Question What causes weird "burn-in" on my (TFT, obviously) monitor?

[pmv]

I keep getting a phantom horizontal line of discoloured pixels (usually a sort of yellowy-green smeared line) at the point where my browser transitions from address-bar to content. Sometimes the icons or text in the bar create ghost images that can be seen when anything other than the browser is on screen. I've taken to turning the browser's optional menu-bar on and off periodically, which has the effect of moving the address bar and icons to a position lower down the screen, which seems to give the troubled pixels a 'rest' - resulting in the existing ghost images healing after perhaps a week, with new ones appearing in the position where the address bar edges now are - till I change the positions again. Is there some monitor setting that might stop this happening or at least make it take longer before the 'burn in' appears?

Really, anything that is in the top tenth of the screen for a longish time produces burnt in ghost images. it doesn't happen at all at the bottom of the screen though.

 

[KentState]

"Burn in" on a TFT is caused by the pixels getting stuck or not fully operating. How old is the monitor? May be an electrical fault in the panel itself or a manufacturer defect.

 

[pmv]

It's not what I think of as 'stuck pixels' (though I'm not exactly an expert). It's not discrete pixels being stuck on completely the wrong colour and being visible as clearly defined dots, it's more like a blurry, smeared out discoloration...I was going to say 'in the phosphor', but, er, I guess TFT's don't have phosphor? Anyway it doesn't look like individual pixels or a line of them and it's not a completely wrong colour, more a green/yellow smeary effect overlaid on whatever that is supposed to be visible there. I can just about make out the AnandTech title burnt in with that sort of smeary way, after being on this site for a while!

It's only a few years old, this monitor. Stupid thing. The previous two didn't last all that long before dying. I can't afford to keep replacing them....I may have to go back to a typewriter and give up on this technology lark.

 

[KentState]

I'm sure you tried a couple trouble shooitng steps. Have you tried a different cable, different computer or another monitor?

When I stay stuck, I mean that they are not fully opening/closing. The entire set of rows may be dealing the same capacitors, relays, etc. and something is failing.