Image Persistence: The LCD Monitor's Equivalent of Burn-In

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDBurnIn.htm' target='_blank'>http://compreviews.about.com/od/mon...a/LCDBurnIn.htm</a><br /><br /></div><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1248196621.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>A month or two ago I posted a message <a href="http://www.twitter.com/jasondunn" target="_blank">on Twitter</a> about getting "burn-in" on my LCD monitor, an old <a href="http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/brand/lcd?c=us&amp;l=en" target="_blank">Dell W2600</a> that I've had for years - I think I bought it back in 2005. The monitor has been perfect up until recently, when I started to see that elements of software's user interface were visible on the screen after I closed the application. My first instinct was to call this "burn-in", because that's what it looked like. A few people Tweeted me back (boy "tweet" is a stupid sounding term, isn't it?) that LCD monitors couldn't get burn-in because of the type of technology they used. Sure enough, over the next few days the images faded away. I didn't do much research into the problem at the time, but when it happened again yesterday - look at the image above and you'll see UI elements from <a href="http://www.defraggler.com/" target="_blank">Defraggler</a> - I looked into it more. It turns out this type of thing is called <a href="http://compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDBurnIn.htm" target="_blank">image persistence</a>, and while it shares some of the same visual glitches as the burn-in you'd see on a CRT or some types of TV sets, because the technology driving it is so different, it's a very different sort of issue. The good news is that the fix is often a simple one: turn off the monitor and leave it off for a few hours. In my case the first time I saw this problem it persisted for several weeks, but eventually faded away. The image above, from the most recent incident, was gone after only a few hours of the monitor being powered down. The <a href="http://compreviews.about.com/od/monitors/a/LCDBurnIn.htm" target="_blank">About.com article</a> has a few more suggestions if you run into this problem.</p>

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

That reminds me of the time when I was a bit nuts over WoW... I could see my actionbars at the bottom left of my Dell 2001FP then.

[Dave Beauvais]

This happens all the time with my Dell 2005FPW -- purchased in May 2005 -- and it's really irritating. I get some amount of persistence after very little time. For example, I've had this browser window open for only about ten minutes, yet I can clearly see its menu, title, and status bars after minimizing the window. It definitely seems to be getting worse with age. It always goes away relatively quickly, and is always gone by the next day after the monitor has been in standby for several hours.

At my last job, our medical illustrator experienced this on his Apple Cinema Display after leaving a rendering app on-screen without a screen saver for an entire weekend. That was the first time I'd ever seen such a thing happen to an LCD. It took about four weeks for it to go away for him, and was a major distraction, given his line of work.

As an aside, I looked back at the e-mailed receipt to see when I purchased the monitor and I can't believe how much it cost. Before discounts, US$750 and just under $400 after stacked coupon codes.

[Stinger]

I replaced my last TFT monitor because of this problem. It was a Samsung 181T that I bought way back in 2002 for an eye-watering £700 ($1,145 USD). The monitor served me very well and I was still very happy with it in every other respect. However, I couldn't put up with the persistant Firefox toolbar any longer. :)

[Damion Chaplin]

My 2-year-old 32" Westinghouse TV is experiencing the same thing. Of course, I'm not seeing application persistence, what I'm seeing is the line on the right-hand side where the standard (square) format stops. Unfortunately, mine never goes away, even if the TV's been off all night. As soon as I turn it on and watch a widescreen show, the line is visible as a 'ghost' line about 4 inches from the right-side bezel. It's about as close to burn-in as it gets. I've been looking at it for many months now, hoping the wife doesn't notice (as soon as she does, we'll need to get a new TV because she'll comment on it every time).

:(

[jeffd]

yuan, same here! I was a pretty heavy raider, and had the 2005FPW. One day I notice after a long session that my action bars were visable in windows. Luckly I am happy to say that after taking measures to remove all static graphics (I made all my menu bars opaque, so while stationary, the monitor is still changing the color of the pixles as different background scrolls by) and about a year later now, I don't notice the burn in anymore, so it obviously was damage that could reverse itself.

[Kacey Green]

My T-Mobile G1 does this when in bright sunlight after just a few seconds with something on screen.

I can't wait 'till I can swap in a Touch Pro 2