Dead vs Stuck vs Hot Pixels: How to Tell Them Apart

Not every bad pixel is the same. Telling them apart decides whether you can fix it or need a warranty claim.

Before you diagnose anything, clean the screen and view it at full brightness in a dim room. Plenty of reported "dead pixels" turn out to be dust. Then run full-screen solid colors from the Dead Pixel Test and get close enough to resolve an individual pixel — roughly a hand's span from the glass on a phone, arm's length on a TV.

Dead pixel

Receives no power, so it's always black on every color. Run the Color Test — if a dot stays black on white, red, green, and blue, it's dead. Dead pixels are rarely fixable in software.

The fault is electrical. On an LCD the pixel's thin-film transistor no longer switches, so that cell stays in its light-blocking state. On an OLED the emitter itself has stopped lighting. Nothing you run on the computer changes either situation, because the pixel never acts on the signal it's sent. A dead pixel is clearest as a black speck on a plain white field.

Stuck pixel

A sub-pixel is locked on, so the pixel shows a fixed color (red, green, blue, or a mix). It stands out most on a contrasting background. Stuck pixels can often be revived.

Each pixel on a typical LCD is three sub-pixels — one red, one green, one blue. Which sub-pixels are misbehaving decides what you see:

• One sub-pixel stuck on → a pure red, green or blue dot.
• Two stuck on → a yellow, cyan or magenta dot.
• One sub-pixel stuck off → the pixel looks tinted on white but normal on black. A failed red sub-pixel reads cyan, a failed green reads magenta, a failed blue reads yellow.

That last case is the one people misidentify most often. A dot that only misbehaves on bright content is a sub-pixel fault, not a dead pixel, and it is worth reporting separately because some warranty policies count it differently.

Hot (bright) pixel

A pixel stuck fully on — it glows white or bright against a Black Screen. Like stuck pixels, sometimes recoverable.

All three sub-pixels are passing light at once. A hot pixel is far more obvious on OLED than on LCD, because the field around it is genuinely black rather than dark grey, so there is no backlight haze to hide in.

Quick identification

Flip between a pure black field and a pure white field and note where the dot shows up:

• Dead — a black dot. Invisible on black, clearly visible on white.
• Stuck — a colored dot. Clearly visible on black, often invisible on white.
• Hot — a bright white dot. Clearly visible on black, invisible on white.
• Sub-pixel stuck off — a faintly tinted dot. Invisible on black, visible on white as a color cast over that one pixel.

The short version: black on all colors → dead. One constant color → stuck. Bright white on black → hot. Anything that changes as you move your head is not a pixel fault at all.

Things that look like pixel faults but aren't

• Dust on the surface. It moves or disappears when wiped. Use the method in how to clean your monitor or laptop screen safely rather than pressing on the panel — pressure creates real faults.
• Debris trapped under the glass. An irregular, fuzzy-edged speck that doesn't align to the pixel grid. Cosmetic, and usually a return-policy matter rather than a pixel-policy one.
• A patch rather than a dot. Anything soft-edged and larger than a few pixels is pressure damage or a backlight problem — see why your screen has a dark spot.
• A full line. An entire row or column permanently lit or dark is a driver or ribbon-connection failure, not a pixel defect. It almost always qualifies for service regardless of pixel policy.

What is actually fixable

Stuck and hot pixels sometimes recover, because the sub-pixel is sitting in the wrong state rather than being electrically dead. Rapid color cycling and careful, gentle massage both work occasionally — the methods are in the stuck pixel guide. Give it one or two sessions of 20 to 30 minutes. If there is no change at all after that, more time will not help.

Dead pixels do not come back. Skip the fixes entirely and go straight to your warranty position.

When to claim

Manufacturers judge faults against a pixel policy, usually derived from the ISO 9241-307 fault classes. Class II — the class consumer monitors and laptops are typically sold under — allows a small number of faults per million pixels, and a 2560×1440 panel holds roughly 3.7 million pixels. One isolated dark pixel therefore often falls inside the allowance. Bright pixels are typically counted more strictly than dark ones, and a cluster of faults close together counts against the manufacturer far more than the same number scattered across the screen.

Two things beat the pixel policy. The retailer's return window usually doesn't care why you're unhappy, and premium models are sometimes sold with an explicit zero-bright-dot or perfect-panel guarantee. Check both before accepting a refusal — the details are in dead pixel warranty policies, and if you want to know how the fault appeared at all, see what causes dead pixels.

Photograph and count every fault today, while the return window is still open.