Is Using Isopropyl Alcohol to Clean the Screen of the Monitor a Good Idea?

[ink555]

Hi, I have this monitor: https://www.hp.com/tr-tr/products/monitors/product-details/21769075

 

In the user manual, it is said that 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol can be used for more difficult situations. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06081133.pdf

However, this site:https://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-clean-your-pc-monitor/ says that alcohol- or ammonia-based cleaners can damage your screen by stripping anti-reflective coatings, cause clouding, or worse.

 

What should I do? Can isopropyl alcohol damage the screen?

[YoungBlade]

Isopropyl alcohol can absolutely damage a screen

 

 

[Godlygamer23]

Isopropyl alcohol will dissolve the anti-glare coating present on the screen, so no. It's a terrible chemical to use on your display, unless you dilute it. For most areas, I would try just using water, and as you find more difficult areas, gradually add alcohol and keep trying.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Godlygamer23

[shoutingsteve]

I used te work for an AV company.  We used Windex on the screens.  After at least 100 wipe downs, there was still no damage.

[YoungBlade]

2 minutes ago, shoutingsteve said:

I used te work for an AV company.  We used Windex on the screens.  After at least 100 wipe downs, there was still no damage.

Counter to that, I worked for a grocery store in 2020 - we had to sanitize all surfaces, including the screens of the price check stations. We had two of these touch-screens actually fail from damage to the coating on them before we realized that using an alcohol-based cleaner on them was a bad idea.

[Godlygamer23]

2 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Counter to that, I worked for a grocery store in 2020 - we had to sanitize all surfaces, including the screens of the price check stations. We had two of these touch-screens actually fail from damage to the coating on them before we realized that using an alcohol-based cleaner on them was a bad idea.

What alcohol-based cleaner did you use?

[johnno23]

A soft cloth preferably those micro fibre ones which is made slighty damp and gently wipe the screen. If you are a smoker and have residue on the screen use a gentle soap not a detergent. Just wipe the damp cloth over the surface of a handsoap that you would use to wash your face for example and afterwards use a second damp cloth to wipe it down.

please note DAMP not wet. easist way to kill a screen is moisture that flows off the screen and down behind the bezel where many screens have the ribbin cables and electricals.

Anything that can break down stubborn residues as tar from smoking etc can and will impact a screens surface coating.

[YoungBlade]

2 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

What alcohol-based cleaner did you use?

It was the yellow-orange one. I honestly don't remember what the name of it was. It came in giant bag things that attached to a system that automatically diluted it with the appropriate amount of water for filling the spray bottles.

[Godlygamer23]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

It was the yellow-orange one. I honestly don't remember what the name of it was. It came in giant bag things that attached to a system that automatically diluted it with the appropriate amount of water for filling the spray bottles.

I'm curious what the ratio was.

Obviously, you want to use something very non-aggressive when cleaning the screen, but if you have a real small amount of alcohol added, I don't think it'll really cause any problems. Although, there are specific screen cleaners available as well, and I don't think they're that expensive. 

[YoungBlade]

9 minutes ago, Godlygamer23 said:

I'm curious what the ratio was.

Obviously, you want to use something very non-aggressive when cleaning the screen, but if you have a real small amount of alcohol added, I don't think it'll really cause any problems. Although, there are specific screen cleaners available as well, and I don't think they're that expensive. 

This was not a small amount of alcohol - it was an all-purpose cleaner designed for use in commercial environments. It also had other cleaning chemicals beyond alcohol in it.

 

We actually had to also stop using it on the handles of the cooler and freezer doors, and for cleaning the surface of the swing doors, because leadership realized you were actually supposed to wipe down any surfaces with water after using it in environments where you prepare food - i.e. it's not safe to get it on your hands. So we switched to one called "Sani-Save" (I think?) for any surface that people touched regularly.

[Gorgon]

I use glasses or camera lens cleaning fluid on a micro-fibre cloth to clean my flat-panels when they have stubborn gunk on then (dried phlegm etc.) Sometimes a bit of scratching using a finger-nail through the micro-fiber cloth. Disgusting but necessary a couple of times a year.

 

Windex and other similar glass cleaners contain Ammonia and should be avoided as they will attack coatings and many plastics used in Bezels.

[Godlygamer23]

Just now, YoungBlade said:

This was not a small amount of alcohol - it was an all-purpose cleaner designed for use in commercial environments. It also had other cleaning chemicals beyond alcohol in it.

 

We actually had to also stop using it on the handles of the cooler and freezer doors, and for cleaning the surface of the swing doors, because leadership realized you were actually supposed to wipe down any surfaces with water after using it in environments where you prepare food - ie it's not safe to get it on your hands. So we switched to one called "Sani-Save" (I think?) for any surface that people touched regularly.

I didn't claim that there was a small amount of alcohol in the cleaner that you used at the store. I was making a general statement.

