Thin vertical line on LCD tv - Page 2

I have the exact same verticle line in my Magnavox 42" 1080P LCD HDTV - 42MF438B. Ironic how most of you said you're tv's were 42"s. Different brands, same pannel supplier maybe? Anyways they're coming to look at it tomorrow but all I can say is it's definately not power.

Ok, 1 Month has passed, I mailed the SC , They do not know when they will recieve the panel, so they don´t know when i might get my set back.. must be a very common problem if they are having a hard time getting a panel-replacement.. =o(

There is apparently a possible fix for this that I have read elsewhere. If you hook the LCD up to your computer/laptop via a VGA cable and set it so that a pure white image appears on the screen for an hour or so it will re-adjust the pixels and get rid of the faint black line. I have a 37" sharp Aquos TV that I just picked up and it exhibits this faint black vertical line down the center of the tv so I will give this a go.

keep everyone posted here if this works+

Will do! I just realized that my TV doesn't have a VGA input so I'm going to use the DVI input instead. Unfortunately to do this I have to get my laptop's port replicator from my office so I won't be able to do it until tonight. Hopefully the DVI input will yield the same results. I only recently picked up this tv so I'm still learning its ins and outs.

I bought a Sharp Aquos about two years ago from Costco. I love the TV, but I'm having the same problem with the vertical faint line down the middle of the screen. Has anyone found any solutions for the problem and what can be done to fix the veritical line. Please let me know.

Well I tried the white screen fix and it didn't work for me. It could have been that I was using a DVI connector instead of a VGA connector (my Aquos doesn't have a VGA connector) or it could have been that I only allowed it to sit for about 30 minutes. A more conclusive test would be to use a VGA connector and a true white screen for an hour or more.

I unplugged my tv for the wall outlet and leaving it that way for about 8 hours to see if that faint black line goes away.

Okay, I have this 2 year old Westinghouse LVM-42W2 and for the past year and half or so there's been this line down the center. It started off as just a single pixel line which was barely noticeable and now it's grown (but only one side???) into the monster you see today.

Unique things:
- It's not visible on a white screen. It gets more visible as the screen gets darker, until you get to black in which case it's not visible again.
- It's in the exact center of the screen. If you look at it, you'll see that the right side is straight line from top to bottom whereas the left side is wavy and whatnot.

It looks almost like it's 2 panels stuck together and the glue on one side is coming off or something. Somehow it's effecting the backlighting though since if it's bright, even on colors, it's not visible.

Look at the bright blue and dark blue pics for an example.

Bright White:

Dark Grey:


Bright Blue:

Dark Blue:


The upside is that it works perfectly fine as a PC monitor since that's mostly white but it's getting pretty obnoxious during movies, so I'm going to change it out as soon as I decide on a new TV.

(BTW don't let the colors fool you, the camera was adjusting the ISO on the fly, so there really is a major difference between the two blues despite appearances.)

Anyone know if this is fixable by a technician?

I am almost shocked at how common this problem is!. I bought a 42" magnavox from costco about THIRTEEN MONTHS AGO. Guess how long my warranty is! This thin line began just a couple of weeks ago and seems to be getting worse. My first thought was this was a point where the inner screen may have been joined. But that seems just too cheap to believe. I will keep looking for repair options. Any tips will be appreciated!

Hi, same issue here, Sharp Aquos 42" 1080p about a year and a half-2 years old.

You can only see the line when the image is dark, I stumbled over this thread looking for, well this It seems there's alot of it about.

Panel change... You have to get your panel replaced, nothing else to do bout it, Contact reseller and get it replace´d.

This is why I have 3 lcd tv's all with 3 year warranties. because I know that something like this will eventually happen and I will not have to spend a cent on fixing it.

I am having this same issue with my 42" Sharp Aquos that is about 2 years old. The line isn't always visible, depends on the screen color. And when you see it, it looks almost like a full spread picture on two pages of a magazine...
I have an extended warranty on it and had the repair people come out to look at it last week. He told me it was a bad control board and had to order the part. I am expecting them back in the next week or so. We'll see what happens...

