Question Anything I can do to prevent further burn in damage?

[Red Squirrel]

I did not realize burn in was still a thing. Apparently it is. My two new 4k monitors are starting to get burn in as I tend to leave applications in one spot. Even worse when working from home as my job involves monitoring so I have lot of windows up. Now I have alarm displays burned in right dead centre of my main monitor. :/

My monitors are Asus Tuf Gaming 28". (forget exact model and too awkward to see the back as they are on arms and don't want to mess with it)

Is there anything at all that can be done for this or am I stuck with burn in being a reality for me? If I was to buy new monitors what should I look for to make sure I don't get any that are susceptible to burn in, stay away from OLED?

Sucks since I actually paid quite a lot for these, I really did not think burn in was a thing anymore. I did set a screensaver for what it's worth, but that won't really protect me from burn in caused by active use.

 

[mnewsham]

I believe they're IPS panels, which shouldn't have permanent burn-in. Though they can have image persistence. If you put on a movie for a few hours or something else, does it go away or fade?


The only current panel tech that should have permanent burn-in issues would be OLED.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Yeah those are IPS panels - This is a temporary burn-in like effect. There is nothing to worry about, it clears itself over time with motion or moving the static windows around.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmm so this is not permanent? I guess it goes away after being off for a while? That's good to know then, a bit less worrying.

 

[Fallen Kell]

You might have some backlight uniformity degradation. This can happen on full array LED backlights due to parts of the screen being brighter than others for long periods of time. You would notice this most via solid grayscale images being displayed. It won't look like burn-in exactly but more like blobs of slightly different brightness.

Other than that, an IPS panel should only suffer from some image retention issues with the liquid crystals settling into a position and not wanting to easily change to a different configuration. But give them a few hours of constant changing images and they will lose that behavior.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah the dark AT background is where I notice it the most. But my monitors have been off for a while and the burn in I saw the other day is gone, so I guess it's kind of self healing over time as mentioned. So hopefully none of this does end up turning permanent but it does indeed look like it clears up after a while.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This has gotten worse over time, it seems to take less and less time for burn in to occur. It partially goes away but I still have a pretty serious line right down the middle that matches with location of my code editor. Is there anything I can do to "exercise" the pixels to try to make this go away or does it not work like that? Is this particular damage permanent?

 

[ptthomas]

Time to pay visit to your local tech dealer.

 

[Red Squirrel]

These are out of warranty it's been over a year I've had them. So there's really nothing I can do? The monitors have been off all night so now that line is gone, but minute I switch to my coding view it won't take long for it to show up again. I wish I had done more research before blowing a grand on monitors but I really did not think burn in was still a thing.

 

[mnewsham]

If you're doing the same thing on the monitors everyday, then there really isn't much you can do about it besides change your usage habits. Change the layout so the line isn't in that specific place, or similar.

Realistically the only way to prevent it, is to not allow long periods of static content, but if you're using the monitors for your IDE and you're spending hours at a time without anything else changing on-screen, then there really isn't much you can do.


The average person is generally moving through various windows throughout their day all with different static elements in different positions, so there would be no time for image persistence to occur, at least not with any clarity. But with extended use of the same static GUI elements, for hours per day, every single day, then yeah, it's going to be hard to avoid.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I guess I may need to just look into eventually needing to replace these and repurposing them for lighter duty or gaming/multimedia stuff. Is there anything I should be looking for when buying to make sure I don't get ones that are vulnerable to this? These are IPS but maybe there's other factors that affect it? Or is this actually a 4k thing? The ones at work get burn in too though it does not seem as severe as mine and they display the same thing for 12 hours straight.

I try to move windows around but sometimes I just don't do it fast enough.

 

[mnewsham]

I believe VA panels are less likely to experience it.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Out of the main LCD panel types (I am strictly talking LCD, not OLED), IPS is the most likely to suffer from image retention problems, followed by VA, and finally TN. I would never recommend a TN panel for something like your are doing due to the massive color shift on any kind of off axis viewing angle (i.e. even sitting close to a large screen will cause the parts of the screen that are farther away from directly in front of your eyes to have color shift). OLED has significantly more image retention problems than IPS, to the point of actual burn-in where there is nothing that will make it go and it will always show (just like plasma and CRT as the OLED pixels themselves wear and permanently degrade just like the phosphors in CRT and plasma did).