[Doobeedoo]

Don't do it in general. If it's a cheap screen whatever but if it's a costly monitor rather get stuff for monitor cleaning. I used it few times years back on both glossy and matte displays, didn't see some big difference. But I would avoid.

[shoutingsteve]

13 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

Counter to that, I worked for a grocery store in 2020 - we had to sanitize all surfaces, including the screens of the price check stations. We had two of these touch-screens actually fail from damage to the coating on them before we realized that using an alcohol-based cleaner on them was a bad idea.

Looks like we've had very different experiences.  Mine is based on professionals using the same thing each time in an attempt to maintain the equipment, yours is based on begrudging employees with no guarantee of following protocol.  "Run out of the cleaner your boss gave you?  Just use water or hand sanitizer".  They may have even sprayed the windex directly onto the screen rather than onto the cloth, which would of course run to the bottom and pool in between the housing and the screen.

[YoungBlade]

4 hours ago, shoutingsteve said:

Looks like we've had very different experiences.  Mine is based on professionals using the same thing each time in an attempt to maintain the equipment, yours is based on begrudging employees with no guarantee of following protocol.  "Run out of the cleaner your boss gave you?  Just use water or hand sanitizer".  They may have even sprayed the windex directly onto the screen rather than onto the cloth, which would of course run to the bottom and pool in between the housing and the screen.

We did just spray it onto the screen and then wipe it off with paper towel - often just using a wad of paper towel across many surfaces, so it would be rather damp with cleaning solution sometimes during the wipe down. The understanding was that it would just evaporate if it was a bit damp. In retrospect, it was a bad idea, but when Covid hit, a lot of policies just sort of happened in an effort to be more sanitary.

[ink555]

17 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Isopropyl alcohol will dissolve the anti-glare coating present on the screen, so no. It's a terrible chemical to use on your display, unless you dilute it. For most areas, I would try just using water, and as you find more difficult areas, gradually add alcohol and keep trying.

Can you elaborate on diluting? Does water dilute isopropyl alcohol? Is a 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol safe to use?

[ink555]

17 hours ago, johnno23 said:

A soft cloth preferably those micro fibre ones which is made slighty damp and gently wipe the screen. If you are a smoker and have residue on the screen use a gentle soap not a detergent. Just wipe the damp cloth over the surface of a handsoap that you would use to wash your face for example and afterwards use a second damp cloth to wipe it down.

please note DAMP not wet. easist way to kill a screen is moisture that flows off the screen and down behind the bezel where many screens have the ribbin cables and electricals.

Anything that can break down stubborn residues as tar from smoking etc can and will impact a screens surface coating.

 

What kind of soap do you suggest? Is dish soap safe to use on the screen?

[ink555]

17 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

Isopropyl alcohol can absolutely damage a screen

 

 

For more difficult cleaning situations user manual suggests using a 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol. Did you say that assuming I was planning to clean my screen solely with isopropyl alcohol? 

[shoutingsteve]

59 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

when Covid hit, a lot of policies just sort of happened in an effort to be more sanitary.

Not just in grocery stores.  Even in my industry, we did the dumbest stuff:  I'll never forget being told that we had to have a different set of work boots for the warehouse that we left there.  They (my bosses) honestly thought we were going to track in covid on our boots.  crazy to think about how much we didn't know three years ago.

[YoungBlade]

3 hours ago, ink555 said:

For more difficult cleaning situations user manual suggests using a 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol. Did you say that assuming I was planning to clean my screen solely with isopropyl alcohol? 

No, but you just asked if isopropyl alcohol can damage your screen, based on an article you found that said that it can. The answer is that, yes, it can, which I said, and I posted a video giving you an alternative cleaning method recommended by LTT.

 

I don't know if a dilution with 50% water is going to or not. It could, because alcohol can damage the screen, so I'd recommend trying it with just water and a cloth at first. But if that doesn't work, then I suppose you can try the water/alcohol mix.

[johnno23]

3 hours ago, ink555 said:

What kind of soap do you suggest? Is dish soap safe to use on the screen?

I would avoid dish soap as generally they contain a detergent of some sort. just go to the bathroom and the soap used to wash ones face. i just pull a damp coth across the bar of soap as bascially soap simply makes the water wetter.. breaks down the viscosity of the water so that the moisture on the damp cloth can penetrate dirt and residues more easily.

It will never work as fast as a detergent but it causes no damage and more effective than just water.

 

[Godlygamer23]

6 hours ago, ink555 said:

Can you elaborate on diluting? Does water dilute isopropyl alcohol? Is a 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol safe to use?

Yes, since isopropyl alcohol will dissolve into water. Dilute just means you're reducing the concentration of a substance. As long as it's mixing together, it's being diluted. 

 

For me personally, I would start off with just water, and if that doesn't fully remove whatever the residue is, I would slowly add isopropyl alcohol...If you elect to use it. I would not go right to a 50/50 ratio. With that said, if the manufacturer of the monitor is telling you to use it, and something goes wrong, you can call them and use your warranty if it's still active.