How to Touch Up Your LCD Monitor

Is your monitor starting to get a bit old? Does it have some scratches and spots on it? Yeah, so did mine. In fact, I was about ready to get rid of it. And then I read something that provided the following novel method for fixing up scratches in your screen: a pencil eraser.

Yes, you read that right. If your monitor's more than a couple of years old and it has any kind of spots or scratches on it, you owe it to yourself to give this method a shot.

You only need four things:

• a clean cloth (preferably microfiber, the kind they sell for cleaning glasses or monitors)
• a few cotton balls (if you don't have any, a second cloth will do in a pinch)
• rubbing alcohol (pour a little out into a bowl so you don't contaminate the rest of the bottle)
• a clean pencil eraser

Here's how:

1. Clean off the pencil eraser if it's been used to erase anything. Just rub the outer layer of it off until you don't see any smudges on it anymore. Smashing graphite particles into your monitor isn't going to help anything.
2. Open up your web browser and type "about:blank" (without the quotes) in the address bar, then press F11 to display the page full-screen. This will give you a blank white screen. (You do this so you can see all the spots easily.)
3. Dip a cotton ball into the rubbing alcohol and clean off the monitor with it. Reportedly, this is the method that manufacturers use to clean the displays as they reach the end of the assembly line; regardless of whether that's true or not, it works well.
4. Wipe the monitor dry with the cloth.
5. Take the eraser and carefully rub it onto all the scratches and spots, and watch as they magically disappear, or at least get better. It's fine to use some pressure as long as you work deliberately and don't smash the monitor.
6. Blow off the eraser dust if there's any left, and clean the monitor again. You can repeat steps 2-6 as many times as you want, until you're satisfied with the result. It may take a couple of runs to completely get rid of the problems.
7. When you're done, press F11 or Escape, depending on your browser, to get out of the full-screen mode.

Of course, this method isn't going to work for horrible gashes down the center of your monitor, but for relatively minor blemishes, it works like a charm. I had a damaged spot that was about an inch square, and after doing this I can't even see it anymore.

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Soren "scorchgeek" Bjornstad

If you have found an error or notable omission in this tip, please leave a comment or email me: webmaster@thetechnicalgeekery.com.

Copyright 2011 Soren Bjornstad.

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