Monitor Display: Pixel issue?

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hi all,

I have set my Linux Lite system to dark themes, so generally I have a relatively dark environment.

Yesterday I updated my tor browser, which has a bright (or even white) background as per default and that´s why I spotted a small (or tiny) smudge on my monitor´s display.

That is: I mistook it for a smudge. I couldn´t get rid of if from the surface. I guess it´s a pixel issue then.

Here´s what it looks like:
Both images show part of my screen. The 1st one is an enlargement of the respective area. The 2nd one is an enlargement as well, but at an even higher level:

and

What do you make of it

I was thinking of a dead pixel? Or a stuck pixel?
Or might it be something completely different?

Thanks in advance and many greetings from Rosika

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@Rosika

I was thinking of a dead pixel

You can test. Is it only visible with that software? Find some other app with a light background and see if it is still there.
You can probably live with it.

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hi Neville,

thanks for your reply.

@nevj

Is it only visible with that software?

Sorry, I don´t quite understand. What software do you mean?

@nevj

Find some other app with a light background

I already tried it with different backgrounds from different apps. The spot always remains at its place.

@nevj

You can probably live with it.

I guess so, too.
Just wanted to know what that dot might represent.

It may have been there for quite a while. It´s just yesterday that I noticed it.

Many greetings from Rosika.

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@Rosika

I already tried it with different backgrounds from different apps. The spot always remains at its place.

That is what I meant.
That proves it is a hardware issue.
Sorry… it may self-recover.

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Thanks for the confirmation, Neville.

@nevj

Sorry… it may self-recover.

That would be nice. But it doesn´t bother me that much.
Just wanted to know more about it.

Cheers from Rosika

[callpaul.eu (Paul)]

You could try a screen testing program

Linux Mint - Community

This one is for mint but i am sure other versions exist trouble is even if you identify a fault it will not fix it.

But may identify if its a screen issue or a driver which i think would be unlikely.

You may just have to put up with it and be aware if writing its not a full stop, comma or spelling erro underneath

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hi Paul,

thanks for your reply.

Ref. to the link you kindly provided :

Ever wondered how good the quality (sharpness, linearity, convergence, etc.) of your CRT/LCD monitor is?

Hmm, whether such a utilty would detect any potential pixel issue as well?
I looked at the corresponding github page here, and it says:

Added new test for find bright pixels (error pixels) of a lcd screen.

Mine is rather dark.
Still: I may take a closer look at it. Thanks for mentioning this programme.

@callpaul.eu

You may just have to put up with it

Right. I´m prepared to do that.

Many greetings from Rosika

[Manuel_Jordan]

Hello Rosika

Try to avoid dark themes, it is not healthy for your eyes - you can confirm this through the web.

About your problem, I have a similar problem in two places:

• For a TV Screen of 42 inches (about a dead pixel in color white - not black as your case) it remains there since 10 yrs ago and counting, to see it I must be very close of the TV itself
• For a laptop a small rupture in the screen itself, it seems when it the lid was closed a small thing was there and did do the rupture. It since 2 yrs ago and remains there

For both of the scenarios, if the problem/situation does not grow breath in peace. If yes consider to apply the warranty if is viable.

Suggestions

• If you can change the monitor by other do it just to confirm if the situation is coming from the laptop/PC or by the monitor itself
• If you can connect other monitor as secondary and apply a mirror for the 2 screens would be nice to know if the problem again is coming from the laptop/PC or by the monitor itself

HTH

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Hii Manuel,

thank you very much for your reply.

@Manuel_Jordan

Try to avoid dark themes, it is not healthy for your eyes - you can confirm this through the web.

I guess I didn´t make myself clear enough when referring to dark themes. Sorry.
What I meant was: I make everything dark, not just themes, e.g. the browser:

That´s definively soothing to my eyes.
Anything else would be just “screaming in my eyes”.
Seems to be one of the things one has to put up with when getting old… .

@Manuel_Jordan

If yes consider to apply the warranty if is viable.

The monitor is about 10 years old.
But if everythig else is o.k. that pixel doesn´t bother me that much.

Like I said, I just wanted to know what the “problem” might be. Since no other person contradicted so far I´ll assume that it´s a dead pixel.

