Thanks for the replies guys, so far so good. im using a wired connection and so far its been a solid fix. havent been signed out yet.

thanks again for the help. saved me a headach.

Ice Blade what right on when he said use a lint free rag. paper towels IMO are too dry and rough. honestly? i just use a clean t shirt that is soft. Ill use one end of it to wet the screen and give it a once over, then ill go over it with the dry end and focus on any smudges, and after i get them all, ill wet it down once more and dry it once more. then re-check to be sure i did in fact get everything. thats usually what i do when i do it. but im sure youll find your own way of doing it that works for you. the more you do it, the more youll discover what works for you and what isnt working. i say focus on being thourough (spelling?) and it will work itself out as you move forward.

I know its just cleaning a screen, but anything worth doing, is worth doing right i think.

I know what your saying, same here. i just wipe it off like taking wax off a car. it needs a little elbow grease, but it will come out.

Just an FYI about the special gels out there like audio quest and monster cable, ive used both, and both made things worse. if you think you have to wipe a few extra times with water, that stuff has caused me to spend like 15 min. constantly wiping and checking it in the right light to make sure i got it all off once it dried. personally, ill never use that crap again. just my opinion. but those are the only two ive tried that were dafe for any screen. from my experience, water is the best bet even though you gotta spend a little time. havent found any "quick fixes" like windex and such which ive seen destroy screens.

But by all means, i say try whatever you want, so long as its safe. maybe some type of computer monitor cleaner. dunno. i even say give the gels a shot. only becasue youll see what im talking about. experiencing something is much more memorable than being told something. so if its safe? give it a go, find out what you like the best, and what you hate the most.

my 2 cents

All you need is a soft rag or t-shirt and a bit of water. not so much that it will run down the screen into the cabinet below where screen meets plastic housing, just enough to gently wipe off any smudges.

Using anything that has chemicals is bad for the screens that use an anti-glare coating on them, usually the glossy screens have them. Some cleaners out there can wipe of or change the tint of the ani-glare coating. If the coating comes off, then it will cause it to reflect more light off of it. and you will notice a smudge or smear where the coating was removed.

some coatings are more durable than others, and some screens have none at all. i believe the LCDs ive seen (worked as sales and home theater installer for a small audio/video boutique, which is why i know this stuff) have a very fine texture to the screen which helps aid in anti-glare.

You can buy some special cleaner/gel with a fancy rag to clean your screen, but its not necessary. just a very soft rag and a little water should take off anything that would typically show up on your screen. if your using chemicals now? and you havent noticed anything? its your call if you wanna keep using it. But ive seen a few screen that customers have trashed and wouldnt want that to happen to me. Better safe than sorry.

Awsome, thanks fellas, ill give that a try now.

thanks for the info !

It shipped with an issue where anything on the screen looked misaligned, text on anything looked the most obvious. it was rediculously bad. (i have taken into consideration i got a fluke, because i dont see how anyone would have settled for the way it looked) and when i called up for support, it was the worst most drawn out thing ive experienced on the phone. their techs (at the time about 3 years ago) didnt know anything, it was painfully obvious they were reading off a screen the questions to trouble shoot it, i know because i had to call a few times and and went through alot of the same questions in almost the same order each time as i remember it. they refused to allow me to just send it back to them to look at it even if i paid shipping to them and back, and the guy had me taking apart the laptop to gain access to some plugs under the keyboard to see if they were seated right. they were fine, but because i didnt have a jewlers set of screwdrivers on hand, i had to cancel one of the phone sessions to gain the right tools to follow the steps he was going to walk me through. I did everything i was told be these guys to no prevail, and FINALLY they said they would take it in and so on, but after about a solid week of BS i just sold it for real cheap to a co-worker who could careless about the screen cause it was going to be used for programming at work only, and it was dirt cheap. Alienware failed on all fronts for me and im sure plenty of people have had a great experience with them (because thats how things go) i will never go back.

Im not trying to talk you out of it by any means, just throwing out another company who i have delt with personally also, and have just ordered another PC from them again, and i have delt with their tech department also. The tech guys there are VERY smart and have no need to read a script off a monitor becasue they work with PCs, I had an issue with a graphics card on a desktop and in about 15 min on the phone with them, they setup an overnight delivery of a brand new graphics card before they had the old one. paid for shipping both ways and were great on the phone (plus they speak clear english, make sure you have a spanish to english dictionary around when on the phone with Alienware, if its the same company as 3 years ago)

All im saying is, check em out if your going to spend top dollar on something you really want to work right, and if **** happens, your taken care of on the back end.

this is my experinece, others will vary accordingly.

I owned an Alienware once.... Once.

Id check out Falcon Northwest if i knew i had to spend a lot of cash and wanted a good gaming PC. But thats just my opinion.