How To Clean A Flat Screen Monitor?

I stick with the dry cloth supplied with the screen (not microfiber) for my glass screens. If there's something particularly nasty on it I might fog it up with my breath first, but no sprays or anything. Works so far so I see no need to risk anything else.

Don't use a microfiber towel. If the towel does pick up any grit, it will hold on to it and drag it across the screen.

The cloths in the Belkin kit look a little better.

NOT this

dont punch the screen, you'll bust up your hand and the tv,

I've always used water on a softcloth except my pc monitor actually has some pretty hard to scratch glass over the flat panel, on that i used paper towels and windex.

There's a good reason they say not to use Windex--it contains ammonia. If there is any sort of film or coating attached to the screen, the ammonia will eat it away. Even if there is no coating on the outside of the glass, if the ammonia manages to seep into the bottom of the TV, it can wick its way up the other side of the screen and attack the coating on the reverse, and then you get something like this:



Some Panasonic plasma TVs (and possibly others) have an anti-reflective coating on the outside of the glass. Spray it with Windex and it will look like this:



At which point you may as well keep spraying/polishing in order to completely remove the now-ruined anti-reflective coating and expose the bare glass.

That's why it is not wise to use Windex or any cleaner containing ammonia on a TV (or tinted windows, or any glass with a coating on it). So unless you're absolutely certain there is no coating on either side of your screen, it is a Very Bad Idea to use it! How dirty is your TV anyway??

I use a very soft cloth baby diaper mist it with distilled water and wipe. I bought a pack way back when CD first appeared work very good for both. I found my Panasonic Plasma rarely if ever get dirty on the screen on the back a whole nother story I vacuum the vents often.

I have been using an anti-static plexiglass cleaner which usually get it done while using an old t shirt. I have just last week been working on my shop Samsung 40 lcd and I cannot seem to get the smear from the screen as it seems to just move it around. I use a gas space heater in the shop and combined with other shop "stuff" the screen gets slimy. I may try some windex.

michael1947 wrote: »

Just googled CleanScreen and didn't find the product but ran upon an interesting article at "ASK".com, and they recommend distilled water and white vinegar, 50/50 ratio. I'll give that a try.

Here you go, try this http://www.wirelogic.us/products.html

proprietary polomers

Is that the code name for vinegar?

Best way to clean your screen.....buy a new one, they come out of the box nice and shiney.:cheesygrin:

I've been using Phillps solution and microfiber for years.

Works really well and no issues.



http://www.shopko.com/detail/philips-green-lcdplasma-screen-cleaner/22849?gclid=CJnllrPTurQCFQyk4AodLAUAsw

Swiffer, nothing else gets on my tv but a bit of dust.

Dang, I guess I sould stop using Windex!

Micro fiber cloth is good. That monster spray is sketchy. Ixos made great spray but they just went out of business. : (

Keep in mind that not all microfiber is the same. A flat microfiber cloth is OK, but not a tufted microfiber towel. Towels are great if you need to scrub or polish something, as all of those tufts give you more surface area per wipe and are great at holding on to dirt. But you don't want to scrub or polish a coating, and you don't want to grind any dirt those tufts are holding on to into your screen's coating.

A basic rule I go by is that if it feels at all grabby as you're wiping, don't use it. The cloth should glide as smoothly as possible over the surface. The tradeoff of course is that it may take more passes to clean since it's not scrubbing as effectively as a grabbier material, but what's more important, saving a few minutes wiping down your screen, or not damaging your screen?

Being a holdout from the era of CRTs (all of my PC monitors are still CRTs) and having learned firsthand the fragility of screen coatings, I do perhaps tend to be a bit more anal than most about how I clean my screens. A ruined coating = a ruined screen as far as I am concerned. If someone were to approach any of my screens with Windex--or any chemical cleaner, or a paper towel, or any sort of tufted towel, or anything made out of paper (tissues, toilet paper, etc.), or anything other than water and a smooth, lint-free cloth--I'd probably be arrested for murder. Decent CRTs in decent condition are rare and therefore very difficult to replace, so I treat them like I'm a curator at a CRT museum, and that habit has carried on to my other screens as well. I know if it's safe for a coated CRT, it's safe for any screen. But obviously others may have different approaches.

I would also like to say that while people will gladly sell you a screen-cleaning kit, don't think that you need to buy a screen-cleaning kit to clean your screen. Companies are all the time bundling stuff together and calling it some sort of kit and selling it at an insane markup, but rarely are they a good buy. It's great for marketing; not great for the consumer. A kit will usually have a bunch of stuff in it you will never need (in this case, the cleaning solution--just use water) and the stuff you do need (the cloth) will either be of questionable quality, or you will be able to buy separately for a lot less money.

Personally I never like to use the same cloth to clean a screen more than once, so spending $20 for a few ounces of unnecessary fluid and one 12" x 12" cloth is not a good buy, IMO. You can buy multi-packs of large microfiber cloths for a lot less than $20 on Amazon.