That annoying dead pixel on your TFT, OLED, or LCD screen might just be stuck and like shooting fish in a barrel to fix. We'll testify you how to do it. You can nevertheless return your monitor if this doesn't work; nothing nosotros recommend here volition void your warranty.

Let's see how you can fix hot, dead, or stuck pixels on your screen.

How to Examination New Screens for Stuck or Dead Pixels

Yep, you should exam any new monitor for bad pixels. You tin can simply run your screen through a palette of bones colors, besides as blackness and white in full-screen mode using a tool similar EIZO Monitor Exam.

1. EIZO Monitor Test

EIZO Monitor Examination is an online tool that lets yous observe and eventually gear up stuck pixels. It packs many options into a single exam window, but it's like shooting fish in a barrel to use one time y'all take an overview.

To test your screen, check all the boxes you want to include in your test. We recommend the default setting of having all boxes checked. If you're testing multiple monitors, you lot can open up the test on an additional monitor. When you're gear up, click Start test to launch the total-screen test window.

EIZO Monitor Test start screen with default settings.

Below you see the first test blueprint. Each screen has an explainer in the bottom correct detailing what y'all should look for. Adjacent, you'll see a menu that lets you lot go from i test to the adjacent on the left. Motility through the black and white screens and all the solid colors (dark-green, bluish, and red) and bank check our screen. To go out, press the ESC key or the exit symbol in the meridian right.

EIZO Monitor Test first test window with extensive test pattern.

If you notice a bad pixel, we recommend using a tool like UDPixel or JScreenFix to wink it.

2. Online Monitor Test

This is a very thorough test not merely meant to identify bad pixels but besides powerful enough to exam the quality of your monitor. Unfortunately, with Flash no longer supported past most browsers, yous'll probably accept to employ the executable version to make information technology piece of work.

online monitor test tool pixel check

Y'all can choose betwixt three different modes to exam your screen. When you run the executable, here is what y'all should see:

Online Monitor Test black and white balance check

Movement the mouse to the top of the test window, and a menu will appear. There is an info window that you can plough off with a button in the top correct corner of the menu. So click on the Homogenuity test signal and move through the three colors as well as black and white.

Fingers crossed, y'all won't notice anything out of the ordinary. In the unfortunate case that you lot do, allow's come across whether it'south a stuck or a dead pixel and what you can practice virtually it.

Is It a Stuck or Dead Pixel?

What if you spot an odd pixel? Is what yous see only a stuck pixel, or is it, in fact, a dead pixel?

A stuck pixel, sometimes wrongfully referred to as a hot pixel, is defective because information technology receives incomplete data. Hence, it appears in one of the colors that its three sub-pixels can form, i.e., cerise, dark-green, or blue. Strictly speaking, hot pixels only appear in digital cameras when electric charges leak into the camera'due south sensor wells. Sometimes, stuck pixels prepare themselves.

Stuck and Dead Pixels on Screen
Image Credit: Paulo Valdivieso/Flickr.com

In a dead pixel, all sub-pixels are permanently off, which volition brand the pixel appear black. The crusade could be a broken transistor. In rare cases, however, even a black pixel may just be stuck.

So if you're seeing a colored or white pixel, you might manage to fix it. And if you see a blackness pixel, chances are low, but there is still hope.

Let'southward turn to the methods to set up a stuck pixel.

How to Fix Dead or Stuck Pixels

Unfortunately, you can't fix a dead pixel. Yous can, nevertheless, ready a stuck pixel. Every bit I explained above, it's hard to tell the two apart. Either way, these are the methods you can try:

  1. Kickoff, identify dead or stuck pixels by viewing your monitor in unlike colour palettes.
  2. To gear up a stuck or dead-looking pixel, use a third-party tool to flash the pixel with multiple colors. We recommend UDPixel (Windows) or LCD (online).
  3. Finally, y'all can try a manual method that involves rubbing the stuck pixel with a damp cloth or a pointy simply soft particular, like the safety/eraser at the end of a pencil.

Let's await at these methods and tools in item.

i. JScreenFix (Web)

JScreenFix won't help you find a stuck pixel, but information technology tin can help yous fix it. Just click the Launch JScreenFix button at the bottom of the folio.

JScreen Fix features overview and start button.

