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Screen "burn-in/ghosting/frame-fading" - "Haunted" Oculus

Frooxius
Honored Guest
Hello,
One of my two Rift units recently started behaving very oddly - the screen started having some sort of "burn-in/ghosting/frame-fading" effect, rendering the unit unusable (which is one of several reasons I got two - my other one continues to work fine, so I can continue developing 😄 ).

I already contacted the Oculus support and they're looking into the issue, I'm posting this here in case somebody gets similar issues. Someone told me about similar "burn-in" effect, although not nearly as strong as mine and recommended sharing my video with others for reference and more information.

The issue:

1) Screen doesn't update properly. It takes it a while to display new frame, which slowly fades in, sort of merging with the previous one. The previous frames tend to show up inverted
2) My desktop seems to be "burned in" - whenever the video input is changed, it slowly fades in and then fades out. Other images (if sent to the video input) fade in into it as well resulting in the aforementioned blend of several different frames.
3) This one is most peculiar: After disconnecting all the cables and then reconnecting only the power cable and then turning it on, the image of the desktop shows up and the "No Input" OSD message slowly fades into it. It also demonstrates that it's problem with the Oculus itself, not the video output or cables or anything like that.

I've recorded a video to show the issue, which is worth much more than the words. I jokingly dubbed this unit "haunted", since it shows up my desktop even with no video feed.




I'll keep you posted on the updates and solutions/suggestions I get from the official support (getting it swapped for one of the 1080p versions wouldn't be bad 😄 , but I kid)
16 REPLIES 16

geekmaster
Protege
People have reported similar "slow LCD fade-in" problems, which were reported to be a bad LCD. Here is one example from a XO/OLPC LCD:
http://en.forum.laptop.org/viewtopic.php?f=1324&t=154774

The slow image fade-in can also happen temporarily, if an LCD is too cold, such has having been stored in a car in freezing weather. In your case, perhaps a bad LCD panel.

You also have desktop icons burned-in, which in this case may be related, but can also have other causes. Here is a discussion about LCD burn-in:
http://gizmodo.com/292842/lcd-burn+in-exists-and-it-isnt-pretty

MrGeddings
Explorer
thats why i try to make sure i turn off the Rift screen when i am not using it its easy to do as all you do is press the little button on the control box so 🙂 better to keep it safe then sorry! now if i can just manage the dust inside but maybe those air cans i ordered will help heh.

Frooxius
Honored Guest
MrGeddings: Yes, actually I do that too, there's not a need to be condescending. In fact, this unit is the one I use less (more for demonstrations and brief tests outside of my development area), so it's either actively used with demos most of the time it's on or it's on for brief periods of time, then I disconnect it. I always handle hardware with care to keep it safe, which is why things rarely break for me.

In comparison the unit I use for development most of the time is active for much longer time and it works completely fine.

geekmaster: I see. I guess it must be bad LCD panel then, because it's anything but freezing here. 😕 I don't think it's like that burn in, because when I leave it off for a few hours and then turn it on with no video cable, the desktop image is much fainter and sort of inverted and after some more hours, it's completely black again, but the OSD message still takes some time to fade in.

And when I plug the video input back on and let it display something for some time (desktop again, for example with some window opened) it gets eventually "stuck" on this image as well. It's more like the pixels are "resisting" the update to new image, but once they're being forced to display one image for a longer time, they resist to change to something else again.

geekmaster
Protege
I almost sounds like the room temperature liquid crystal viscosity and elasticity of your LCD panel has changed somehow (perhaps through polymerization?). I have no ideas what could cause such physical property changes. Or perhaps the LCD activation voltages are too low (an electrical problem), which may slow the response time to a crawl. Just guessing here, but it does sound like a hardware problem, whether chemical or electrical.

Cheeseness
Honored Guest
I've got what looks to be the same issue, but it's barely noticeable. I'm definitely curious to know how widely spread this is - I've spotted a could of threads where initial responses were incredulous and dismissive, and something as pronounced as this video will hopefully make those reporting issues feel a little more reassured that they're not imagining things.

"geekmaster" wrote:
Or perhaps the LCD activation voltages are too low (an electrical problem), which may slow the response time to a crawl.


It doesn't seem like response times have dropped at all, but my symptoms seem to only appear when I've had the rift on one image for a long period (after noticing it, I've been pretty diligent with turning it off when I'm working).

Frooxius
Honored Guest
Cheeseness: Yeah, I think I've got extreme case of this (if it's indeed the same thing). I don't actually have this unit turned on for prolonged periods of time (as I explained above), it happened spontaneously - it was working perfectly fine, then it was off for a few days in the box and then I turned it on again and the screen just refused to update properly (had very slow response times).

They actually first told me that I should try leaving it on for a few hours to see if it clears up and it did at first (it was updating correctly, no ghosts, no fading), but after I turned it off and later on again it wasn't working again and leaving it on further (day and half) didn't help at all 😕

I guess if it's some HW defect, then it only makes your unit prone to the "ghosting/burn-in" effect to some degree.

Anyway, I hope that this will help the Oculus Team sort it out and prevent it from happening in the future 🙂

geekmaster
Protege
I does sound like a hardware failure. Perhaps a bad electrical component suffering "infant mortality" (red curve below).

Ashok
Explorer
"Cheeseness" wrote:
I've got what looks to be the same issue, but it's barely noticeable. I'm definitely curious to know how widely spread this is - I've spotted a could of threads where initial responses were incredulous and dismissive, and something as pronounced as this video will hopefully make those reporting issues feel a little more reassured that they're not imagining things.


I had the exact same problem, possibly even more extreme. I took this photo playing Tuscany:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96780866@N02/8908232217/in/photostream/

As you can see above, the pixels wouldn't even "refresh" with any video data from the Tuscany demo. Instead, TF2 was "burned" in the screen. I shipped my unit back to Oculus and they mailed me a new unit. I don't know how widespread this is, but I'm sure Oculus is looking into it.

twi41
Honored Guest
Can we submit a support ticket for something like this? I have used my rift for less than 4 hours and i already have a burn in effect. Currently letting the roller coaster run as a form of changing screen to see if it disappears.
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