Well, Isn’t That Just Fine and Dandy . . .
The temp was a little hotter today, and the traffic a little heavier, but all in all, not a bad day. I guess except for the fact that when I get groceries this Thursday, it looks like I’ve got to buy a new front TV.
A few days ago, the 32” RCA we have in the front of the rig started losing video. The audio still works fine, but the screen goes black.
At first it might do it once a day, and just turning the TV off and back on fixed the problem. For a while. But over the next few days it got more and more frequent , until now it will only work for a few minutes before the video dies.
When the problem first appeared I thought it might the HDMI input itself, so I switched the cable over to HDMI-2, but the problem still occurred. So I dug out a 3 wire video cable, the one with the Yellow, Red, and White RCA phono connectors and tried that,
Again with the same result. So the problem seems to be in the actual video output stage, and not on the input side. And it doesn’t seem to be a loose connection, since rapping on it doesn’t fix the problem, even temporarily.
Now back in the day, when you could still fix things like this, I’d just order a Sam’s Photofact for the set and tear into it. Using my oscilloscope, I’d trace through the video section until I found the bad component, and then replace it.
Back in the early 90’s I used to contract out to several computer stores in the Houston area to do board level repair on Commodore VIC-20’s, Commodore 64’s, Commodore Amiga’s and Radio Shack TRS-80’s. At that time you could get service info from the manufacturers, and even specific parts, like IC’s and transistors, and you could actually fix something.
But no more. In many cases, depending on the TV, there may be no real parts to replace anyway. Just a couple of large chips that do everything. And without very specialized equipment, it would be almost impossible to safely unsolder the chip and replace it.
And you probably couldn’t even get a replacement chip anyway, since the manufacture won’t sell you one. So now it’s off to Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for a new one.
We bought both of these TV’s from Sam’s Club when we were in Fairbanks, AK in 2008 to replace the old CRT models that came with the rig, and this is the first problem we’ve had with them, so I guess 8 years is a pretty good record.
After all of this, at least my problem with my DVR randomly rebooting turned out to be a simple fix. The DVR plugs into a AC receptacle on the underside of the cabinets over the dashboard, and I noticed that often the reboots happened as one of us came into the rig and shut the door. Turns out that the AC plug was a little loose in the socket, so I spread the prongs apart, sprayed a little Strike-Hold on it and problem solved.
At least that’s something I could fix.
Thought for the Day:
The Wages of Sin is Death. But the Hours are Good.
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