Stuck pixel fixer
Drag the flashing square over the bright dot and let it run. Also called a dead pixel fix or pixel repair tool. Most stuck pixels respond within 10 to 30 minutes; stubborn ones can take an hour.
Drag the square over the stuck pixel
This tool flashes rapidly. Do not use it if you have epilepsy or are sensitive to flashing light. Look away from the square while it runs and take a break every 20 minutes.
The repair routine
Order matters. Running the fixer on a genuinely dead pixel wastes an hour of your time.
Confirm it is stuck
Run the dead pixel test on black. A bright dot is a candidate. A black dot on white is usually dead.
Place the square
Drag the fixer until the crosshair sits exactly over the dot. Resize so the dot is well inside the flashing area.
Pick a pattern
Noise is the default and the most effective. Try RGB strobe for a single bright sub-pixel.
Run for 10 to 30 minutes
Keep the screen awake and the tab visible. Do not stare at the flashing area — leave it running and come back.
Check and repeat
Exit, run the black test again. If nothing changed after an hour, the pixel is probably dead.
What the fixer is doing
The square changes the color of every pixel inside it many times per second. On an LCD, that means the liquid crystal in the faulty sub-pixel is being driven through its full range instead of sitting in one state. On a stuck pixel, that exercise can break the lock. On a dead pixel there is no power to the cell, so there is nothing to exercise.
Improve the odds
- Run it longer than you think you need to. Twenty minutes is a minimum, not a guarantee.
- Try more than one pattern. Noise, strobe and sweep stress the cell in different ways.
- Keep the laptop plugged in and disable sleep, or the browser will pause the animation.
- Warm panels respond slightly better. A screen that has been on for 30 minutes is a better candidate.
- If the pixel returns days later, run the protocol again. Recurrence is common on older panels.
Not sure it is stuck?
Run the flat-color test first. It takes a minute and tells you whether repair is worth the wait.