Last year for my birthday I got a brand new LCD monitor. Its a nice 17″ Samsung 712N which does the job nicely at home.
Thankfully it doesn’t have any dead pixels… yet. I have heard tons of horror stories on the “internets” about how some unlucky person sees a shiny new LCD monitor at their local retails store, buys it, takes it home and a couple days later, BAMN! Dead pixels a plenty. Well, not really but the number of dead pixels range from 1 to 3 or so in 6 months to a year. It hasn’t personally happened to me (knock on wood) but from what I have read, depending how old the LCD is and where you bought it from (online vs retail shop), you can exchange it hassle free or for a small shipping fee or restocking fee. Save your receipts people!
Anyway, here is a link to a page which runs a “Dead Pixel test” on, you guessed it, your LCD monitor. All you have to do is go too http://www.gdargaud.net/Hack/DeadPixels.html. You have two choices, a “normal” and a “Without JavaScript” for you paranoid freaks that disable javascript in your unsecured browsers (MS IE, rightly so!).
Yeah,, My nice shiny new dell 20.1 widescreen has a dead one on it. A single one does not piss me off,, but if I have a few more crop up I will not be a happy camper.
Damn! Sorry to hear that. Can you buy another one with the same exact model and return it the next day? Only the one that you return is the one with the dead pixel… the ‘ole “switcheroo”.