So I just bought a second-hand 20-in Dell Ultrasharp 2007FPB off ebay a few weeks ago.
I began to realize some “burn” marks along the top part of the screen, where your menu-bar and address bar would sit when Firefox is maximized, and it was a whole strip across. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t set my desktop to a plain gray color. The marks, in my instance, looked purplish-red against the gray background.
After looking up various solutions, here’s the one that worked for me:
- Set your desktop background to pure white
- Right-click desktop, Arrange Icons By, turn off Show Desktop Icons
- Right-click taskbar, turn on Auto-hide the taskbar
- Turn off the screen saver, monitor power saver, sleep timer and hibernate timer.
- Leave it on overnight
Essentially, what’s happening is that the “burnt in” pixels have been in one position for a very long time, and need a little “stretch” – a full white-out.
The situation on mine has shown some improvement, but I may need to leave it for a bit longer. Check back again tomorrow.
Bonus: Leave your monitor at its lowest brightness, without turning it off completely. This helps with the life of the LCD back light.
