Is this laptop screen ghosting? How do I prevent/fix this?

[ajfudge]

I'm not exactly sure if the proper term here is "ghosting". My laptop screen suddenly is having these strange white markings. I can't take a screenshot of it because it is a physical problem. So I took with a camera. Take a look:

That particular horizontal white line in the screenshot was caused by Google Chrome window. Most days I don't let it bother me, but this is really distracting.

To explain how this happens:
Most UI design today have white edges to make windows appear glowing or glassy. As of late, glowing/glassy-edged windows have a negative effect on my screen as they leave some artifacts. These artifacts are always white and semi-opaque, thus I call it ghosting. It could be a line, sometimes the shape of a tab or a button, and on rare ocassion, even the letters from the title bar is "imprinted". I don't think it's serious because they disappear over time when I shut off my screen. So is this caused by having my laptop screen open for too long? Sometimes these ghost imprints develop even after three hours of having my laptop open. A standard dead pixel tester cannot fix this. I have my laptop open almost whole day everyday.

Ideas? Clarifications? Tips?

 

[TVeblen]

What you are describing is classic "Screen Burn" (Burn-In) or "Image Retention". A problem that plagued Cathode Ray Tubes and Plasma TV screens. But it is a problem that should not affect a typical LCD screen.

It could be a case of a poor quality display, or a defective display. There was a batch of Dell laptops a while back that had this problem. But if the artifact does not show up in a screenshot then it certainly looks like a hardware defect.

The simple solution of course is to use a screen saver and have it come on often enough to avoid the burn-in. A blast from the past.
A more costly and complicated solution would be to replace the display screen.

 

[ajfudge]

Sorry to reply so late. I haven't been able to receive notifications from winsevenforums.com lately. Hmmm...

Thanks for clarifying. I have read about Screen Burn but I just can't picture it.
Anyway, my screen is LCD (3-year old ASUS UL80A laptop). And I only started noticing this after 2 years of heavy usage, although at the time it was very tiny. Now it has grown, but the size is not consistent as sometimes its long, sometimes as big as a standard cigarette lighter.

I now set my laptop to shut off monitor after 5 mins. of idle time, and I adjusted it to hibernate if I have been away for 2 hours (because it happens that I just fall asleep when I've been reading for too long from the screen ;p )

 

[TVeblen]

Well test it like that for a while and see if it helps or makes the problem tolerable.
Otherwise you may need to look into a laptop screen replacement.

 

[ajfudge]

Hi there,
turning off monitor when idle surely improved my screen's dwindling health. The ghosting still appears but its a long time for it to build up in size and they don't appear as big as when I first reported about this here. Also, I opted for a dark wallpaper, which somehow negates the white edges/borders that cause the ghosting. They're still there though. Until it becomes an untolerable annoyance, I guess replacement is the only solution.

 

[alphanumeric]

It sounds like a video card or display fault. A screen shot won't show it because the screen shot grabs the image (data) before it is sent to the video card. Try plugging in an external monitor and see what kind of image you get. If you get the same problem on an external monitor its almost certainly a video card fault. If it looks fine then the fault is in the built in LCD display. Maybe a broken wire or lose connection in the wire harness that goes to it.

 

[ajfudge]

hi alphanumeric,

I'm pretty sure that it's my LCD for these reasons:
1) My laptop doesn't have a video card (unfortunately). It houses a graphics chip instead;
2) My laptop is static, meaning I don't bring it around and it always remain in the same position, kinda like a desktop but with le space. Having said that, I feel there's no need to "close" my laptop like a clam shell;
3) Have tried plugging it to external monitor before, and the problem did not occur there, so this is definitely my laptop's LCD.

 

[alphanumeric]

I say video card but I am referring to the video graphics chip. It is a video card of sorts, its just soldered to or built into the motherboard. Anyway, it does sound like its a problem in the laptops LCD display. That's a strange problem for an LCD though? Like TVeblen said, as you describe it, it's something you usually see on a CRT not an LCD. LCD's don't burn in like that?

 

[ajfudge]

Hmmm. What common problems are usually met by LCDs? Maybe that's what's actually happening to my screen? Something that is similar to CRT's screen burn?
Pls, enlighten me.

 

[TVeblen]

The display screen could be physically damaged.
It could be delaminating, or degrading just in that spot.
There could be a tear in the foil backing that is allowing the back lighting to bleed through.
It could be an equivalent to dead pixels - pixels that light up but don't shut down.

Regardless of why it is happening, it should not be happening, and it all points to a defective display and the need for a replacement.

The only other thing I can think of that would not indicate a defective display is there could be a deformation in the lid or the bezel that is allowing the back lighting to bleed through. Have you ever dropped it?

 

[alphanumeric]

I've personally never seen anything like that on an LCD screen, but to be honest its hard to tell what's going on from your screen shot. The most common problems are artifacts on the screen. Blotches, squares vertical or horizontal bars on the screen or a completely jumbled image on the screen. A result of a video chip failure. Stuck or dead pixels but those are usually just one or two in one spot. LCD's don't burn in like a CRT does, there is no phosphor. A backlight failure would just give you a black screen. You say an external monitor works fine so odds are its a problem with the built in LCD. You could try and hunt up a replacement and do the swap. I can't guarantee that will fix it though. If there is some other circuitry in between the display and the Video chip not used by the external output you could be no better off. Another option is to just use an external display and turn the built in display off. Maybe it's time to buy a new laptop?

 

[ajfudge]

@TVebelenn
No, I haven't dropped it. It just sits on my table as it is my desktop replacement. I even rarely close down the lid, only when I'm cleaning it. It has a screen protector which I wipe clean with moist paper towel. Is that bad?

@alphanumeric
I'm actually planning to sell this to but a new laptop. But I don't want to sell this at a bad condition.

Here's another thing I discover: if I turn the brightness down, the ghosting is not as severe.

 

[TVeblen]

No, wiping down with water-damp towel is OK. But try and use fabric (terrycloth and the like) because paper products contain wood pulp and that can scratch a screen (with some effort). But it is not going to cause what you are seeing.

"if I turn the brightness down, the ghosting is not as severe."
This would indicate it is more likely to be a physical defect in the display screen, all the possibilities I listed would apply.

Have you tried removing the screen protector?

 

[ajfudge]

I haven't removed the screen protector yet. It' been therefor years now. I'm planning to replace it. becuse there are small debris that got trapped underneath the screen protector.

 

[TVeblen]

You know what I'm thinking.....

 

[ajfudge]

@TVeblen, what?


UPDATE:
My laptop screen's frame is made of plastic. So it has questionable build. And notice that I mentioned before that my laptop is just sitting on my table as I don't carry it around and that I seldom close the lid. And yet when I was cleaning it today, I found a crack on the side of the screen frame. And here's the weird part, when I put the cracked part back together with tape, the ghosting disappeared. Just like that! Wow!

 

[TVeblen]

I was thinking that the screen protector might be causing or contributing to the problem.

It sounds like you found the cause: back lighting is leaking through the bezel (the plastic frame is called a bezel).
The bezel should snap to the lid if you squeeze them together, but sometimes the little plastic tabs that latch will break off and then it won't. If that is the case then you can use superglue or hot melt glue or model airplane glue to get it to stick together. But use only as much as necessary! you may need to get the bezel off one day.

But if you are going to sell it, this would be a good quick fix for solving that screen bleed.

PS: I have never seen a bezel that was not plastic.