Extending LCD Display Life?

polymath69 asks: "I use a laptop as my primary home machine, and wish the display to last as long as possible. There are two main camps of opinion on how one ought to ensure this, each grounded on a seemingly logical point. Opinion One goes like this: An LCD's backlight is only going to emit photons for some number of hours, therefore shut it off when not in use to maximize life. Opinion Two counters: A backlight can only be turned on some number of times, therefore leave it on to maximize life. The conclusions in each camp are diametrically opposed. So what is the truth? And how do you make a choice when two seemingly irrefutable arguments are in disagreement? Both these truths start from the same given: that eventually, the LCD will fail. But looking at that given from two points of view leads to contradictory answers. Now, one of these arguments has got to prevail. But which is it, and why?"

Comments

Make a reasonable compromise

[Matt_Bennett]

You have another concern, as detailed in this PDF. Backlight lifetime is going to go down as you increase the brightness. From a brief google search, backlight lifetimes run from 20,000 to 50,000 hours, with intensity decreasing with time, and end-of-life determined as 50% brightness of new. You may declare it too dim far before that time, but even then 20,000 hours is 2500 8 hour days, or almost seven years at 8 hours a day.

That gives you some options:

1. Don't run the backlight at 100% intensity- try to reduce the lighting in the areas where you are using the laptop. This saves batteries too.

2. Turn off the backlight after something like .5 to 1 hour of non-use of the system.

3. If you must leave the monitor on to be able to check things at a glance, reduce the intensity as much as possible.

Also, just for the general lifetime of your laptop, use the power-down/suspend power saving features- laptops are dense little packages of electronics- which generate a lot of heat, but don't dissipate it well. Heat kills electronics and batteries, try to keep the heat down, and you will greatly improve the lifetime of the whole laptop, not just the screen. If you're not using it, and the laptop is warm, you're wasting power and laptop lifetime.