Can a laptop's lcd get image burn?

[Trader05]

I recently picked up a P4 Dell Latitude laptop and it has a 15" screen. It seems to be burnt, there's a dark shadow going 1" around the edge of the screen. There's no dead pixels... its really not that bad, but i was still wondering if its possible. Any ideas?

 

[Matthias99]

That seems more likely to be a backlight issue than 'burn-in'... LCD monitors don't really 'burn' (permanently) the way that CRTs do.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: Trader05
I recently picked up a P4 Dell Latitude laptop and it has a 15" screen. It seems to be burnt, there's a dark shadow going 1" around the edge of the screen. There's no dead pixels... its really not that bad, but i was still wondering if its possible. Any ideas?

No, it's physically impossible for any LCD to burn-in in the same manner that a CRT does.

Eventually, an LCD will 'bleach' out, where the colors aren't as vibrant as they used to be. Under artifical lighting conditions though, it would probably take longer than the backlight has life. Out in the sunlight though, YMMV.

An LCD panel is an electrically active filter matrix. It's three layers, one that filters all non-red light, another for non-blue and a third for non-green. A grid of electric lines turn on the individual pixels in each filter layer, making the appropriate color pixel appear.

 

[Tostada]

I've got an old HP OmniBook that does get a sort of "burn in." Sometimes you can actually see ghosts of windows that were on the screen for a long time, even if you reboot, but it's just some sort of strange display problem. It goes away if you unplug the laptop and remove the battery for awhile.

 

[Marcuf]

Changing the resolution to somethng lower might boost the power marginally, but not for long if your battery is dying. maybe i dont know more.

 

[mfenn]

It is possible to have temporary image retention in an LCD. The active matrix can take a "set" (for lack of a better term) if it is displaying the same image (usually one with a lot of contrast between primary colors) for long periods of time.

That being said, I think that you probably have a backlighting or panel uniformity problem.

 

[MWink]

Image persistence CAN happen to an LCD panel. Years ago I had part of the top border from Age of Empires 3 "burn" into my 17" LCD. I did some research and it does happen. I'm not sure but I think there may be a way to reverse it, if that is your problem.

 

[Marcuf]

If you think a laptop LCD screen is cheap, try ordering a replacement one. It's usually more cost effective to get a new laptop, or at least an external monitor.