Wow, so this appears to be a common issue across many brands from two years ago. I have a Toshiba (I'm on my third one) from the 2006 model year. There's long thread on this issue on the Tosh's. Search for "The OFFICIAL Toshiba REGZA 'Ghost Bar' Thread " and also under "The OFFICIAL 2006 Toshiba REGZA LCD HDTV Thread", and read up there. Here's some pics I took of my set. In the Toshiba sets, this issue first starts with a dark line just to the right of the 4:3 outline. Then a light colored line on the left side of the left most 4:3 outline. Then finally, it appears as a dard line very center of the screen. And like everyone else, it's most noticable on grayesh backgrounds, and during paning of the camera. Anyway, here's some pics I took: http://picasaweb.google.com/glennstr...ibaLCDProblem#

I'm getting ready to call Toshiba again. I love the picture otherwise. The colors are just spot on. Flesh tones look so natural. Not much motion blur, and the options on this set (42lz196) are great. It was a top of the line model in 2006. If so many manufacturers used the same panels, then no wonder they can never get replacement parts. Besides, what's the chances that the replacement parts have had the original obvious design flaw fixed?

an update...
the tech was out this past Friday to repair the TV. Unfortunately they sent him the wrong board, which we didn't find out until the TV was completely taken apart! Now I (we) have to wait for the correct board to come in and schedule another visit. The tech tried to get them to just replace the entire set, but the warranty people want to repair it first... We'll see how it goes...

Glad I found this. Nice to know I'm not alone. My first (and LAST) Westinghouse purchase is my new TX-42F43os. The first one arrived DOA. Well, it turned on fine and I watched it for an hour or two, turned it off, and it never came back on again. So I returned it for a replacement. This one had the line out of the box. At first I thought it was just from the old DVD player I plugged into it. Here's the deal: when I'm using coax or HDMI inputs I can't see it. But when I'm watching anything using the RCA input (dvd player, cable box) or composite video (Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii), there is that thin grey line going down the exact center, only a few pixels thick, barely visible against light colors (but still there if I get close and look).

Just e-mailed Westinghouse about the problem. I purchased it online, and had to actually pay for the replacement and wait for a refund on the returned unit. Got the refund, except that they didn't refund shipping as I was told they would. Can't afford to keep sending these back waiting to get one that works right upon arrival. Very annoyed.

My Westinghouse 32" SK-32H590D that I bought in June 2007 has this same 2-pixel wide black line (and shadow for about a half inch of pixels next to it) down the right 4:3 border edge. I use this TV nearly exclusively for 4:3 SD viewing. I also had one pixel go red a few months after buying it but didn't try to warranty it for something so minor that I couldn't notice from my normal viewing distance. I guess it was cheap for a reason; it was a piece of junk. Remind me not to use my Discover Card for electronics purchases since they don't have the free extended warranty that I have with my other cards.

I would love to hear any updates from people who have had this problem. What was the final solution? Was it really a control board? did they replace the panel, or a replacement set? It seems to be a fairly common problem. Is there a fix to this?

I had a 3yr extended warranty and finally called for service, expecting someone out within the next week, curious what they say.

I had posted about this in another thread and forgot to update here as well...

The Tech finally got the correct board in and they came out to install it and all it did was change when the line was visible! Basically with my set it depended on the screen color as to when and how visible the line was. It did help slightly but the wife and I could both still see the line and that's all we saw, we knew it was there and just kept looking for/at it!
We called for service yet again and Sears(where the warranty was from) agreed to replace the set and gave us a credit to go to a Sears store and get what ever TV we wanted. I ended up getting a Samsung 46" A630 and really love the picture, it blows the Sharp away. I think alot has to do with the newer technology of a 3 year newer TV...

here is a link to the other post about this: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=995207

Thinking this problem is only on the non-big-name vendors is incorrect. My 40" SHARP Aquos has the same exact problem. I have a faint black vertical line dead-nuts center of the screen, which is glaringly visible when there is mostly black and grays in the center of the screen (not so bad when there are more vibrant colors, almost unnoticeable for the most part)...their customer service department has also dodged service requests for this problem. I left no fewer than 10 voice-mails and sent 5 e-mails that have also gone unanswered. I first started reporting the problem while it was under warranty, which has since expired. Now I am stuck with it and I am more than a little miffed over it...

On my set they replaced the panel.-.. Has been working just fine til about 1 week ago when a new line appeared in the exact spame spot. though much thinner.. so i´ll just ignore it and see if it gets worse. if it does or my warranty is about to expire i´ll call them and replace it again. (Mirai 42" DTL-742E600)

Got my set back from "Germany" where they "Repaired" it for a month... got the set back and plugged it in , and then found out the dark vertical line was still there, inside the package there was a note saying: Dear Valued customer, The failure you´ve specified is not covered under warranty.
The symptom is called Screen Burn In (On the main page of Mirai they say the set is safe from burn ins) And then they tell me not to keep the set on for more than 2 hrs at a time to avoid problems like these.

Set still broken , The service company (Digitest.de) is incompetent and i now hate my Mirad 42" set to pieces... I Fu#¤%¤g hate whan i am f%¤&#¤g right and the service company people just look at the set and does nothing I feel like an Idiot. I sould naver have turned the TV on guess noone should since if you watch the Tv for more than 2 hours it might get a burn-in failure.. ... Last time i had the panel replaced and it worked for a few months, must be that crappy motherf#¤%&#g MIRAI.. Do not buy Mirai .. (I am freaking out over here..sorry)

I will not edit or remove this text until i get my TV up and working again.

