Caring For Your LCD Monitor

By. Geoffrey Vaughan

With all the hot new LCD monitors on the market out there most people are not aware of some of the disadvantages and extra care they require to keep them lasting as long as the old CRT monitors could last.

Liquid Crystal Displays are a lot more sensitive then the old Cathode Ray Tubes were. CRT screens are made of a thick glass that can take more abuse then the plastic LCD's.

Cleaning a Crt Monitor was really easy just use Windex or Pledge with a paper towel and it was cleaned. LCD monitors however have an anti-reflecting film coating on the outside of the screen that can be eaten away by ammonia based cleaners. This will make your LCD look cloudy and have blurry regions of your computer. The paper towel and other wood based products can also scratch the plastic as it is less durable then the old glass ones.

To clean an LCD monitor turn it off, simply wet a lint free cloth with water, (ONLY USE WATER) then wipe the monitor. Do not apply the water directly to the monitor as more water could soak/drip into other crevices in your monitor.

Use a screen saver! It might actually save your screen. Imagine that! An LCD monitor is made up of an array (or grid) of tiny pixels that display the colors on your screen. When an LCD monitor is left on for extended periods of time the images of your desktop background or whatever is left open will actually burn into the plastic on the monitor. Now when you change your background to say a solid colour (grey, yellow, pink, work well) it will actually show you an outline of the previous background image ghosted into it. The good news is that this type of damage is reversible. You can reverse the damage by turning your monitor off as much as possible and by running a screen saver that cycles colors and varies the output to the screen. This will eventually go away.

Keep your hands off it! Never ever ever touch a LCD monitor. When you apply any sort of pressure to an LCD monitor you risk damaging one of the pixels. When this happens the pixel will turn permanently black (off) and it will never work again. I've heard before of people trying to massage out the pixel to get it to work but I don't recommend this as you risk damaging more pixels. If your pixel is burnt into a specific colour I've also heard of programs that cycle through all colours and try to fix the problem. If this is the case then its definitely worth the try.

Remember Hands off!