best way to see missing pixels?

[jw 11111]

i'm poised to buy a monitor. is there any way to set up the screen for easy
viewing. i.e., all black or all white or whatever is the best arrangement
to set up to spot any missing pixels?

 

[Dave C.]

i'm poised to buy a monitor. is there any way to set up the screen for easy
viewing. i.e., all black or all white or whatever is the best arrangement
to set up to spot any missing pixels?

Missing? I guarantee you they will all be there. The problem is that
some of them will be dead (showing nothing) or worse . . .

Some of them might be stuck on a certain color, such as red or green.

I like your idea. If you go to windows control panel, display, appearance,
advanced, you can set the desktop to white or black or whatever. Try a few
different colors for desktop with wallpaper set to "none". Then hide or
auto-hide the taskbar (or just drag it to other parts of the screen
temporarily) and carefully inspect the screen all over. Do that with a few
different colors of desktop. If you don't notice anything odd, there is
probably nothing TO notice. (and that's good)

I think that the bad pixel problem is way over-exaggerated. I've installed
many LCD monitors and used many laptops. I have yet to see one bad pixel.
Part of my job is CCTV calibration, so I would NOTICE any problem with any
monitor, LCD or otherwise. I think your odds of getting an LCD screen with
even one bad pixel are pretty low. But then it won't hurt to carefully
inspect the monitor right after you get it home. -Dave

 

[Ken]

i'm poised to buy a monitor. is there any way to set up the screen for
easy viewing. i.e., all black or all white or whatever is the best
arrangement to set up to spot any missing pixels?

There is a free "Nokia Monitor Test" program floating around (try google)
that flashes various colors and patterns on the screen so you can easily see
dead pixels and other problems.

 

[Bob Niland]

i'm poised to buy a monitor. is there any way to
set up the screen for easy viewing.

Presuming that you plan to buy the floor demo unit
at a retail store ...

Take along a floppy and CDR with several .bmp's,
sized to the raster you plan to run (e.g. 1280x1024).
You'll need to use RLE encoding to make them all fit
on one floppy.

View each one in MS Paint at the store.
Use Ctrl-F (View > View Bitmap) to get fullscreen.

I'd suggest the following images:
- pure black (reveal hot pixels)
- 50% gray (reveal dead/hots)
- pure white (reveal dead, and uneven backlight)
- pure red
- pure blue
- pure green

Bring along an all-cotton cloth, or screen-cleaner
fabric. Dust is easily mistaken for duff pixels.