The tool volition load a blackness browser window with a square of flashing pixels. Press the green button in the bottom right to become total-screen. Drag the flashing square to where you found the stuck pixel and go out it in that location for at least ten minutes.

JScreenFix pixel checker tool

By triggering each pixel's different sub-pixels, the graphic may massage a stuck pixel dorsum into life.

2. UDPixel (Windows)

UDPixel, also known as UndeadPixel, is a Windows tool. Information technology tin help you identify and prepare pixels using a single tool. The plan requires the Microsoft .NET Framework. If you're not on Windows or don't desire to install whatever software, scroll downward for the online tools beneath.

With the Dead pixel locator on the left, you can easily detect any screen irregularity that may accept escaped your vision until now.

undead pixel screen fixer tool

Should you spot a suspicious pixel, switch to the Undead pixel side of things, create sufficient amounts of flash windows (one per stuck pixel), and hitting Start. Y'all can drag the tiny flashing windows to where you plant odd pixels.

Permit them run for a while and somewhen change the Flash interval.

3. PixelHealer (Windows)

Aurelitec built this Windows app as a companion to its InjuredPixels tool to discover dead, stuck, or hot pixels.

The PixelHealer lets y'all flash a combination of blackness, white, all bones colors, and a custom color in a draggable window with customizable size. You can even alter the flashing interval and set a timer to close the app automatically.

PixelHealer settings window with flashing rectangle to its right.

To close the app, click the Close PixelHealer button in the bottom correct.

4. Expressionless Pixel Test and Set (Android)

This Android tool can both exam and fix dead or stuck pixels on your Android device.

Let it run through all colors in Auto mode to spot whether you accept whatsoever weird pixels on your screen. If y'all do, start the fix, which will speedily wink your entire screen with black, white, and bones color pixels.

5. Manually Fix Stuck Pixels

Should none of these tools resolve your stuck or dead pixel issue, here is one concluding take chances. You can combine any of the tools detailed higher up and the magic power of your ain easily. There is a very proficient description of all available techniques on wikiHow. Another great step-past-step guide can exist institute on Instructables.

Let's go through i technique real quick:

  1. Turn off your monitor.
  2. Become yourself a damp material and then that yous won't scratch the screen.
  3. Apply pressure to the expanse where the stuck pixel is. Try not to put pressure anywhere else, as this may trigger the cosmos of more stuck pixels.
  4. While applying force per unit area, plough on your figurer and screen.
  5. Remove pressure, and the stuck pixel should be gone.

This works considering, in a stuck pixel, the liquid in 1 or more of its sub-pixels has non spread equally. When your screen's backlight turns on, different amounts of liquid pass through the pixel to create different colors. When you utilise pressure, you're forcing the liquid out, and when you release the pressure, chances are the liquid volition push in, spreading around evenly as it should.

What to Do If You lot Can't Fix Your Stuck or Dead Pixel?

LG Pixel Polixy Bright vs Dark Pixel
Paradigm Credit: LG

When all attempts to revive your bad pixel fail, the next best thing you can practice is to make peace with it. One ugly pixel won't intermission your screen, and eventually, you'll forget about it. If the defect affects more than a single pixel, however, or just bothers you a lot, you can always replace your monitor.

First, bank check the warranty. The manufacturer or the marketplace where you purchased the monitor might embrace dead pixels. Annotation that almost manufacturers define a maximum number of allowable bad pixels for specific resolutions, and the warranty won't apply until your monitor crosses that threshold.

Here is LG's Pixel Policy:

Bright or night sub-pixels can occur during the production of the LCD Monitor panel but does not bear upon the LCD Monitor functionality. The customer may notice the bright or dark spots if the film of the liquid crystal does non perform as expected while customers uses the LCD monitor. Yet, this is non considered a defect unless the number of brilliant and dark subpixels exceeds the maximum allowable threshold (...)

On a monitor with over 12 million pixels (Wide QXGA+, 2560x1600 pixels), for instance, LG's pixel policy says that 12 bright or night sub-pixels is the maximum you take to tolerate.

All Pixels Report to the Screen

Should all of these approaches neglect to gear up your dead pixel warrior, at least you'll at present know it'due south not simple to fix, and, you might actually take to supplant the screen.