Widescreen Gaming Forum

I've been playing Master of Orion all night. Now the GUI is etched into my screen. For some reason, it doesn't show up when I use any of the default colors in dead pixel buddy, but it's quite obvious on my bluish desktop background. Also, I found that with DPB's custom color set to R-0 G-0 B-64, the retention looks REALLY bad - so bad I can actually read the GUI labels off the screen.

I'm going to shut the computer off for several hours. When I turn it back on, if the image retention is gone, great. But if it's still there, what should I do?

What display do you have?

I have the NEC20WMGX2. And it does the same thing. You can RMA the monitor, or just ignore it. I recommend RMA. But you can do somethings to make it less noticeable, like lower your brightness.

Other than that, I've had the same issues. I have my screen saver kick in after 2 minutes to avoid more of it.

Unless your problem is ungodly bad, image retention on LCDs is relatively fixable. You can either wait for it to get better on its own, or you can be proactive about it.

I once had a similar problem on a viewsonic monitor when I spent an entire day using Adobe Premiere. Set your screensaver to show JPEGS of all the colors and black and white, set its interval as low as you can, and leave it on overnight for a couple of days.

This solution fixed my problem and I hope it fixes yours!

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EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 3.5GB | 3 X LG Flatron 24EA53VQ in Nvidia Surround | Optoma HD20

I have the BenQ FP241W, purchased from NCIX in early '07. I suspect at this point RMA is not an option.

The image retention is still there, but seems somehow not quite as bad as before.

How do I set my screensaver to show JPEGs? I'm using WinXP.

Display Options -> Screensaver.

Set it to "My Pictures Slideshow."

In the settings window you can choose what folder and what interval. You can either make a bunch of multi-colored jpegs or find a program that runs fullscreen to do the same job.

Just make sure to turn off the power savings so the monitors stay ON while you're trying to do this!

I remember a program for stuck lcd pixels that basically makes the entire screen into analog tv like moving colored static, maybe that could help? I forget the name though.

I've got my monitor's brightness and contrast cranked up, and it's been playing a slideshow of black.bmp and white.bmp alternating every 6 seconds for the past several hours.

It's going to be a real inconvenience to not be able to use my desktop (I'm on the laptop right now) all weekend, not to mention not being able to use the PS3 since this display is the only thing I've got that works with it. Plus, the available solutions all seem real cargo cult-sciency - I'm basically depriving myself of my main source of productivity and entertainment for an indefinite amount of time on the off-chance that it might solve a problem.

How often would you suggest I stop the screensaver to check to see if it's worked or not? And how often and how long can I stop the screensaver per day to do computer-related stuff like check e-mail, do work, watch episodes of Star Trek, etc. ? And how long should I keep the screensaver on before deciding that this approach doesn't work?

Do your stuff, and then leave the screensaver running overnight. Do that for a couple of days, maybe three. If it's not any better by then its up to you to keep going or not. My image retention problem was solved after three days if I recall.

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EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 3.5GB | 3 X LG Flatron 24EA53VQ in Nvidia Surround | Optoma HD20

Plus, the available solutions all seem real cargo cult-sciency - I'm basically depriving myself of my main source of productivity and entertainment for an indefinite amount of time on the off-chance that it might solve a problem.

The solutions aren't really "cargo cult-sciency". :)

Originally, the solution was to keep an all white image to fix this as shown here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_persistence

But, many have discovered that having an alternate black and white image fixes this faster.

Some swedish researchers managed to fix this by applying DC voltage to the lcd matrix and made some patent on this if I remember correctly.

The purpose of the method is based upon the theory that the electrical field in the matrix where you see the image persistance is disturbed by having the same polarity applied for a longer period of time. Perhaps causing a static charge or something influencing the ionic compound in the LCD.

When a screen is turned off for a longer period of time, the charge is diminishing and this can fix itself as said in the above link.

However, the lcd crystals move by applying current and having an alternate black and white gives max current for full off and full on.This is believed to stabelize the electrical field and thus removing the image persistence when applied to over time.

Usually the image peristance is most visible by viewing a mid grey color, so you might make one .bmp of that to monitor the progress? :)