Yeah, created two threads about this. My Sony W400A(same as 4100, European version) also have this problem. Now, it is more visible under the conditions posters in the thread have stated so I will no longer re-iterate.

Funny that the proposed precaution (not to leave the TV for 2 hours) really defeats the purpose of the TV. (Should I pause my Blu Ray movie then when it reaches 2 hours?) Expensive and big TVs like these should not have limitations such as 2 hours per session. Really laughable.

Mine didn't bother me at first... It only shows up on ALL GREEN parts but eventually crawled its way in some scenes. Mine's worse because it has TWO on the right side of the screen, really distracting at times.

Will try unplugging it for one whole day but that may be a problem, seeing as how we have "shifting" in using the TV. (I use it after work, my brother uses it when I'm at work).

those banding lines are not caused by "burn-in" its a defective screen/backlight assembly

they are giving you the run around because they don't want to fix it

screen should not look like that ever. my Sony 32xbr6 has zero banding lines like this i use it as a PC monitor and it has been on for many many hours at a time in this use I just checked it against various dark grey images and see nothing of this sort, nor have i ever seen a PC LCD do this after many years of use (I own or have owned 4 over the past 6 years)

Here are a few outtakes from the A4 Paper-copy !! they sent back with the Tv-set along with a few comments of my own..hopefully you will spot which is which;

Q"Dear valued customer, The failure you´ve specified is not covered under warranty. This symptom is called Screen Burn In."

(All i did was to mark the vertical line error on the company´s webpage and write a story of the previous service which noone must have read since i wrote it in swedish though i Klicked on the Swedish servicelink that i thought led strainght to a swedish rapair-company in Sweden (Where i live b.t.w), the day the transport company called me up they said they would pick the set up and they told me to mark it with a german adress cause it was going to Germany (Landau) for some reason)

Q"In General, you should avoid keeping a static picture (that is , a picture that contains no or few moving elements) or a picture with static elements(Black bars,borders,logos etc) on your LCD TV for more than two hours at a time"

(Ok, i might have been watching a movie for more than two hours a few times..thought everyone did that.. but fact is I am one of those that "Zapps"-around in commercials..so .Just imagine the massive problems the retailers must have.. they keep their sets on display and swithced on the whole day almost year around.. they must replace them every 2-4 days...)

Q:"If you are watching your LCD TV for an extended period of time, and you have balck bars, blach borders, etc on the screen, it is a good idea to change the size of the picture occasionally if you can. To change the screen size, press the aspect button on the remote control."

(Yeah?,sorry , did you just repeat yourself or are you trying to fill the white A4 papercopy.
Well i might just buy meself a 29" Sony triniton from 1994 like the one i had before i bought the 42" LCD From MIRAI and it wasn´t even broken after 14 years of constant flawless service under my command.(I´ve had the 42" since December 2007 and this is the second service repair without a pleasing result)

Q:"The fixed pattern causes a parasitic capacitance build up within the LCD component, which prevents the liquid crystal molecules from returning to their normal relaxed state. All LCDs/CRTs and color plasma displays are susceptible to image retention, at varying degrees. Phosphor based display devices, such as CRTs and color plasma displays are most susceptible and devices such as LCDs are less Susceptible, but the problem also occurs at this technology."

Are we still back in the 90´s? ... If there still is such a major problem with burn ins..why the hell do they sell the sets? I have friends that has had Plasma sets for a few years without problems... and yes! we have watched movies and played games for more than 2 hrs on them... still no burn in.... and why is there no warranty for this.???? Not even on the computer monitor we had for our first PC in the 1980´s or the ABC80 had burn ins... ... So thechnology goes forth? not in all places...

Amen kotterance... Many people have this problem but what bothers me is if it was defective in the first place, why did it appear over time? Maybe I just don't notice it, and right now I try to focus to the lines which is a hard thing to do since the freaking lines are near center!

Our hobby is indeed expensive (not to mention stressing, constantly checking for clouding and stuff like that) and it's funny that we are spending thousands of dollars for products that are 50/50 in terms of being problem-free. All brands are guilty of this, quite frankly, I don't see myself buying another TV for some 4 years anyway.

I'm not technician, and I could have told you that replacing any "board" on that tv was going to fix nothing. This is a problem with the blacklight/LCD panel, and there is no way to "repair" it other than to replace the backlight/LCD panel.

I knew that as well, but since it was all covered under warranty we had to go that route first...
The TV still works OK otherwise and someone else is watching it now and they never complain about the line...

Like what was mentioned on that forum we should all start a class action suit against worthless Toshiba on this issue. It's only going to get worse as pretty soon you will have at least 7 horizontal streaks as well where the bulbs are in.