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Safely Cleaning LCD Displays?
An anonymous reader asks: "I own several laptops and one flat-panel LCD display, and I am trying to find a good way to keep them clean without damaging them. Using the alcohol-based cleaning wipes that I normally use for my CRT displays doesn't seem right, and I had an (idiot) friend who shorted out a great many of the transistors on his laptop's LCD by spraying Windex on it. What's the best way to clean these things without damaging them or creating buildup that I'll just have to clean off again separately?"
If you're really paranoid, use photographic lens cleaning pads. I'm thinking of a disposable sort sold by a company named "Pec-Pad," something similar to which should be available at any real camera store for not much money.
They soak up dust by themselves, dry. They're non-abrasive on any surface you're likely to care about cleaning. Photographers with multi-$k, delicately-coated lenses use them. And you toss them when you're finished with them.
And because photographic supplies are generally expensive, I use lens cleaning solution that's intended for eyewear. It's a generic thing, sold under the name of whatever department store I happen to be at when I realize that I need some, and usually found near the pharmacy. It's made specifically to not muck up the coatings and materials of optical eyewear, which are not dissimilar from those coatings and materials used in computer displays.
It also does a better job of removing nicotine haze than anything else I've used, ever - including Windex, Simple Green, isopropyl alcohol, an ammonia+water mix, and acetone. (I also use it on the inside of my car windows...)
Honestly, though, just avoid using paper towels. You wouldn't drag a rough-cut 2x4 across your LCD display, and so should not rub it with an even more abrasive towel made from wood. I usually use a soft cotton cloth from the kitchen. Things don't get scratched, and they're easy to wash.
The type of cleaning agent you use doesn't really matter. Most (not all!) displays use coatings which are made to withstand alcohol, ammonia, and all the other strange stuff found in Windex.
Spray a bit of cleaning stuff onto the cloth, and then proceed to clean the display with it. Don't bother spraying chemicals directly onto the screen, as it really doesn't take much soap/solvent to get rid of fingergrease.
Wipe the stuff all over the display, paying attention to the sides and corners, where dust will tend to be pushed by your actions. Use slight very slight pressure, as if you were washing a Rolls Royce.
Switch to a dry cloth (or a dry portion of the same cloth), and wipe until dry (or the rainbow patterns disappear). This prevents streaking from whatever residue might be left behind - and there will always be some.
And to the above twit who posted saying that the materials used in LCD displays are pourous, I hope you die. If the display were pourous, the LCD would evaporate long before any cleaning would be required, especially if the weather was warm, much as the pourous skin of the aforepictured former living thing has permitted much of her internal fluid to disappear into the atmosphere.
Kid-proof tablet..
How can this get a +4 when it's blatant 'magical thinking'? Semi-porous? Source, please?
What a load of BULL.
Edge transistors? What is that supposed to mean? There are transistors all over the panel. There are gate drivers and source drivers all around the panel. If you knew what these things actually looked like, you know, by taking apart a panel and looking, you'd realise they are hermetically sealed.
What a wanker you are. You are one of those people that makes up semi-plausible sounding explanations for stuff they don't understand, and then state it in an authoritative manner to try to impress/bullshit/bamboozle other people. (Seeing you got a +4, it works...)
You're a manager, right? There's no way you work in a real technical job. I've seen people like you at work. It's all in the tone of voice and delivery.
Of course, they get to keep their jobs, and I'm unemployed.
Feh.
(-1 dumb)
...
ok, i'll ditch all that old stuff.
"hey boss, this guy said i should ditch all this equipment! better do it! buy me 30 new monitors!"
now if i could just figure out how to back up my important files on the monitor