A VA panel type is probably the best bet for you. It is a reason why it is used in the majority of higher performance LCD TVs (along with its deeper black levels compared to IPS and TN).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Good to know, guess at some point when I have extra money to burn I'll consider going for VA. So there is not much I can do with my current ones then I suppose? Like any specialized color "programs" that shift colours in a certain way I can use to somehow fix the burn in?

What's even worse is Linux Mint has like zero options for screen saver, just an on and off, and it's not really a screensaver it just fades the screen a bit, but even that randomly died on me and stopped working. Screensaver won't really help for when I'm actively using the machine though. I tend to leave lot of windows up on my 2nd monitor like email, console sessions etc. But even web browser on main screen, things like the window edges, title bar etc burn in pretty quickly.

 

[bigboxes]

I've used only IPS panels since I moved from CRT to flat panels in 2006. Never had burn in issues. I realize that your job requires you to look at a static image for long periods of time, but I'm glad that I have never had that issue. IPS is better for most all usage scenarios. VA have higher contrast and blacks, but has brightness, contrast, and color shift when viewed at angles beyond about 20 degrees. I would suspect something with the model in particular, but it sounds like your usage creates the burn in, regardless of the technology.

 

[aigomorla]

ugh... being on IPS for such a long time, and crossing over to VA's from time to time...
Your going to miss that IPS if color is important.

 

[mnewsham]

ugh... being on IPS for such a long time, and crossing over to VA's from time to time...
Your going to miss that IPS if color is important.

That really depends on the VA panel.

Here is my VA panel, out of the box colors are pretty crap, but if you actually calibrate it, it's top tier.

 

[aigomorla]

*shrug*

call me a sucker for IPS...
But even my nano IPS alienware 38" looks better then my friends samsung QLED and he has HDR1000.
The colors just don't look that vibrant on a VA vs IPS.

If all i did was gaming, i would probably not mind the VA.
But i do a lot of youtube, movies, anime, i want those vibrant colors.

 

[mnewsham]

*shrug*

call me a sucker for IPS...
But even my nano IPS alienware 38" looks better then my friends samsung QLED and he has HDR1000.
The colors just don't look that vibrant on a VA vs IPS.

If all i did was gaming, i would probably not mind the VA.
But i do a lot of youtube, movies, anime, i want those vibrant colors.

That's pretty odd considering VA is known for being more vibrant than IPS, that's kinda it's whole point, it has ~3x the contrast. VA panels are generally 3000:1, IPS panels are usually about 1000:1.

It's why most TVs use VA panels, not IPS panels. They're more vibrant, though often less accurate.

 

[Red Squirrel]

ugh... being on IPS for such a long time, and crossing over to VA's from time to time...
Your going to miss that IPS if color is important.

Yeah I went IPS thinking it was the best choice, but did not realize they got burn in. My use case is tricky as I do pretty much everything from coding to photo/video editing and since I have two I tend to have stuff that stays rather static on the 2nd one, but even on the 1st one since I don't really do everything full screen. Like I might have my browser taking up most of the screen and have a few consoles or email etc open. So no matter what there is always something that is not moving.

But yeah think I will try to make these last as long as I can but when it gets too bad I will just look at a VA for the replacements.

 

[aigomorla]

That's pretty odd considering VA is known for being more vibrant than IPS

yeah i know but its not just me that feels IPS are superior.
VA's are faster, and have higher contrast, but i think the IPS view angle and color shift at different angles is what makes it different.

*shrug*

My AW3821DW by far looks more crisp then my friends Odyssey G9.
My friend is also jealous at the fact i have 1600p, and not 1440p. It really does make a difference.

 

[ptthomas]

I feel it is less likely to occur with VA panels.