My darling, wonderful, beautiful children found my CDR marker pen (by climbing on a chair) and drew on my laptop screen. Is my screen toast, or do you think it may be salvageable? I was wondering about alcohol or white spirit or something? What do you think? The machine is a Dell Inspiron 4100 - about five years old and runs great under Xubuntu.

Thanks,
keymoo

Alcohol based markers are easily cleaned off with. . . alcohol. Just as water based paint is (relatively) easy to clean of with water.

Lacking alcohol, I do find it on occasion hilarious to draw on a screen with permanent marker, and the guys at work found out that when spraying deodorant on it, it is easy to wipe.

Or perfume - most is alcohol based. Of course use of enough Chanel No. 5 might be more expensive than a new laptop. Also if you're a guy you're friends might look at you funny when they realize you have a scented laptop.

I have seen a video of permanent ("Magic marker"?) pen marks being removed from a giant TV screen by doing this:

1) Cover the mark with a Whiteboard pen
2) Use something very soft (Microfibre cloth? anything that doesn't scratch) to remove the whiteboard marks.

The video was from dl.tv podcast and I have NOT tried this myself. Take a look at it and try it if you think it seems like a good idea!

this usually works on whiteboards
we used to do it at school hehe

good luck with that

Alcohol will work. Just make sure it doesn't drip down into the screen bezel or it wont run Xubuntu that well anymore without a new or external screen

wont the washing machine do??? lols
deo spray is a relatively better option!!
gud luck mate!

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.


I'd try the alcohol pads they sell at places like office depot first... then go up from there...

Drink the alcohol. Sell your kids. Buy a new laptop. All problems solved.

You should probably post a disclaimer there saying: "Do NOT try this at home"

I would suggest using alcohol as a first try, but if you can make it some king of grain alcohol and not isopropyl, as grain alcohol may be less agressive. If that doesn't do it, you might try using a penetrating lubricant like WD40 in very small quantities and in the very corner of the screen first.
In all cases, I wouldn't apply the product directly to the screen. Instead apply it to a soft cloth -preferably a polyester micro-fiber cloth like they sell for cleaning camera lenses. Don't rub hard and don't rub fast, either, as that generates a lot of heat really fast that could cause scratches. In fact, a micro-fiber cloth might do the job alone.

Rewrite over it with a dry erase, the dry-erase ink will dissolve the permanent marker and you should be able to remove the ink with windex .

i tend to use anti static alcahol based cleaner spray (electronics cleaner) to remove that sort of stuff of all manner of things,

shoudl work fine

This is definitely an excellent trick under normal circumstances.

Am I not correct that an LCD screen should ONLY be cleaned with soap and a non-scouring cloth? I think you're not supposed to use alcohol or ammonia on LCDs.

I usually use a damp rag (water and squeezed dry as much as possible) and occasionally ( once a year or so ) lightly spray a cloth with windex to get the tougher stuff off. I do use a lens cloth though to try and keep the screen from getting scratched up though.

It is recommended to not use harsh cleaners on LCD screens, this was just how I removed the permanent marker from my laptop screen about 5 years ago, still have the laptop . You could actually remove the dry erase with a dry lens-cloth without too much difficulty if you like. Just keep touching up the sections that will not come off with the dry erase and wiping till its clean. The only reason I recommended windex is because its handy (usually) and water seems to repel the ink on the screen making it difficult to clean and smudges it around. I wouldn't recommend making a habit of cleaning it with it though .