dead pixels changing positions

ghostman

Golden Member
Jul 12, 2000
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So, I just got a new 19" widescreen LCD (the $65 one from Staples). Plugged it in last night to my laptop, it auto-configured to 1440x900 and I looked through the screen for dead pixels (using a white background, then a black background). Played some 720p videos. Everything looked good.

After playing some videos, I noticed a dead white pixel in the center of the screen. Just out of curiosity, I changed the resolution. Now that dead pixel was gone, but I had a dead black pixel in another spot. Every time I changed to a different resolution, I had a dead pixel in a different position. When I changed it back to 1440x900, the original dead pixel was gone, but I had a dead black pixel in another position. After using it a while, even that dead pixel disappeared and it was clean again.

I've always had luck with my LCDs and never had to deal with dead pixels. Is this behavior typical? I thought it's a hardware fault, so the dead pixel remains fixed at all times and resolutions.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
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106
Typically, when you change an LCD resolution to anything below native, you are causing it to interpolate data and synthesize a regrouping of native pixels to show as the lower res requested. The native resolution is what should be used to determine if a pixel is dead, and then it should be constant. Changing resolutions is an artifical action resulting in a degraded LCD image.
 

ghostman

Golden Member
Jul 12, 2000
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Thanks. Resolution changing aside, do stuck/dead pixels tend to work and stop working all on its own? I was under the impression that they stay stuck. Even in the native 1440x900 resolution, I've seen one dead/stuck pixel right in the middle of the screen. That issue disappeared after several minutes and I had a dead/stuck black pixel higher on the screen. That later disappears as well.