With the growing demand of Notebook computers, the question of the tolerance of dead Pixels or sub pixels is also increasing. Below we have listed the tolerance level of the main distributors in the industry together with the ISO standard that is in place. Below is an extract taken from a magazine explaining the facts of dead pixels.

“Dead pixels are a fact of life because the manufacturing process is so complex. Manufacturers say they can’t be eliminated without making LCD screens, and therefore laptops, prohibitively expensive. A single pixel is made up of three elements or sub-pixels, one of each primary colour – red, green and blue. When all three fail you have a dead or unlit pixel, which is visible as a tiny dot on the screen.

When all three elements stay lit you see a white dot. When just one element stays you see a dot of that colour, such as red. These types are all commonly called blown or unlit pixels, although only a white dot is truly a lit pixel. Lit pixels show up on a black background, and unlit ones on a white background. Problem pixels seem worse on lower resolution screens because the pixels are bigger.

ISO standard 13406-2 governs the “acceptable” number of dead pixels, but it varies according to the class, size and resolution of the panel, the type of failure and a dead pixel’s position and proximity to others. Generally, manufacturers can get away with up to 11 dead pixels, but some are more generous.”

We have provided the link to the ISO site should anyone wish to purchase a copy of the standard. Excerpts from the ISO standard can be found on the Dell link below. The Notebooks that we sell are either manufactured by Clevo or Mitac whose toleration of defective pixels are 5 and 8 respectively as stated in our warranty card.

IBM:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-4U9P53

HP/Compaq : http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00041393

Acer :
http://support.acer-euro.com/documents/reports/displaylcd.pdf

SONY :
http://129.33.22.8/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBCGI.EXE/,/?St=179,E=0000000000452617678,K=1646,Sxi=1,Case=obj(221627),UseTemplate=Case.tem

DELL :
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/vectors/2004_pixels.pdf

PACKARD BELL :
http://support.packardbell-europe.com/support/pri/item/item_instr_troubleshooting_LCD.asp?c=cl

ISO Standard : http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=25670