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I haven't owned too many LCD screens, as I was member of the CRT-my-cold-dead-hands party until my ViewSonic PF815 and NEC FP2141SB died, but I recently got my first dead/stuck pixel. A single bright-green Orc of a pixel that stared right at me--located at the top-left portion of my screen. I tried to ignore it for the past week or two, but it just kept eating at me. I pressed on the screen a bit to see if that would do anything--no luck. I then decided to Google a bit to see what some smarter people may have thought up. I came across this article:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how ... ead-pixel/

Lots of interesting ideas in that article, including my own genius idea of pressing on the screen. In it, they suggested UDPixel. Most of the suggestions in that article involve a utility constantly flashing all sorts of colors to your entire monitor or a portion of the monitor, but from the few I tried, UDPixel was the least bothersome to run while using the computer.

Anyway, I ran the 5x5 pixel flashing tool and dragged it over to where the stuck pixel was and nothing immediately happened. I could still see the bright green pixel shining through the flashing. I figured I'd let it run a few hours while I browse around the web and read about something else. But what do you know, 10 minutes later, the dead pixel is gone! I couldn't believe it! I never thought it'd work! I always thought once a pixel is dead/stuck, there's no going back. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

I quit the app and the stuck pixel started to come back a few minutes later (but dimmer, not as bright), so I'm running the pixel flasher thingy for a longer time now to see if that has any longer lasting effect. But the fact that it fixed it, even for a few minutes, surprised the heck out of me. Has anyone else used these tools to permanently fix their dead/stuck pixels?

There are real dead pixels, but then there are not-so-dead ones. Good luck with running UDPixel. You may have saved your panel.

Flying Fox wrote:

There are real dead pixels, but then there are not-so-dead ones. Good luck with running UDPixel. You may have saved your panel.

::cue Monty Python jokes::

Flying Fox wrote:

There are real dead pixels, but then there are not-so-dead ones.

And, just like dead puppies, they aren't much fun.

To the OP: What you had was not a dead pixel. Those burn out and go dark for forever. Yours was what's known as a stuck pixel, which, as you've seen, can be brought back with various display tools.

It just so happens your pixel was only mostly dead.

There's a big difference between mostly-dead and all-dead.

Yeah, stuck pixels are pretty rare and there are many working methods to "unstick" them. Not the same as a dead pixel.

Unless the display comes with dead pixels out of the box, then it's far more likely the monitor's power supply will fail before a pixel does. Assuming the pixels aren't damaged from too much pressure or some outside cause, it doesn't take much to cause pixel bruising on matte displays for example.

Kougar wrote:

Unless the display comes with dead pixels out of the box, then it's far more likely the monitor's power supply will fail before a pixel does.

While I don't dispute that this is true (my own experience supports it), it's pretty darned lame nonetheless. Just one more sign of the "race to the bottom" on quality. There's absolutely no reason why a conservatively designed power supply manufactured with quality components shouldn't last a decade or more.

just brew it! wrote:

While I don't dispute that this is true (my own experience supports it), it's pretty darned lame nonetheless. Just one more sign of the "race to the bottom" on quality. There's absolutely no reason why a conservatively designed power supply manufactured with quality components shouldn't last a decade or more.

Oh I'd agree, but it's the same situation as with HDTVs. Heat helps cook the power supply components and the caps tend to be the first to fail.

I'm sure better quality caps would help with this, but I genuinely wonder how much? LED monitors should also really help with this thanks to cooler running monitors that also draw less current. I've been curious to see how much LED displays would improve the lifespan as all my monitors have been hot CCFL's so far.

Captain Ned wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

There are real dead pixels, but then there are not-so-dead ones.

And, just like dead puppies, they aren't much fun.

To the OP: What you had was not a dead pixel. Those burn out and go dark for forever. Yours was what's known as a stuck pixel, which, as you've seen, can be brought back with various display tools.

And sometimes no explicit "tool" at all. My mother had an old (VGA-only) 1024x768 LCD, which I took for a tertiary display when I upgraded her to a bigger and better one. That poor old thing had one pixel that had been stuck on for years and I just ignored it. However, I used the display for SD videos, which I don't think my mother ever did (she was strictly and email-and-solitaire sort of user). Somewhere along the way, the pixel became unstuck. Magic.

