Matt Van Stone

Since I considered making my LCD investment (see the previous post, a Dell 2405FPW widescreen monitor) I have had to think about warranty. For a cheap monitor, it’s not a big deal. You buy it expecting it to last about 3 years, and if it works longer than that, it’s great. However, with a $900 LCD the last thing you want to happen is have it fail or get a few dead pixels after a few months (or right out of the box).

In almost every case, these fixed pixels are hard to notice and do not detract from the display quality or usability. A display with 1 to 5 fixed pixels is within the industry standards, and is therefore considered an acceptable display. LCD screens that do not meet this industry standard are rarely passed on from the point of manufacturing.

If you notice more than six (6) fixed pixels on your display, or if there are several fixed pixels in a small area of the screen, refer to the E-mail Dell section under Additional Information to contact Dell Technical Support.

Source: http://support.dell.com/support/

From the above quote from Dell’s site it seems as though 6 or more dead or “fixed” (or stuck) pixels is their minimum to qualify for replacement. This seems somewhat reasonable to me considering the size of the LCD. Although, I don’t know how official that Dell page is. I was under the impression dead pixel standards usually applied to the number of dead pixels in a given area. So if say the minimum was 5 dead pixels in a 1″ square, not the whole screen. I think at work we tried to return an older 20″ Cinema display because of 3 dead pixels on the whole screen and Apple basically told us too bad.

The above is a screenshot of a rather extreme example of dead pixels on an Apple MacBook Pro. I have never seen anything like this, but its pretty bad looking.

There are typically millions of these subpixels on an LCD display. For example, the LCD panel used in the Apple Cinema HD display is made up of 2.3 million pixels and 6.9 million red, green, and blue subpixels. Occasionally, a transistor does not work perfectly, which may result in the affected subpixel being turned on (bright) or turned off (dark). With the millions of subpixels on a display, it is quite possible to have a low number of faulty transistors on an LCD. Therefore, a certain number of subpixel anomalies is considered acceptable. Rejecting all but perfect LCD panels would significantly increase the retail price for products using LCD displays. These factors apply to all manufacturers using LCD technology–not just Apple products.

If you suspect your display contains a high number of pixel anomalies, take your Apple product to an Apple Authorized Service Provider for closer examination. There may be a charge for the evaluation.

Source: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=22194

Apple seems to take a bit of a more technical approach than Dell, but still isn’t very specific. Reading on the Apple discussion boards though it seems like there is a few different videos and applications you can use to “fix” stuck pixels. Also, I have found this article which uses a physical technique to remove the stuck pixels.

How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor at wikiHowto

Anyway, I hope I never have to use either.