway: this monitor has both a dead subpixel (red) and a stuck subpixel (green) which are fortunately in a corner, but its predecessor which I quickly returned had a stuck pixel right in the middle, which wasn't good.

Anyway, I've moved the windows about a bit and added a screensaver for the 15 minutes between inactivity and powering off which should also help, or more to the point it should help more than just powering it off 15 minutes early!

What is curious is that the image seems to have been from a particular point in time rather than a gradual build-up as I can see the shadow of one of the desktop icons with the "hover" background over it, so I'm wondering if it could be the result of something specific like a power surge (I do have a surge protector, but I'm wondering if it's really any good; and we did have a number of power surges a month or two back).

[nottlong]

When I am going to be away for more then a couple of minutes I either turn my monitor off or open up my sceenshot file and start a slide show.

[HeyYou]

Something else to note: You should NOT use glass cleaner on your LCD screen. It tends to yellow the overlay. Use distilled water, and isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) in a 50/50 mix. Works great.

[vometia]

Something else to note: You should NOT use glass cleaner on your LCD screen. It tends to yellow the overlay. Use distilled water, and isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) in a 50/50 mix. Works great.

Now that's something I didn't know. I occasionally wondered about it but never bothered to find out - fortunately I'm too lazy to clean my screen regularly. Certainly worth being aware of, though.

I wonder how well the remnants of my coffee would work...

[HeyYou]

Now that's something I didn't know. I occasionally wondered about it but never bothered to find out - fortunately I'm too lazy to clean my screen regularly. Certainly worth being aware of, though.

I wonder how well the remnants of my coffee would work...

Coffee doesn't work nearly so well. Especially if you use pollutants. (cream, sugar, or, as in my case, French Vanilla.....) Makes an awful mess.

[nottlong]

And use a soft cloth,100% cotton is the best,not paper towels they tend to scratch.

[vometia]

Coffee doesn't work nearly so well. Especially if you use pollutants. (cream, sugar, or, as in my case, French Vanilla.....) Makes an awful mess.

That almost sounds like the voice of experience.

And use a soft cloth,100% cotton is the best,not paper towels they tend to scratch.

Ah, yes, I discovered that elsewhere. Not on my nice screen, fortunately!

And reading this thread, I thought I'd see how my screen's getting on having now actually moved the windows in question: seems like most (if not all) of the shadowing has gone away so at least it does seem to be pretty temporary, so it looks like it wasn't my random theory about power surges or anything like that. Unlike older CRTs which were pretty much knackered if an image got burnt in.

[Arthmoor]

Heh. Yep, I can attest to this. It's especially bad in a large corporate environment where the blue Windows screen stays up with the user login prompt for hours on end because the dumb monitor didn't go into power saver mode properly. It's even nastier looking on older generation LCD screens. The newer ones don't seem to be as bothered by it.

[vometia]

I suppose I'm a bit surprised seeing it on this one: I bought a NEC because I'd had problems with cheaper monitors (can't remember the name, but it has lots of numbers and letters in it - oh actually, there it is written on the corner: it says "Multisync" but I can't be bothered to type the rest ) but I guess any piece of electronics will complain if sufficiently bothered.

The worst I've seen were the CRTs on old VaxStations (high powered graphics workstations you used to see quite a bit 15 or so years back) which invariably had the brightness turned up too high for no especially obvious reason, leading to the VMS login screen being burnt into their expensive Trinitron tubes.

And the worst I've heard of is those early Pong games burning the image of the tennis court into many kids' parents' expensive colour TV. (Though of course I wouldn't "lol" if it was my TV).

[HeyYou]

That almost sounds like the voice of experience.

Ah, yes, I discovered that elsewhere. Not on my nice screen, fortunately!

And reading this thread, I thought I'd see how my screen's getting on having now actually moved the windows in question: seems like most (if not all) of the shadowing has gone away so at least it does seem to be pretty temporary, so it looks like it wasn't my random theory about power surges or anything like that. Unlike older CRTs which were pretty much knackered if an image got burnt in.

Huh? Experience? Oh no. Not at all.

Well, ok. Ya got me there.... That's what I get for typing at folks with a sense of humor while drinking something...... I tried to pass it off as "research", but, my S.O. just looked at me funny, nodded, and walked away. I don't think she bought into it.....

I use a lint-free cloth for screen cleaning. Works pretty good.