How in the Tech

Testing your New LCD Display for Dead Pixels

By Adam Myers ⋅ December 16, 2008 ⋅ Tags: System Administration

As you unwrap your brand new 24″ widescreen LCD computer monitor this recession-proof Christmas season you may be shocked at what you see upon first power on. Dead or stuck pixels can ruin even the shiniest and sharpest of displays. A stuck pixel can be thought of like a minuscule dot on the screen that is displaying the wrong color. If you are composing an email and your composition window is all white, a stuck pixel could show as a red dot, instead of white, in the middle of your window. You can imagine how utterly annoying this would be – especially on a brand new display! Worse, many manufacturers do not deem units as faulty if under a certain number of pixels are misbehaving. It is quite possible that you could have 5-10 pixel problems throughout the display and still have the display  constituted as performing normal.

Because of the above possibility, I actually have to recommend one of the biggest scams of computer retailers – the zero dead pixel guarantee. The guarantee is usually a percentage surcharge, like an insurance policy, that allows you to swap out the brand new LCD panel if it has any pixel problems. I opted for this on my last purchase, as I truly would not be able to work with the distraction of even one broken pixel. That being said, it may not be obvious to everyone that they have a problem with their brand new monitor. That’s where the small utility IsMyLcdOk comes in.

IsMyLcdOk is a program that provides full screen test patterns of a number of colors. It will be quickly apparent when the pattern is suppose to be all white and a pixel or three are not. It will take just a few minutes to step through each of the color patterns and determine if your display is acceptable or not.