Thinkpads Forum

The first thing I saw when I fired up my daughters brand new T61 last night was a bright green pixel stuck right above the task bar in the lower right hand quadrant of the screen.

It was doubly annoying since this was her grad present (from me) and I had twisted her arm to get a Thinkpad rather that a "cute pink Dell".

After fumbling through a scenario that was like the Peter Sellers movie "The Party" I hung up and re-dialed to get Will from Atlanta C.S...who give me the company line about the number of dead pixels Lenovo thinks is acceptable. I requested an acceleration and was told a decision would be made and communicated to me today(06/03).

I tried all the tricks,,massaging, rubbing, software...no go..

Any hints/ammo I could use to persuade the CSR to replace the LCD? My last resort would be to return the unit.

While I very much regret to hear about your misfortune then according to official Lenovo policy about Display (LCD) replacement for defective pixels - ThinkPad your chances to get "free" replacement from CSR/Lenovo seems to be non-existent...

Return the laptop, hope for better luck with the next unit? Aaargh how truly frustrating!!

Best of luck with finding a satisfactory solution for both you and your daughter.

Johan

a single stuck pixel might ago away after some time. You wont get Lenovo to replace it though because of 1 dead pixel. You can even go on youtube and get some of those flashing videos with alternating colors (RGB) to fix it.

There are programs that generate a smaller field where you can put it right under the stuck pixel and work it. Sometimes you need to do it this for hours, not just 2 mins.

Your daughter should be happy she has a thinkpad instead of a cute pink Dell. IF she wants i'll get her a Dell and she can give me the "ugly Thinkpad" LOL. (my girlfriend says the samething)

Human eyes are most sensitive to green color. OEM specification (not to the consumer) often have tighter bright green specifications, especially in the middle of the screen. Look carefully to see if you have only 1 bright pixel or multiple pixels clustered together.

Try calling anyway and see if they will replace it.

Unfortunately I've learnt never to recommend Thinkpads (or any other brand) to anyone except my closest quality-minded computer-literate friends for precisely this kind of reason.

It's a crying shame really. If my brand new car had a chip in the paintwork and the car dealer said they won't fix it unless there's three or more chips... well I'd be livid.

I bet they don't make excuses like this of LCD televisions... do they?

Sorry to hear your situation.

T7TrainingSystems wrote:Unfortunately I've learnt never to recommend Thinkpads (or any other brand) to anyone except my closest quality-minded computer-literate friends for precisely this kind of reason.

It's a crying shame really. If my brand new car had a chip in the paintwork and the car dealer said they won't fix it unless there's three or more chips... well I'd be livid.

I bet they don't make excuses like this of LCD televisions... do they?

Sorry to hear your situation.

the only reason it doesn't apply to LCD TVs is cuz you don't buy it from the manufacturer. You get it from Circuit City or Best buy and you can return it even if it's 100% working. All manufacturers have a dead/stuck pixel policy. It's usually more than 5 for most places some as high as at least 15. I'm sure if you had say 3-4 though Lenovo would take it back. The color as was said before also makes a difference and it's location.

Well, looks like that I have the same issue with my screen. Just less than 48 hrs old, my screen already produced 3 dead pixels.

Looks like that I'm almost half way there from getting a replacement for my screen.

But the good thing is that, everytime I reboot, the dead pixels went away.

It is so sad from my point of view that the present Thinkpads are not build like my older IBM Thinkpad such as my T41 or even my R60. It had no dead pixels until today.

Likewise I went through the same thing..

The one method that I did find that helped me out was the tapping method.. I would take a piece of paper and tap on the pixel with the eraser end of a pencil.

What I did notice without jinxing my machine is that the more that you can the pixel to say on the better is.. I haven't had to "tap" it in a long time.

Also the tapping method of being so particular with the paper and pencil turned into flicking it with my finger.

Try this:

http://killdeadpixel.com/

I had a dead red pixel. I tried everything. That was just a few weeks after I recieved my thinkpad. Now that it's been a couple months I looked for it again. And it's gone! I really don't know why.

Maybe yours will go away on it's own??

GIFF wrote:I had a dead red pixel. I tried everything. That was just a few weeks after I recieved my thinkpad. Now that it's been a couple months I looked for it again. And it's gone! I really don't know why.

Maybe yours will go away on it's own??

Mine good after reboot, and then it "may" appear on different location.

But as far as I know, I thought once it is labeled dead pixel, it should stay there forever.

carves wrote:Mine good after reboot, and then it "may" appear on different location.

But as far as I know, I thought once it is labeled dead pixel, it should stay there forever.

That sounds more like the UltraNav bug than a dead pixel.

nonny wrote:

carves wrote:Mine good after reboot, and then it "may" appear on different location.

But as far as I know, I thought once it is labeled dead pixel, it should stay there forever.

That sounds more like the UltraNav bug than a dead pixel.

My apology for my ignorance Nonny, but isn't that kinna silly ? I mean, how can an UltraNav issue can create temporary dead pixels ?

Press the middle ultranav button (just above the touchpad) and see if the dead/lit pixel disappears. If it does, it's a known problem. If you disable Trackpad scrolling it will not show up at all. I have not seen a permanent fix for this issue.

Harryc wrote:Press the middle ultranav button (just above the touchpad) and see if the dead/lit pixel disappears. If it does, it's a known problem. If you disable Trackpad scrolling it will not show up at all. I have not seen a permanent fix for this issue.

You know what ? It does. The supposed tobe "dead pixel" is gone. I have also disable trackpad scrolling.

Thanks Harry.

There is actually a dead-pixel "policy". The higher the resolution, the more dead pixel the consumer is supposed to "allow". For example, on a UXGA screen, there can be up to 11 dead pixels. Ugh!

I hear you on your frustrations. I hate having even ONE tiny dead pixel. So far I've lucked out pretty much with my present and past Thinkpads. However, IBM had always ignored that "policy" and swapped screens at no cost! Under Lenovo, I don't know what their policy entails regarding this issue. I think they'd be a bit more frugal with replacing screens for a few dead pixels here and there. I would definitely call and try, and maybe make a bigger deal out of it than it even is to you. Good luck!

Friends:

In relation to the above, although some of you may perhaps already have seen this VERY GOOD NEWS about a significantly improved Lenovo "dead pixel warranty", go check the thread: Great new pixel policy and a few other changes, too. WOW!!!

Johan