34 replies to this topic

[Bill]

For those that have bad eyesight, or just have trouble telling if a pixel on their screen is broken, there was a utility on that news site, and I have attached DeadPixelBuddy v1.1 here, it paints your whole screen a certain color so dead/broken/partially broken pixels will show up easily.
This tool was developed from "Chris" over at LaptopShowcase.co.uk


Here's the description from him:

This is a program for testing LCD screens for dead pixels.

Before trying to grasp the meaning of a dead pixel, first you need to understand the technology behind LCD displays. An LCD display is essentially made up of pixels. Each pixel is made up of red, blue and green valves. The valves in each colour either block or pass the light source. By manipulating the amount of light passed through, each pixel displays a distinctive colour on screen. Pixels consisting of these valves are what make up the image that is ultimately displayed on the screen. A typical monitor has millions of pixels. A dead pixel refers to a pixel with a defect in its ability to display the correct colour output. It may look like a tiny black spot on your screen, or any other colour that does not correspond to what the actual image should look like.

A typical 17 inch monitor contains up to 4 million pixels. Even a tiny dust particle on one of the pixels during the manufacturing process can create a dead pixel. Or a slight bump during shipping can break one of the highly sensitive pixels.

If you've scoured every inch of your screen but can't find a single dead pixel, you are in luck. Because of the complexity of the design, it is generally regarded dead pixels appearing in some products are inevitable. If you need to absolutely make sure whether you have purchased a defective display, you can use this program. It simply paints your entire screen with one of the colours that make up a pixel to make the dead pixel more conspicuous to the naked eye. Run through the red, green and blue colours in turn and check for pixels that do not match.

Attached Files

•  DeadPixelBuddy.exe   86.28K   6596 downloads

[®®®]

Great and easy to use program which clearly shows now the 2 spots (eventually clusters) of dead pixels on my LCD screen.

[Bill]

While I thought I had a defective pixel on my screen, it seems I don't, instead that program helps point out all of the dust on my screen....
Time to get out the laptop screen cleaning kit thingy.....

[®®®]

Sunday is cleaning day

[ZZTOP77]

Cool

[®®®]

More technical information about 'Dead Pixels' can be found HERE (BeHardware.com)

[Bill]

Nice find Rene!
Looks like this thread that I kinda came up with (with Rene's help) was actually a good idea.
Anybody got any stories to tell about dead pixels?
Returned any screes successfully, or got any killer screens with no defects?
I am thinking of trying to get my hands on this thing right here, the end all of all LCD monitors that I have ever seen.
The thing has even had a price drop already!
We should start an email compaign to get Dell to have a zero pixel tolerance on their ultrasharp screens, if I buy that it has to perfect!

[®®®]

welcome to the club.

[jlangton]

Well,no dead pixels here either..I do have a couple(where the rubber eraserhead thing rubbed the screen)that are kinda flaky though.
JL

[Bill]

Mine has never touched my screen, you should remove that if its causing damage.

[jlangton]

Mine has never touched my screen, you should remove that if its causing damage.

I already pulled it and trimmed the head down a bit. I was gonna just leave it off, but I really dont like the way it looks without the rubber cap.
Being off-lease-I'm sure it wasn't always treated the best,and probably got crammed into a laptop bag with God knows what else.
JL

Edited by jlangton, 01 January 2006 - 03:25 PM.

[sn0wl]

This is the kind of online version of a dead pixel checking tool.

http://www.gdargaud....DeadPixels.html

[salzrat]

Note that dead pixels have a chance to be fixed by "software":

http://www.widowpc.c...dead_pixels.php

It helped me remove a dead pixel my notebook display developed some time ago (I applied it immediately after noticing the dead pixel). ymmv of course.

[®®®]

salzrat, thanks for sharing.
Testing this movie currently @ work trying to fix an IIYAMA E481S LCD suffering with 2 Type 3 dead red subpixels. Lets see if the 24 hour marathon will fix it...

Actually after googling around i found this quote, which sounds reasonable:

While this video will not fix dead pixels, it will fix any stuck pixels you may have.

HERE's another tool which constantly changes colors on a certain, selfdefinable spot of the LCD (move the spot with your mouse). DOWNLOAD (20kb, requires .NET)

If your LCD screen has a stuck or dead pixel , it's usually malfunctioning because the liquid in the liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) has not covered the whole screen. This can be easily fixed.
Steps

• Turn off your computer.
• Get yourself a damp cloth, so that you don't scratch your screen.
• Apply pressure to the area where the stuck pixel is. Do not put pressure anywhere else, as this may make more stuck pixels.
• While applying pressure, turn on your computer and screen.
• Remove pressure and the stuck pixel should be gone. This works as the liquid in the liquid crystal has not spread into each little pixel. This liquid is used with the backlight on your monitor, allowing different amounts of light through, which creates the different colours.

Tips

• Many people report success with this technique but these instructions won't work in every case.
• These instructions will fix "stuck" pixels, not "dead" ones. Dead pixels appear black while stuck pixels can be one constant color like red, green or blue.
• An alternative, but similar technique involves gently massaging the stuck pixel on your screen. Another method involves playing a video (available for download in external links below) which changes colors 30 times per second.
• If these instructions don't work, you can hopefully get the monitor fixed through your manufacturer. If your monitor falls under the specifications of replacement, get in contact with the manufacturer to set up replacement plans.

Source: http://wiki.ehow.com...-an-LCD-Monitor

[Almighty1]

®®® posted a better tool since the one salzrat posted is a MP4 file and nothing other than Nero Showtime can play it as RealPlayer, Windows Media Player 10 all failed to play it and even NS doesn't have the repeat function.

[Bill]

That one plays fine in my QT and Winblows media player.
Of course I don't know why they choose that format, could atleast make it regular MPEG1 or 2 or straight windows media format or something.

Tell me a format and I can convert and upload new one here.

[®®®]

I used MPC plus ddshow filters for the MP4 file.

UDPixel is a great tool as someone actually can continue to work with the LCD, while the pixel is stimulated. No full screen here, just the pixel(s) which are stuck/dead.

[Almighty1]

That one plays fine in my QT and Winblows media player.
Of course I don't know why they choose that format, could atleast make it regular MPEG1 or 2 or straight windows media format or something.

Tell me a format and I can convert and upload new one here.

Dunno why but I know mines defaults to RealMedia Player and the Open Using list only has Windows Media Player 6 as well as Nero Showtime but Nero Showtime doesn't have a repeat option and what's strange is Quicktime and WMP10 didn't show up on the Open using list since I thought they played MP4 without problems. Maybe the best format is just DiVX or AVI. MPEG1 is actually a audio format as even MP3 is MPEG 1 Layer 3.0 so it has to be a MPEG 2.0 format.

I used MPC plus ddshow filters for the MP4 file.

UDPixel is a great tool as someone actually can continue to work with the LCD, while the pixel is stimulated. No full screen here, just the pixel(s) which are stuck/dead.

UDPixel is cool as it's just the pixels or a small 5 pixel block times how ever many you need. After 14 hours, it didn't fix my glowing blue and glowing red pixel on my SGI 1600SW though.

[®®®]

Also no success here in reanimating the 2 pixels for the IIYAMA LCD mentioned above. Need to run it over the weekend probably (>48 hours)