Can an LCD Monitor get burn-in?

[Ilmater]

My monitor clearly has something burned into it. My screensaver has never worked well no matter how many times I reinstall Windows, so sometimes it comes on and sometimes it doesn't. When the screensaver doesn't come on and the monitor is just sitting on for a long time, it's on Gmail. Now I can kind of see rows of text (very blurry though, not quite as clear as the burn-in I've seen on CRTs before) and some sort of outline of the check-boxes next to the e-mails on the Inbox screen.

Is this possible? What could that be? Can I fix it?

It's worth noting that on a completely black background, you can't see the burn-in at all, but if you look from above at a very acute angle, you can still see there's something there.

 

[Kakkoii]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in#Plasma_.26_LCD

 

[Ilmater]

OK, so what do I do about it? Can I turn off my monitor to fix it? Leave a black or white image on the screen?

Here are some pictures:

This is the worst part, on the bottom-left side.

This is the other side of the monitor, not as bad.

Here it is with a black background, but the bottom line is I can't see anything when the background is black, unless...

I look from above, then I can just barely make it out. The auto focus on my camera probably makes this stand out more than anything.

 

[Kakkoii]

Run this overnight:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wcmjmzndnim/rgb.swf

What's happened is usually fairly permanent. But this should help at least a bit.

(Open it in Windows Media Player Classic for example, and right click>Full Screen. )

 

[Ilmater]

Just to be sure, you're serious, right?

 

[Kakkoii]

Just to be sure, you're serious, right?

Yes, I'm serious. That flash is pure Red, Green and Blue colors flashing in various alternating patterns at full intensity. It can help to diminish the burn in. You'll most likely have to do it for more than one night though.


http://www.jscreenfix.com/basic.php Uses the same concept

 

[akugami]

I have a monitor at work that is set as a monitor for a set of security cameras. The program we use shows all of the cameras and has borders around each. While you can expand each camera to fill the screen, the default shows them all and over a long period of time, there is indeed burn in. We don't bother fixing it since it's not a huge issue for what we use the monitor for.

 

[Ilmater]

Just to update, I've been doing that for many hours every day, and it's kind of working. It's not fixed yet, but it's better.

 

[Dkcode]

Thats an IPS panel you have?

I had the same problem on a NEC 2080UXi. Totally fucked the top of my screen so bad i had to get it replaced. Your case is not as severe so you should be able to fix it.

Here is what i did to prevent it from happening again:

Create 3 separate images in paint, with the canvas size the same resolution as my monitor and fill each image with 1 solid red, 1 solid green and 1 solid blue then save the images to an empty folder.

Choose your screen saver to 'Photo's' and set the folder to the location you saved the files. Also have the screen saver centre the images and rotate every 6 seconds.

Set the screen saver to set in after 10 minutes.

Image persistence is only something i have encountered on older IPS panels. Other panels don't seem to be affected by it.

 

[Ilmater]

OK, just one final update... I have COMPLETELY fixed my problem. Here's how it went:

I tried that .swf for a few days about 16 hours a day, and it seemed to be helping the issue. Plus, I was making sure that if I left the room with a browser window up, it wasn't on Gmail, it was on something else. Well, I was leaving a browser game up instead, and I noticed that even though I wasn't leaving it there as much as I used to leave Gmail there, it was leaving an image as well... a white bar.

So, I figured that either my monitor was just getting old (which it isn't that old, it's a Dell 1905FP I think). So, instead of trying to flood it with colors, I decided to try and let it cool down. So, I switched power save mode on after just 2 minutes, and left out the screen saver altogether. This way, I can make sure power save mode comes on before I stop using it. As of last night, all issues are gone. It's completely clear. So, if anyone reads this and has the same issue, you might want to try both the .swf above, or Dkcode's idea, but also just try letting the monitor cool down a bit more often.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

How does a screen saver not work? Not even the Windows default ones work?

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

You might want to look into why your screensaver isn't running

 

[duragezic]

I have the same problem on my 2005FPW. It's been like this for a couple of months and pretty bad now. The persistent image is from Firefox. I keep browsers open 100% height and about 66% width on the left side. So that right side border has burn in and the whole top part, about 1" down from the top" looks like it's wet.

I've ran Dead Pixel Buddy for 10-15 minutes to cycle different full screen images. It sounds like I need to do it longer. I turn the monitor off but I use it everyday so most it's off is 14 hours or so.

Okay, well the thing I described at the top sounds like another problem, possibly related to heat (my 2005FPW gets pretty dang hot).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=180084

The pictures xtknight and the other guy showed are exactly like I have.

The rest of my issues sound like persistence though.

Well, I've had this monitor for 4.5 years. I was going to get a new 24" soon anyway but then I got laid off. I guess I'll deal with this until it gets really bad.