OLED Burn-In: Detect and Prevent
One kind of ghost fades on its own. The other does not. Here is how to tell which you have, and what the makers themselves say about keeping it from happening.
Check by filling the screen with plain fields and looking for a shape left over from what was on screen before. If it fades after normal use, it was image retention; if it stays, it is burn-in. Prevention is mostly built in: Samsung says Pixel Shift is on by default and Screen Optimization runs automatically after four hours or more of cumulative screen time, and ASUS recommends pixel cleaning every four hours of daily use. No web page can repair a burned-in panel, including this one.
An OLED makes its own light, one pixel at a time, which is why its black is so convincing. It is also why it can keep a souvenir of whatever you left on screen: a pixel driven hard for hundreds of hours dims slightly, and the shape of what it was showing stays behind.
Retention or burn-in?
Samsung’s support page defines burn-in as “when a static image becomes a permanent fixture on your screen, regardless of the content being displayed,” and treats image retention as the same phenomenon.
The practical difference is time, not vocabulary.
Image retention
A faint ghost of something recent. It fades on its own with ordinary, changing content, or after the panel runs its own refresh routine. Nothing is permanently different about the pixels.
Burn-in
The same shape, still there after the ghost has had every chance to clear and the maker's routine has run. Those pixels have aged differently from their neighbors, and that does not reverse.
Checking your own panel
- 1
Use the screen normally first, then open the OLED Burn-In Test full screen. It steps through gray, white, red, green and blue when you ask it to, and nothing moves on its own.
- 2
Start with mid gray. Uneven aging shows up most clearly on a flat mid-tone, which is why the tool opens there rather than on white.
- 3
Look for shapes, not specks. A taskbar band along the bottom, a rectangle where a game's heads-up display sat, a bright logo outline. A single dot is a pixel fault, not burn-in — the Dead Pixel Test is the tool for that.
- 4
Step through the colors. Retention often shows on one color far more than the others, because the subpixels age at different rates.
- 5
Come back tomorrow. This is the step that answers the question. Let the panel run its own routine, use it normally for a day, and check the same fields again. A ghost that has gone was retention.
The test that tells retention from burn-in is not a pattern. It is a day.
What the makers build in
Both of the pages read for this guide describe protection that is already running, whether or not you have looked at the menu.
| Feature | What the maker says it does |
|---|---|
| Pixel Shift | Samsung: on by default, shifting pixels to help prevent burn-in. ASUS: moves displayed pixels slightly so static images are not shown consistently, enabled by default. |
| Logo brightness | Samsung: reduces logo brightness, with High reducing it further to prevent burn-in. ASUS lists the same control on its PG series. |
| Screen Optimization | Samsung: runs when the monitor turns off, after four hours or more of cumulative screen time; takes about 10 to 15 minutes and cannot be disabled. |
| Pixel Refresh / Pixel Cleaning | Samsung: an optional feature on some models, running for more than an hour, during which the monitor should not be turned on. ASUS: pixel cleaning takes about six minutes and starts automatically at shutdown. |
| Screen saver and screen move | ASUS: a screen saver that lowers brightness when the picture stops changing, and a screen-move setting to prevent image sticking. |
Quoted from each maker's own support page, read on September 23, 2026.
ASUS also gives a usage rhythm: it recommends performing pixel cleaning every four hours during daily use, and says that if burn-in does occur, you should turn the monitor off for at least an hour and preferably a day, or run pixel cleaning up to three times.
Habits that help
The causes are not mysterious. Samsung names channel logos, sports scores and gaming elements as common ones. On a desktop the equivalents are obvious once you look for them: a taskbar that never hides, a dock, a chat window parked in the same corner for months, a game’s heads-up display.
- Let the shutdown routine run. The refresh happens when the monitor turns off, so leaving it on around the clock is the one habit that reliably prevents its own protection from working.
- Hide what never moves. Auto-hiding a taskbar or dock costs nothing and removes the most common static element on a desktop.
- Turn the brightness down. Aging follows how hard a pixel is driven, and a screen set brighter than the room needs is being driven hard for no benefit.
- Vary what is on screen. A wallpaper that changes, and a real screen saver rather than a static image, both work in your favor.
Anything that leaves a full-screen static image up for hours is the opposite of helpful, including a test pattern. Use the check, then go back to ordinary content.
What this page cannot do
It cannot repair a panel. No sequence of colors shown in a browser undoes uneven aging, and the only routines with any claim to help are the ones built into the display itself, which the maker documents.
It cannot measure anything either: you are judging a flat field with your own eyes, so do it in a consistent room and at the brightness you normally use. And it cannot tell you whether your case is covered: the pages read here say service can be requested, without publishing what the cover is, so that conversation belongs with your maker, quoting what you saw and when.
If you want the wider check first, the Monitor Test runs the six fields in the order that makes each kind of fault visible, and Black Screen is the fastest way to look for the other thing an OLED does well: showing you exactly how black it can go.
Questions
Is image retention the same as burn-in?
People use the words interchangeably, and so do some makers: Samsung describes burn-in as a static image becoming a permanent fixture on the screen, and treats image retention as the same phenomenon. In practice the useful split is whether the ghost fades. A faint one that clears after an hour or two of ordinary use is not permanent; one that survives the maker's own refresh routine is.
Can I fix burn-in myself?
Only with the tools the maker provides. ASUS suggests, if burn-in occurs, turning the monitor off for at least an hour and preferably a day, or running pixel cleaning up to three times. Nothing shown on the screen by a web page repairs a panel, and ScreenTail does not pretend otherwise.
Do the protection features interrupt what I am doing?
Mostly not. Samsung says Screen Optimization runs when the monitor turns off, takes about 10 to 15 minutes and cannot be disabled, and that Pixel Refresh, where a model has it, runs for more than an hour and the monitor should not be switched on during it. ASUS says pixel cleaning takes about 6 minutes and starts automatically at shutdown.
What causes it in the first place?
Static bright elements left on screen for long stretches. Samsung names channel logos, sports scores and gaming elements as common causes. A taskbar, a dock or a heads-up display in a game are the desktop equivalents.
Does a screen saver still make sense?
On an OLED, yes, and ASUS lists a screen saver among its protection features: it lowers brightness when the picture stops changing. On an LCD it never mattered much; on an OLED the point is not to hide the image but to stop the same pixels being driven hard for hours.
How this guide was made
The protection features, their durations and the prevention advice are quoted from the manufacturer support pages listed below, with the date each was read. The checking procedure is what ScreenTail's own OLED Burn-In Test does, described from the tool as it is built.
No lifespan figure, no hours-until-burn-in estimate, and no comparison between panel makers. None of those could be sourced from a manufacturer's own page, and the numbers circulating elsewhere are test results from third parties under conditions that may have nothing to do with how you use a screen. Warranty terms for burn-in are also left out: the pages read here state that service can be requested, without publishing the cover.
- 01The definition of burn-in, the panel-care features (Pixel Shift on by default, Adjust Logo Brightness, Screen Optimization after four hours or more of cumulative screen time taking 10 to 15 minutes and not disableable, Pixel Refresh running for more than an hour) and the common causes: Samsung, Prevent burn-in on Samsung OLED Monitor — retrieved Sep 23, 2026.
- 02The protection mechanisms (Pixel Shift, Screen Saver, Screen Move, Pixel Cleaning taking about six minutes at shutdown, Adjust Logo Brightness), the advice to run pixel cleaning every four hours of daily use, and what to do if burn-in occurs: ASUS, OLED Monitor Protection Mechanism and Warranty Service — retrieved Sep 23, 2026.