# screen burn on LCD monitors

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-burn-on-lcd-monitors/163103>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 21, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-burn-on-lcd-monitors/163103 "2003-03-21T15:12:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![paulberserker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@paulberserker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulberserker)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-burn-on-lcd-monitors/163103/1 "2003-03-21T15:12:21Z")

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im using an 17" apple studio display LCD monitor at work, with illustrator 9 open for most of the 8 hours a day. what im starting to see now is a ghost image of the toolbar when illustrators hidden or inactive over the top of the image i use as wallpaper. i thought LCD screens werent suppose to suffer from screen burn.  
is this likely to get worse? should i send the screen back to apple? its only about 5 months old. is there any degaussing style things i could do

cheers,

pauly t  
😕

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-burn-on-lcd-monitors/163103/2 "2003-03-21T15:26:33Z")

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I found a discussion on this [here.](http://www.solvalou.com/messages_view.php?mid=162) Essentially, LCDs can “burn” but not for the same reasons as CRTs, and newer LCDs shouldn’t be as susceptible to this problem.

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**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-burn-on-lcd-monitors/163103/3 "2003-03-21T15:37:02Z")

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Right now, only Plasma screens won’t burn (got a few thousand dollars?)

However, most newer monitors and TVs are far less susceptible to burn than older units.

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**Author:** ![racekarl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@racekarl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racekarl)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2003, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-burn-on-lcd-monitors/163103/4 "2003-03-21T15:44:37Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Right now, only Plasma screens won’t burn

Wow, where are you getting your (mis)information?

That statement is _totally, totally wrong_. Plasma screens are MUCH MORE susceptible to burn in than LCDs or even CRTs.

They are perhaps the most sensitive display devices available today. In fact, most plasma displays available today utilize elborate schemes to alleviate the problem, such as soft power down that leaves the screen on showing a neutral gray for 15 minutes before turning the display off.

As for the problem the OP is having:

Don’t send it back yet: Burn in can sometimes be reversed. You could try to take a screen shot of your display with the illustrator menus open, reverse the colors in the image, and then leave that image on screen (full screen, so it sits directly underneath the burn in) and leave it like that for a while. Alternatively, you could leave your screen showing a plain white display for a while.