[GTALUG] war story: fixing an LCD TV

[Don Tai]

Congrats. One less monitor in the landfill! I strive to repair all I can.

On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 13:41, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
wrote:

> My 39" UltraHD TV, the one that I used as my main computer monitor for
> almost four years, stopped working.
>
> The symptom was that it just would not turn on.  The status light below
> the screen stayed red, meaning something like "standby".  Normally it
> turns blue when I'm using it.
>
> Googling and watching YouTube videos convinced me that there was a chance
> that I could repair it.  LCDs seem to have certain standard PC boards.
>
> - T-Con (timing control)
>
> - power supply
>
> - processor
>
> - LED light & video driver
>
> Replacement boards are reasonably inexpensive, apparently from chop
> shops (i.e. they buy broken TVs and sell the working parts).
>
> This shows someone fixing my model of TV.
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD7rIEgYULI>
>
> From my research, it seemed as if the most likely problem would involve
> the power supply module.  I could get one for US$~20 + ~$20 for shipping.
>
> I opened up the monitor and examined the entrails.  There was a burnt spot
> on the power supply board.  I posted my problem to the BadCaps.com forum
> and got encouragement that a little bit of solder would fix the board.  I
> tried this, and it worked.  At least for now.  I'm using the monitor to
> compose this mail.
>
> <https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?p=898646>
>
> I spent several hours researching and perhaps an hour disassembling,
> soldering, and reassembling.  It might not have been worth that time given
> the value of the monitor ($350 original price, but used for 4 years and
> obsolete).  I find it satisfying to fix a hardware problem, even though
> I'm a software guy.
>
> Summary: not all hardware problems are hard.
> ---
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