[CS-FSLUG] LCD screens and Warranties

[veritosproject at gmail.com]

Usually you need like 8 dead pixels in a certain radius before they talk to you.

On 8/28/06, Nathan T. <celerate at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi listfolks
>
> I have an important question, I recently discovered a dead pixel on my
> laptop's LCD screen and shortly thereafter I noticed there were also
> two off-colour bright spots. The two bright spots and the dead pixel
> actually seem to almost line up so the cause might have been related,
> and they're all in the same general area on the screen. As far as I
> can tell the laptop still has two days on warranty, so I have to get
> it in tomorrow in order for it to be in under warranty.
>
> I asked around as to what could cause a dead pixel so soon, I'm
> amazingly unimpressed that I wound up with so much screen trouble, and
> so close the the time the warranty expires too (it's gone in two
> days). I would have gotten an extended warranty, except all Staples
> had to offer when I bought the machine was their own instore warranty
> which I knew from experience wasn't worth a fraction of the price (no
> less of a scam than some really bad insurance policies imo). Anyway, I
> was told that if I pushed the graphics card too hard (ie playing
> games) it could cause dead pixels because the graphics adapter would
> be overwhelmed and would put too much current through certain pixels,
> I don't know what the credibility in that is, but if I know that
> caused the problem it would at least help me to avoid this happening
> again (assuming it's avoidable).
>
> I'd like to know whether this is typical of Toshiba laptops, I'm angry
> enough right now over this to promise never to buy another Toshiba
> product again. I'm counting on this still being under warranty,
> because if it isn't it's probably not going to be fixed. If the cost
> of having the screen fixed is high enough and not covered under
> warranty then I'm going to consider another laptop, in which case I'd
> like suggestions based particularly on hardware quality, warranty, and
> how long it takes for warranty work to get done. Around here I can buy
> IBM/Lenovo, HP and Toshiba, but I've considered getting a Mac Mini, so
> I might have a MacBook special ordered in instead as long as someone
> can tell me that it'll run Windows fine without OS X if I decide I
> don't like the later. If I get a Macbook I'd also like to know that if
> it's running Windows it'll still to be able to handle some games,
> nothing particularly special, just Rise of Nations and Age of Empires
> II.
>
> I'm also interested in suggestions on what might have/could cause
> damage to an LCD display. I can't think of anything that might have
> caused the damage, as far as physical damage goes I wasn't
> particularly hard on it, I was careful to keep pressure off the
> screen. But where software is concerned I did push it to run Rise of
> Nations before I got the RAM upgrade (the video card is shared, it
> used to have 256 MB), and worse yet I had it running Linux in VMWare
> (because some of the hardware is poorly/not supported in Linux).
>
> Please reply soon people, I have until the 30th to take it in for the
> warranty work, and even then it might not be coverd any more. I also
> need to know how important it is that I invest my next paycheck into a
> new laptop fund before it all goes towards other things.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Nathan T.
>
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