@Manuel_Jordan

I have a similar problem in two places

O.K. The phenomenon doesn´t seem to be all too uncommon then.

@Manuel_Jordan

f you can change the monitor by other
[…]
If you can connect other monitor as secondary

No other monitors are available.
But that´s o.k.
I still learned something .

Thanks again and many greetings from Rosika

[Manuel_Jordan]

The pixel situation is not very common but it happens sometimes, the important is that it does not expand. So it is safe

About the dark theme: even with your decision be sure to always have natural/artificial light in your area of work

[Rosika (Rosika Schreck)]

Thanks, Manuel, for the advice.

Yes, good light around you, natural or otherwise, is certainly important.

I also have redshift running at all times.
That, together with dark themes and everyting esle dark, is really a treat to my eyes.

Many greetings from Rosika

[daniel.m.tripp (Dan Tripp)]

@Manuel_Jordan

Try to avoid dark themes, it is not healthy for your eyes - you can confirm this through the web.

Eh?
Like @Rosika - I HATE all those bright white pixels glaring at me.

I set EVERYTHING everywhere to a dark theme - even the remote Windows servers I have to RDP to…

All the applications I use that support dark mode - I set to dark mode… MS Office, MS Teams, MS Outlook, my browsers (mostly Brave and Chrome), my desktops (Pop!OS Linux and MacOS).

Just the thought of having 32" of QHD “white pixels” glaring at me all day gives me a headache… And I actually have (WFH) 3 x 32" QHD curved monitors across my work desk…

And doesn’t all those bright white pixels emit more “blue light”?

[Manuel_Jordan]

Did you do a research in the web like I wrote from the beginning about that? Furthermore 2 Oculist doctors told me the same …

It is interesting because I know a good amount of people that must use dark themes to avoid headaches like in your case … and other like my case that must use light theme to avoid headaches. It is very ramdon because there is no a pattern

Anyway even with the screen offering the “yellow” and “blue” light many friends changed from dark theme to light theme and zero headaches

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@Manuel_Jordan

It is interesting because I know a good amount of people that must use dark themes to avoid headaches like in your case … and other like my case that must use light theme to avoid headaches. It is very ramdon because there is no a pattern

I think it is more about contrast than brightness or particuler wavelengths.
You need to be able to read text on the screen comfortably.
Some colours work poorly on a dark background… eg blue on black is hard to see
others work poorly on a white background … eg yellow on white is hard to see

[callpaul.eu (Paul)]

Color blindness

There are many colours that just dont work together and we all see colour differently

Color blindness

I am amazed at some of the choices i see on different client machines, but i try not to make comments as the perception is different.

More men have difficulty with colour, thats why we dress as we do…

[daniel.m.tripp (Dan Tripp)]

@callpaul.eu

Color blindness

I’m red-green colourblind… Meant I couldn’t be a train driver, a policeman, a sparky (electrician) or one job I was actually interested in: “sign writing” (a long lost profession - now all done on computers)… Also meant the only “career” path in the defence forces was as a grunt with a gun… My next brother was the same… it’s extremely rare in females, so neither of my sisters were colour blind, but nor is my youngest brother…

One thing I will say - about preferring dark mode everywhere - that’s also how I work in a terminal - i.e. semi-opaque black background, mostly white text… Same in MobaXterm when I’m using a remote system over RDP…

That’s also how I prefer to read e-books - i.e. white text on a black background…

One thing I HATED when I was at school - when a teacher would write in RED chalk on the blackboard - I simply could not read it at all… I still have the same trouble… e.g. I mostly used the “gnzh” theme in ZSH (via “oh-my-zsh”) - but I copy that to ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes and replace the string “red” with “141” :

cd ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes
cp ../../themes/gnzh.zsh-theme ./dmt-gnzh.zsh-theme
sed -i 's/red/141/g' ./dmt-gnzh.zsh-theme

Then line in ~/.zshrc
ZSH_THEME="dmt-gnzh"

“141” is the colour that “titan” is above - by default that gnzh ZSH theme has red as the hostname if you’re remote… I can barely read it properly at that default of “red” on a black background : here’s the default :

(I haven’t changed it on that machine - 'cause it’s Red Hat EL8 - so red seems appropriate - and I don’t do a lot of work here anyway - it’s mostly just a test-bed if I want to test something on RHEL - I could use a VM I suppose).

