What the actual fuck. 45 years old, owner of countless PC’s and monitors over the years and I have never been told, read a label or otherwise been warned against using citrus based cleaners on monitors.
Son just asked me to clean his screen and I grabbed the first bottle from the cupboard, a generic citrus based cleaner. Five minutes after cleaning the monitor:
Good PSA. There is a lot of advice online for cleaning TV screens and monitors. One of the main reason I use a soft microfibre cloth and a bit of water. Nothing that could damage it.
It’s a good reminder to pay attention to this. Sorry about the broken monitor though.
Yeah. Never use anything other than a microfiber and some water. If you’re paranoid or you have hard or lousy tap water, distilled water. And don’t press too hard. Just keep lightly wiping if there’s some gunk. Pressing too hard can cause white spots to later form, small areas where it looks like the backlight is much brighter than surrounding areas.
I had no clue either. I have just been using specific screen wipe cloths, or those cleaning wipes (non citrus) but I never would have even thought to check.
I’ve done that too, not get coatings. The smudges are super annoying.
The last pair I got I’ve been trying to be more careful on how I wash them. Plain dishwashing or the cheapest soap - hand soap is not great because they add moisturizers that leave a film
When rinsing them in the sink angle them at 45 then more water just drips off and you don’t need to wipe sometimes
The US hides ingredients in cleaning products but you can MDSD them
Optical cleaners DO have alcohol but they use very little (0%-5%)
I use water, tap one, but I’d say the good reflex is to use one soft wiping dedicated cloth to take the humidity off, and another specialized one(like the small anti static soft ones you get with glasses, they are of variable quality and i keep the best ones previously near me) to do a pass on the screen until you can’t see the traces of the wiping cloth.
I stopped using anything but water after random unhappy events over the last 30 years.
The cloths have to be cleaned often, they absorb oils from your hands and glasses and stop being effective. Toss them in a laundry net or handwash a bit with soap.
