Mittwoch, 27. Juni 2012

it won't happen to LED-based screens

A pinkish or reddish tint on LCD screens can only happen to screens that use florescent backlight tubes (or CCFT - Cold Cathode Florescent Tube) - it won't happen to LED-based screens.

What's a backlight tube anyway? Well ... it's just your good ole florescent tube - scaled down to roughly 10" to 16" in length and about 1/16th of an inch in diameter (for PC's and laptops), that's what it is. You've seen good ole florescent tubes before - in your garage, your kitchen, or your office, or in warehouses. When florescent tubes fail, they either (1) don't go to full brightness immediately, or (2) they don't go to full brightness at all, or (3) they go blink, blink, blink, and then off, or (4) they're dead.

The pinkish/reddish tint on your LCD screen is just a backlight tube that ain't at full brightness (the tube still produces white light, it just look pinkish/reddish when filtered thru the screen's glass top). In many cases, this only happens on startup and full brightness will happen in a few seconds; in some cases, you get a pinkish/reddish tint for the first few seconds and then it blinks and blacks out. If your screen gets you full brightness in a few seconds, then keep on using it - as the "grace periods" of these things can be indefinite (I've had a screen with a pinkish/reddish tint on start up for over 10 years and it's still going). If your screen gets you a pinkish/reddish tint on startup and then goes black, then it is hell and gone: you either replace the tube or replace the screen altogether.

Backlight tubes are located either at the bottom or the top of LCD screens and run its entire length. These tubes are buried deep inside the bowels of LCD screens, and replacing them is a very, very, very, very difficult task (level of difficulty is beyond human). I've done it a hundred times and I can count on one hand the number of completions that are perfect: twice. If you have to replace a backlight tube, there's only one way: get a used screen with a good tube, and you must get the exact same screen as your original screen, and go from there; any other way, and you're gonna get yourself in a world of hurt - and that's guaranteed. Easiest way is to replace the entire screen altogether.