Kougar wrote:

Oh I'd agree, but it's the same situation as with HDTVs. Heat helps cook the power supply components and the caps tend to be the first to fail.

If heat is cooking the components, then the HDTV is defective by design. The manufacturer has tried to save a few cents by skimping on proper heatsinking and/or ventilation.

just brew it! wrote:

If heat is cooking the components, then the HDTV is defective by design. The manufacturer has tried to save a few cents by skimping on proper heatsinking and/or ventilation.

My point was even a small increase in sustained heat accelerates capacitor degradation. Even with proper heatsinks the ambient temperature the components are working within is going to be high enough to accelerate it.

And just how many HDTVs presently on the market do you see incorporating fans? It's hardly representative but when I was shopping HDTVs several years ago extremely few did, and that was before the thin craze took off. 200-400 watts in a closed metal housing with no active airflow and no room for airflow is still going to get hot, with the possible exception if they are thin enough to use the metal housing itself as a giant heatsink.

The top of all the IPS CCFL monitors I've used regularly reach 110F degrees after an hour of use in a <80F degree environment, and I've never seen a monitor with active cooling. The equivalent of a 100w light bulb in a 27-30" plastic housing is going to get very warm even with lots of air vents!

Kougar wrote:

And just how many HDTVs presently on the market do you see incorporating fans? It's hardly representative but when I was shopping HDTVs several years ago extremely few did, and that was before the thin craze took off. 200-400 watts in a closed metal housing with no active airflow and no room for airflow is still going to get hot, with the possible exception if they are thin enough to use the metal housing itself as a giant heatsink.

That's why my not-so-cheap Panasonic plasma has fans. In other words, don't buy too cheap.

Flying Fox wrote:

That's why my not-so-cheap Panasonic plasma has fans. In other words, don't buy too cheap.

So does mine! Got it from a store that caters solely to the entire gamut of HDTVs and it was one of just a handful with actual PC-sized fans.

But back around to the thread topic, my point is that you and I have no such choice when it comes to computer displays

Fans in displays just mean they're designed poorly IMO. Sure, a slab of aluminum may cost more, but dammit, sound coming from a monitor is obnoxious.

Waco wrote:

Fans in displays just mean they're designed poorly IMO. Sure, a slab of aluminum may cost more, but dammit, sound coming from a monitor is obnoxious.

A pair in my Panny TC-P55VT30 and I've never heard them. I know they spin as I watched them when I replaced my driver boards (nothing to do with cooling, just a bean-counter decision to use regular screws when lock-washers were needed).

Plasmas get hot and need active cooling.

Waco wrote:

Fans in displays just mean they're designed poorly IMO. Sure, a slab of aluminum may cost more, but dammit, sound coming from a monitor is obnoxious.

But a heatsink isn't going to lower the temperature inside the set housing, it simply disperses the heat into the surrounding area inside said housing faster. Also you can't slap a heatsink onto capacitors as, again, it won't affect help them in a passively cooled environment. Caps are what fail in the power supply first is my experience. The heat output of my CCFL 2407WFP monitor was enough to eventually cook the main power cap in of itself, and the cap was the furthest component from away from the screen.

As Ned points out, I've also never heard the fans in my HDTV even when it's displaying a blank screen, and I'm an avid watercooler for the low noise benefits.

Kougar wrote:

But a heatsink isn't going to lower the temperature inside the set housing, it simply disperses the heat into the surrounding area inside said housing faster. Also you can't slap a heatsink onto capacitors as, again, it won't affect help them in a passively cooled environment. Caps are what fail in the power supply first is my experience. The heat output of my CCFL 2407WFP monitor was enough to eventually cook the main power cap in of itself, and the cap was the furthest component from away from the screen.

Sure, heatsinks don't move the heat out of the case any faster; but they help prevent hot spots. Hot spots accelerate the deterioration of components. Yeah, in your case, maybe it was just a cheap cap. But (like inadequate heatsinking) that still falls under the category of pinching pennies at the expense of reliability.

Convection airflow through a chassis can be quite efficient provided an appropriate vertical path is provided. No fans needed, just some holistic thought processes when coming up with the overall design. But I doubt most manufacturers pay much attention, with the exception of the plasmas which require a lot of airflow for normal operation.