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@daniel.m.tripp

when a teacher would write in RED chalk on the blackboard - I simply could not read it at all…

That is interesting… you cant sense red light at all?
Not the same as red/green colorblind… I think that red and green are seen as some sort of grey.
Our car has red lights on the dash… you woyud not be able to read the speedo?

Red is the worst color for clear vision… short wavelengths are best … our speedo looks fuzzy to me, but I csn decipher it with glasses.

[Tech_JA (Jorge Augusto)]

Hi Rosika,
From the photo, it looks like a stain and not damaged pixels, i.e. the problem is not pixels on the LCD that are no longer controlled or dead pixels, but dirt, for example dust, between the LCD and the backlight (the “LCD” is made up of several parts).
To eliminate this stain, the LCD would have to be disassembled.
In my opinion, if it’s not a spot that bothers you, it’s best to “forget about it”.
If the stain is annoying, one of the possibilities is to put the vacuum cleaner next to the bezel to see if the stain moves to another place, but it may cause more dust stains to appear.

Jorge

[daniel.m.tripp (Dan Tripp)]

@nevj

I think that red and green are seen as some sort of grey.

No they’re not - show me something bright red in front of my face - it looks red… Show me a bright green leaf in front of my face - it looks green…

Point out some red flowers in a green bush or tree? No I can’t see the red flowers…

But I often have trouble differentiating : bright lime green from yellow (e.g. the bright green on an RGB colour wheel), or purple from blue… and quite often some shade of brown (e.g. a crayon) from green… But logic tells me the expanse of leaves or grass is green, but the tree trunks are probably some shade of brown…

---

interestingly - I remember as a teenager, knowing I was colour blind, I could still pick out some that was red in a black and white movie or TV broadcast, from the way it reacted to light…

In WW2 - the US airforce had colour blind “spotters” to pick out camouflage - for some reason they (we) were better at detecting tanks or armaments hidden with camouflage paint…

Here’s my theory - colour blindness wasn’t necessarily detrimental to hunters - in fact most predators (especially mammals) don’t have colour vision… But colour blindness would be detrimental to gatherers - e.g. which plant or berry is poisonous, which is edible, which is ripe - hence it been exponentially less prevalent in women…

---

In Grade 2 - or “second class” as it was called in NSW - my teacher was a nun… One day (this happened nearly every day : mostly untidy work - I was left handed) I heard “Danny Tripp (I never gave her consent to call me Danny) to the front of the classroom, hold out your hand” and she gave me me a slash with her “switch” across each hand… Then explained why - I’d used a GREEN colour pencil to shade a human being’s skin… I didn’t know I was colour blind at the time - that was 1969 - didn’t get it “official” till around 1973…

---

I mostly know how to make the right colours with the help of computers and knowing the RGB colour wheel (such a beautiful matrix : 255:255:255 makes white) - green and yellow look the same to me - but I drag way over towards the red side to get yellow… Please don’t ask me how to make skin tone or brown …
When I was really little, I thought poop was orange… Hence why POTUS 45 looks like a sh!tstain to my eyes

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Red chalk on a blackboard - I think the lack of cones in my retina make it harder to detect the red… It’s a “recessive” gene, and carried by the mother… Me and my next brother (18 months my junior) were colour blind, our next brother, 24 months younger than my next brother, didn’t inherit it… But he (Raphael) got different genes - he wasn’t as big boned, or as tall, as me or Ben (RIP) - but he was much fairer - he had snow white hair till adulthood - Ben and I were sandy / blond…

[nevj (Neville Jackson)]

@daniel.m.tripp

It’s a “recessive” gene, and carried by the mother…

The gene is on the X chromosome.

@daniel.m.tripp

No they’re not - show me something bright red in front of my face - it looks red… Show me a bright green leaf in front of my face - it looks green…

Point out some red flowers in a green bush or tree ? No I cant see the red flowers.

Is you brain compensating? That is strange.

Dont take me the wrong way. I have vision problems too… I have amblyopia with serious double vision and I get ocular migraines. None of us are perfect.