My monitor is being plagued by strange discoloration at the very top of the screen. Its a Samsung syncmaster 171N LCD.

Does anybody recognize this problem/know anything I can do to fix/improve it?

Buying a new monitor is out of the question, so I'd least like to know what is going on here. The problem can best be described as a blotchy lighter area at the top of the screen. The size varies, somedays it will be an inch or more down the screen, today its only about a quarter inch. Thanks for any help, please see the attached images.

By the way, the area of discoloration has a very distinct edge, so its not backlight bleeding. Its almost as if a liquid got in at the top there and is seeping down. Also, this is a recent problem, it did't used to have this.

And one more thing that might help you diagnose: This area is prone to retaining images after they are gone. This only occurs in the discoloured area. For example, If I am browsing the web for several hours and then decide to play counter-strike, I can still see "shadows" of the text from the Firefox titlebar lingering at the top of the screen for quite some time while Im in the game.

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It looks like a degaussing problem, do you have a speaker near the monitor?

It looks like a degaussing problem, do you have a speaker near the monitor?

Thanks for the reply, its an LCD though. Degaussing deals with the magnetic fields in CRTs, and LCDs have no such fields.

At any rate, there's a month left on the warranty and Samsung has agreed to RMA it, so its all good.

Yeah...I did miss the obvious there. You are right, degaussing would only apply to a CRT type monitor.

I'm glad to hear that it is still under warranty, it does sound lie the problem is with the monitor. Let us know how the new one works out.

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