I recently ran into an issue I had with an acer AL1714. At first I thought it was what they call ‘dead pixels’.
I was seeing a burned in image of my email client. It looks similar to the problem that used to occur in CRT’s. I found that to be odd, as I understood LCD’s don’t have this problem.
I first contacted Acer about the problem. This monitor has a 3 year waranty, and I only had it for 3 months. The good news is that they could repair it in 7-10 days. Cool. The bad news is that they wouldn’t send out aImage Persist Cleaner replacement in the mean time. Not even with a credit card to secure it. I asked them how they proposed I continued to do any work. I’m paraphrasing their response as, “that’s for you to figure out”. Nice warranty….. so much for support.
At this point I decided to investigate further. After much googling, I discovered that my problem was not uncommon. Hmmm. It’s called Image Persistence.
It turns out that pixels in an LCD have a memory. If an image is on the pixels for an extended amount of time, the pixels will remember the image. The amount of time is unknown to me. I’m suspecting that it hase something to do with response time? As you can see in the upper portion of the screen, you can make out the ‘box’ of my outlook email client.
The good news is that it’s not permanent. Here are a few steps you can take to remove it (suggested by an article at dslwebserver.com);
- Create a 1200 x 1600 100% white .gif to use as a screen saver. (In windows you can add it to “My Pictures Slideshow”). You can just download this one if you like. (Right click->save as)
- Set that to run after 2 minutes of non-use.
- Set the monitor to power off in a short amount of non-use. Say 15 minutes.
In a few days your monitor shouldn’t remember those open application borders anymore. Then you can return the settings to a more tolerable time setting, and set your old favorite screensaver etc.
Rinse, and repeat as needed.
Update 1/05/2006:You can do the same with apple LCD’s as described here.
Have you had something similar happen to you? If you have any other suggested comments or educational tips on image persistence, please leave a comment.
Technorati Tags: LCD, LCD, burn-in, Image Persistence
November 23rd, 2005 at 3:40 am
LCD ghost images, fuzzy fonts and image persistence
A couple weeks ago my friend Lestat got a new LCD monitor and said he had problems with ghost images. He asked if I had experienced similar problems with the Westinghouse LCD I recently purchased. I did have some LCD ghosting issues, particularly arou…
November 25th, 2005 at 7:43 am
I had the same problem with a 19″ monitor I bought at Staples with an extended warranty. I didn’t get that monitor back for 6 weeks and they wouldn’t give me a replacement.
I ended up buying a new monitor.
July 31st, 2006 at 8:51 am
Might be a signal input that should be but isn’t turned completely off. If it is ‘lcd persistence’, should be able to ‘clean it’ with a bright screen for a few minutes.
August 1st, 2006 at 6:06 pm
I have an Acer 19″ LCD too and just noticed this problem the other day. It’s no where near as bad as the picture you posted, but on an all grey screen I can make out the firefox toolbar separators. They show up as whitish horizontal lines.
I’m trying the white screen fix now. Hopefully it’ll work!
Anyway, I know this is an old post (found on google) but just though i’d chime in.
Have you noticed if this problem got any worse on your monitor, or can you fix it every time?
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Actually the white screen does do it’s job. I’ve seen it take a few weeks on one, but it was heavily ‘Image Persisted’ hehe.
Yes it’s an old post, but seems to be quite informative. I haven’t written in a while. Work has been keeping me quite busy.
Thanks for stopping by!
August 9th, 2006 at 9:37 am
[…] Samsung 740N LCD Monitor - long POST I have had a some problems with my Samsung 740N monitor…. First….. When I got it I did not notice immediately the White patch on its screen…. a picture…. I always thought that the patch was a reflection from the rooms light. It was only when I was watching a movie one night I realised that this was a defect. I looked around the forums for an answer to this and got one which was to lightly press the patch with a soft clean cloth and spread the patch outwards - this really helped reduce the patch by about 75% !! Second….. Since the last month or so I found that every time I had some Windows open in XP (including the browser) and these were stationary for over an hour and after that when I closed the window then there were White lines left behind on the screen - these were from the white borders and white text from the programs which had been opened - these really looked horribly like scratch marks on the screen - really scared me at first …. I still dont know what causes these ghost images of the windows to remain on the screen after only one hour…. a picture …. not of my screen but taken from another person with the exact same problem ….. I got this picture from this page … Beginnercode.com » LCD ghost remedy … and on this page I found a way to get rid of the white lines too …. simple… 1) Create a 1200 x 1600 100% white .gif to use as a screen saver. (In windows you can add it to “My Pictures Slideshow”). 2) Set that to run after 2 minutes of non-use. 3) Set the monitor to power off in a short amount of non-use. Say 15 minutes This above method removed the lines everytime …. Yesterday I contacted Samsung via their Samsung Online Call Registration System and mentioned these 2 problems - Samsung today sent an engineer promptly on time - as always - and this guy had brought with him a brand new LCD Panel which he swapped and when we switched it on we saw this…… 5 Black marks …. AAAAARGH !!!! some body had pressed the Panel hard with his fingers and has left the impression of his fingers on the panel !!! The Samsung engineer says that these BLACK marks should go away in 2 days use of the monitor otherwise he will replace it….. LETS SEE …. Thank GOD - The second LCD Panel does not show the white lines problem and it does not have a White patch. One thing I must mention is that the second LCD Panel is MUCH better then the first one - the brightness of the screen and its sharpness is better at the same settings SAMSUNG’s Digital World - Online Call Logging FYI …. you need Java installed to make entries in this Samsung page…. ————————- Advertisement ————————- […]
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
i am a big fan of samsung
March 7th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Thanks for the Post! This was a good read.
http://www.eBuyHD.com
April 6th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
My 27″ ViewSonic hdtv has ALOT of image persistence, even when I play games like counter strike, there’s a ghost of the radar on the screen after I close the game.
I use it only as a monitor for my PC, most people say it’s because HDTV LCD’s are cheaper and designed for television, where the picture changes constantly, but my desktop always has something not moving on it, like the taskbar, icons, even the mouse pointer.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:35 am
i has the same problem with my viewsonic VA712 it started at the top of the screen i small area about on 1cm from top of screen then in 5 month the area increased to 6cm and any text or icon in the screen has a shadow