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Has anyone fixed a broken hdtv before?

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Anony

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the tv straight up doesn't respond when you power it.
i opened it and there doesnt seem to be any leaking capacitors and the fuse looks fine
 
Repairing TVs can be anywhere from $400 to $1000 depending on the TV model, the problem, the availability of spare parts, and the skill and time required to fix it.

How old is the TV? How much does it cost? How much are you willing to spend?

It can be cheaper to buy a new TV. I've gotten it fixed before and it's definitely worthy to replace it entirely. Fixing it will just delay it's death to another 6 months or 1 year.
 
I've attempted.

TV runs on three parts: Power supply, main board, and inverter board. With newer TVs, there's also a LED array that has a problem when one bulb fails to light, TV won't power on.

If you have tiny multimeter probes, you can measure the outcoming voltage of the power board that plugs into the main board. There are markers indicating what's the proper voltage that should be outputting. (I think the last time I checked it was 13V across 3 hot and last pin was ground). Read the PCB to make sure. Your ground can be any metal casing portion inside the TV. When you measure though, be careful not to short out anything as you need steady, surgical hands.

Capacitors don't have to bulge when they're bad. When a capacitor bulges and leaks, you'll see the top X of the capacitor's head show two sharpie-like marks. However, those aren't sharpie marks as that's the liquid leaking from the capacitor. Capacitors that leak usually sit next to very large Aluminum heat sinks (bad design). A lot of Samsung sets 5-6 years ago had their power supplies engineered this way, and I think there was a consumer warranty extension for a select number of models. Easy repair if you're tech capable.

If you don't want to deal any of this and are willing to burn money, you can spend probably up to $70 replacing all three parts and see if that will solve the problem. Remember what I said though, that for some TVs, when one LED burns out, circuits are wired to not to power the TV. That repair is not worth your time.
 
As someone that just had a TV break

First post nails it, its super expensive to repair and you are better off buying a new TV.

If you decide to get a new TV keep the following in mind

- There are no high-end 1080p sets being manufactured anymore.
- All good tech is going into 4k sets
- Not all 4k sets are created equal, if you are spending less than $1000 chances are it doesn't meat HDR standards, has horrible input lag, poor gray uniformity, etc.
- If you elect to wait for Black Friday watch out for models specifically made for those sales. They can be suspect quality wise, have few if any reviews, and are typically older models with features removed.

I returned 2 affordable 1080p sets that had horrible gray uniformity issues (aka dirty screen effect) before giving in and spending the money on a Samsung KS8000 which is a great TV. There are a few threads on gaming side with some good info and Rtings.com is an excellent resource. Good luck.
 
Depends on the TV, but I have fixed one before. Google the symptoms and the make and model of the TV, there just might be other people with similar symptoms and ways to fix it. That's how I fixed my Samsung TV that had power on issues.
 
I haven't opened a TV in awhile, but are they still using mostly caps? I would assume it's mostly all SMDs now. A bit harder to fix.
 
probably needs more volts. have you tried adding more volts?
 
This sounds kinda scummy. Why?

I haven't really looked into the details.

My guess is the bulbs are daisy chained to one another, and there's an IC that detects a proper voltage. Since proper voltage doesn't read from one end, board just shuts the whole thing down for safety.

A cheap fix is to ignore that burned out bulb and join the working bulbs together.
 
My dad used to be a TV engineer, going into peoples homes and replacing the myriad parts that used to break.

These days if its broken you just get a new TV,
 
I fixed mine for 25 bucks. Ordered a replacement board from eBay. Some soldering (I'm really bad at it). And bam.

So easy.

Also had no response when powering on. There's an internal fuse in the board but most likely easier to replace while board. Tried just the fuse first with no luck. Still going solid today after a year.
 
ok, scratch that on the no power
when i plug the power, i see the led turn on (not the backlight)
pressing the power also activates the led (not backlight)

so it might not be the psu, although when i do power it on, there's a really low fq humming sound coming from the psu board, which could very well be just regular electric noise or something could be wrong

also, there's not way to use the multimeter, all the pins are closed off on the connections and/or uses ribbon cables
 
ok, scratch that on the no power
when i plug the power, i see the led turn on (not the backlight)
pressing the power also activates the led (not backlight)

so it might not be the psu, although when i do power it on, there's a really low fq humming sound coming from the psu board, which could very well be just regular electric noise or something could be wrong

also, there's not way to use the multimeter, all the pins are closed off on the connections and/or uses ribbon cables

Sounds exactly like my issue. I just had my Samsung plasma fixed a few weeks ago. It wouldn't power on, so I called Magnolia and they came out to fix it by swapping out the power supply. Works just fine now. Note, I had bought the 4 year warranty for 350 bucks so they came out to fix it for "free". The timing was crazy because my warranty was set to expire in literally 6 days when I called them to tell them about the problem.
 
Does it have connecters between different boards?

Totally not the same problem as you you're having since my image was just breaking up a low but it may be worth a shot. On my TV I disconnected every connection (that was easy), cleaned them out, and reconnected. Worked out fine.

Sounds exactly like my issue. I just had my Samsung plasma fixed a few weeks ago. It wouldn't power on, so I called Magnolia and they came out to fix it by swapping out the power supply. Works just fine now. Note, I had bought the 4 year warranty for 350 bucks so they came out to fix it for "free". The timing was crazy because my warranty was set to expire in literally 6 days when I called them to tell them about the problem.

Had this happen once! Just a few days before warranty was up, actually got a brand new TV out of it!

Edit: found this after a quick google. Didn't watch so I have no idea what's in it, but the title says it's the exact problem you're having. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z_T_cS_B7g
 
ok, scratch that on the no power
when i plug the power, i see the led turn on (not the backlight)
pressing the power also activates the led (not backlight)

so it might not be the psu, although when i do power it on, there's a really low fq humming sound coming from the psu board, which could very well be just regular electric noise or something could be wrong

also, there's not way to use the multimeter, all the pins are closed off on the connections and/or uses ribbon cables



that sounds more like the led backlights. really a pain to do yourself and easy to screw up.
 
i'm guessing it's the backlights or the mainboard now

when i turn it on, the ethernet leds kinda power on, there's a very dim on it
however, i plugged it into the router, it doesnt actually turn on/no activity
also plugged in stuff via usb and those stuff doesnt turn/light on
 
I've opened up my HDTV and replaced some blown capacitors but it sounds like you have a different situation so I don't know if my knowledge would be much help ):
 
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