Six Months Later: An Xmas Update

Last Christmas, I got a new LCD monitor for my computer.

Well, after I had resolved the initial stuck pixels, I was pretty happy with the monitor. Until early April, that is; a line had appeared on my display, going the full length from top to bottom, on the right-hand side of the screen. It was only a single pixel wide, but still quite distracting. It would be a random color, usually somewhere between white and blue, often teal.

I was busy with my college courses at the time, so unfortunately I couldn't just immediately send it in for repair. And so more lines appeared. One at a time, at first, but eventually two or three new lines would appear, marching across my screen, destroying my ability to read or see anything on a two-inch block of my LCD. Quite annoying.

Turns out it was what they call a tab fault, and was easily fixed when I sent it in after classes were over. I was a bit miffed that the replacement I was sent had a dead pixel (not stuck, truly dead) right in the middle of the screen, but to Samsung's credit when I called to complain they were very apologetic and immediately authorized my sending it back to receive a new replacement.

Thankfully, third LCD's the charm! All pixels are working correctly and I have no complaints.

In other news, it is only six months until Christmas is here once again. I'm excited for another holiday season here in the States!

Merry X-mas!

Merry X-mas, Futurama style!

Although my Christmas loot this year was rather lackluster, it feels rather like I got my old PC as a Christmas present since it arrived right before the holiday and then I got a new LCD as a present from my folks! It was a nice Samsung 23" Widescreen, model SW2333.

When reading reviews of the gaming LCDs in my price range, I was immediately impressed by what I read about this one. Only one thing gave me pause, and that was several people who purchased this model claiming that it arrived with one or two stuck pixels. Having never had to deal with any pixel-related LCD problems (my last one was an LG and it was absolutely flawless), I was quite concerned.

On Christmas morning, as I plugged in my new LCD and got it working, I immediately noticed a blue pixel that wasn't changing unless the screen called for "white". An obviously stuck pixel; I was dismayed.

However, a quick google search revealed a lot of different techniques for solving such a problem, and so I downloaded an excellent application called Undead Pixel, which will flash through all colors on the dead pixel(s) only, at like 60 colors a second, which sometimes helps to unstick a pixel.

I also tried gently putting some pressure on the screen as this program ran. I only applied pressure for like twenty seconds or so, and immediately wanted to check my handiwork. UD Pixel had only been running for about ten minutes, so I wasn't really expecting any results since the suggested run-time was between one and eight hours.

When I stopped the program to check the pixel, it was fixed. Awesome! So now I have a flawless Samsung SW2333 LCD that I'm quite happy with so far. Haven't quite used it enough to give a full review, but so far I haven't found anything at all to make me regret my choice. I'll try to update later on with a final verdict, once I've had time to really put this thing through the ropes.

Until then, Happy Holidays everyone!