You're staring at a tiny dot on your screen that won't go away. Before you panic or start a return, you need to know which kind of pixel you're dealing with. That one detail decides whether you'll fix it in five minutes or live with it for the life of the monitor.
Quick way to tell them apart: a stuck pixel glows in a single solid color (red, green, blue, white, or cyan). A dead pixel stays black no matter what's on screen. Stuck pixels are the recoverable ones. Dead pixels usually aren't.
Cause 1: Stuck sub-pixel (most common) — the transistor is locked on
This is what 9 out of 10 people are actually looking at when they say "dead pixel." One of the three sub-pixels (red, green, or blue) inside a pixel gets stuck in the on position. You see a bright colored dot — often green or red — that survives every screen change.
Why does it happen? A tiny transistor that controls one sub-pixel stops receiving voltage updates. It latches on. This shows up most often on brand new monitors right out of the box, or on panels that sat in a warehouse for months without ever being powered on. I've seen it hit a batch of Dell U2419H units in 2020 that had been in storage for eight months — every one of them had a green dot in the upper right quadrant after first boot.
The real fix is pressure and rapid color cycling. You're trying to force that transistor to release. Two methods work, and you can try both in the same session.
Method A: JScreenFix (software, free, safe)
- Go to jscreenfix.com in any browser.
- Click "Launch JScreenFix." A black window opens with a rapidly flickering noise pattern.
- Drag that black window directly over the stuck pixel. You want the flickering area covering the dot.
- Leave it running for 10 minutes. Don't move the window.
- After 10 minutes, close it and check. If the pixel is still stuck, run it again for another 10. Most stuck pixels that respond do so within 20 to 30 minutes total.
If you don't see any change after 20 minutes, that sub-pixel isn't stuck — it's dead. Move on to the pressure method anyway just to be sure.
Method B: The pressure method (the one that actually works most often)
You'll need a soft cloth (a microfiber eyeglass cloth is perfect) and something with a rounded tip — the eraser end of a pencil, a capped pen, or the back of a marker. Never use anything sharp.
- Turn the monitor off.
- Fold the cloth so you have a soft pad over the stuck pixel.
- Press firmly on the pixel through the cloth with the rounded tip. Firm, not crushing. You want to feel the panel give slightly, not flex.
- Hold for 10 seconds. Don't twist or rub — just steady pressure.
- While still holding, turn the monitor back on.
- Release the pressure after another 5 seconds.
- Cycle the display off and on a few times and check the pixel.
If it's still there, repeat the whole thing 5 to 10 times. It sounds silly. It works more often than any software tool I've tested. I've brought back thousands of stuck pixels this way over 15 years.
Warning: On OLED panels, don't do this. You can cause permanent burn-in or crack the panel. Pressure method is for LCD, LED-backlit LCD, IPS, TN, and VA panels only.
Cause 2: Genuinely dead pixel (second most common) — the transistor failed open
This is the black dot. The transistor controlling that pixel has failed or the liquid crystal itself has stopped responding. There's no signal going to it, so it renders as black. On an LCD, a dead pixel looks like a tiny black square that never changes. On an OLED, a dead pixel often looks like a tiny black dot too — same visual result, different underlying cause.
Dead pixels are not fixable at home. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either selling something or repeating something they read. The transistor is physically damaged or the crystal is degraded. No software, no pressure, no heat, no trick will bring it back.
What you can do instead is check your warranty. Most manufacturers follow the ISO 9241-307 standard, which classifies pixel defects by type and quantity. Here's the short version:
| Defect type | What it looks like | Typical Class II limit |
|---|---|---|
| Type 1 (stuck bright) | Always-on white/colored pixel | 2 defects allowed |
| Type 2 (dead black) | Always-black pixel | 2 defects allowed |
| Type 3 (stuck sub-pixel) | Red, green, or blue dot | 5 defects allowed |
Dell, LG, Samsung, and ASUS all use a Class II threshold like this on consumer monitors. That means one or two dead pixels won't qualify for a replacement under most warranties. It's annoying, but it's the standard. If you're inside your return window with the retailer — Costco, Amazon, Best Buy — return it. Retail return policies don't care about ISO standards. They just take the monitor back.
Some manufacturers do offer a "zero bright dot" policy on premium models. Check your specific model's warranty PDF. It's usually on the same page as the pixel policy statement.
Cause 3: Sub-pixel stuck partway or intermittent (third most common)
You've got a pixel that's not fully stuck and not fully dead. It shows up sometimes, disappears when you change the image, comes back after a minute. Or it's a very dim color — like a faint red you can only see against a black background. This is a sub-pixel that's failing, not failed.
Common triggers: heat. The monitor's been running for hours, the panel gets warm, and a marginal sub-pixel starts misbehaving. Turn the monitor off, let it cool for 30 minutes, turn it back on and see if the dot is still there. If it disappears when cold and comes back when hot, that sub-pixel is on its way out.
The fix that helps most here is a full pixel-refresh cycle, which some monitors have built in. It's usually in the OSD menu under something like "Pixel Refresh," "Panel Refresh," or "Screen Refresh." On LG OLEDs, it's under Settings > OLED Care > Pixel Cleaning. Run it once. It takes 10 to 60 minutes depending on the model.
If your monitor doesn't have that, run JScreenFix for 30 minutes over the affected area. It won't fix a truly failing sub-pixel permanently, but I've had several cases where it stabilized the pixel for months. If the dot keeps returning after heat cycles, that pixel is going to be dead within a year. Plan your replacement accordingly.
Quick reference: which fix for which pixel
| Symptom | Pixel type | Best fix | Success rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solid red, green, or blue dot that never changes | Stuck sub-pixel | Pressure method, then JScreenFix | High (~70%) |
| Solid white dot always on | Stuck full pixel | Pressure method, then JScreenFix | High (~60%) |
| Black dot that never changes | Dead pixel | Nothing. Check warranty or return. | None |
| Faint colored dot, sometimes disappears | Failing sub-pixel | Built-in pixel refresh, cool-down test | Medium (temporary) |
| Dot only visible against black | Stuck sub-pixel, low intensity | JScreenFix 20-30 min | Medium |
One last thing: if you're about to buy a used monitor, run a dead pixel test before you hand over cash. EIZO's free MonitorTest, or any solid-color-fullscreen tool, takes 30 seconds. Red, green, blue, white, black — cycle through each and scan the screen. Finding a bad pixel after you paid is a much worse day than finding it before.