My one year old HDTV recently bit the big one about a month out of warranty. This sucks for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s a one year old TV that’s the second most expensive thing I own after my car, and it crapped out after slightly over a year, the exact length of the manufacturer warranty.
Now, I’m an industrious fellow, and I prefer to fix something rather than either replace it or throw it away. Considering my TV was out of warranty, and having it professionally fixed was going to cost $500-$800, which isn’t far from what I paid for it to begin with, I figured I’d see if I could fix it myself.
This is the story of how I fixed my TV.
My problems began on Saturday night. One of my roommates had brought a girl back to our house, and like a good roommate I was holed up in my room to give them a little privacy. He knocked on my door, and said something was up with the TV. I figured he was hitting the wrong button or something.
Anyway, I went out to see what the problem was and if I could fix it.
My TV, big and black and proud, was just kind of sitting there, not turning on. I could hear it click, but nothing was happening. The power indicator was blinking, and that was it. After checking all the connections and power and whatnot, I noticed that the power button was blinking in a specific pattern. Specifically, it was 10 blinks, then pause and repeat.
Now, I’m a geek. More importantly, I’m a geek with experience in tech support. My experience has been that if an indicator light is blinking in a specific pattern, there’s a reason for it. Namely, it’s an error code to help someone diagnose the problem.
It being rather late at night, I bitched about my TV being broken on Twitter for a bit then went to bed.
The next day, I started doing some homework. First, I called Panasonic (the TV manufacturer) t0 see where I was at with my warranty. They said I was out of it, and there wasn’t anything they could do. After that, I called Geek Squad (I bought the TV at Best Buy) to get an estimate for an in-home repair. They wanted $150 just to look at it, and the repair was going to cost another $500-$800. Not having that kind of scratch to throw around, I figured I should see what I can do to fix it before I spend a bunch of cash to take care of it.
My first stop after that was the internet, to see if I could diagnose the problem. A little Googling told me that it was either the input board (the part everything plugs in to), the main power supply, or the sustain boards, which actually drive the plasma panel.
To know which part to buy, I had to open up my TV. Once again: second most expensive thing I own. I was terrified. I was ridiculously careful. Anyway, after carefully removing all the screws, I lifted off the back panel and took a look at the various components and circuit boards. My first stop was the Input Board. I got the model number, ordered the part off eBay (Grand total: $50), and installed it. I put the back panel back on, and plugged it in.
It didn’t work. Well, shit.
Undaunted, I decided to try Door #2: the main power supply.
Now, working with anything that carries power is dangerous. Like, really dangerous. If you’ve ever been shocked, you know how much that shit stings, and how much it sucks to zap one of your own components. In the case of an HDTV, especially Plasma HDTVs, they draw a pretty high current. So, first thing’s first: I unplugged the TV, and let it sit for the two days in between when I installed the input board, and when I installed the power supply, to let the on board capacitors (small components that store energy) dissipate.
After I received the power supply board, I decided to make sure I wasn’t replacing good boards, so I reinstalled the old input board. I pulled the power supply by removing the various screws and plug in cables, removed the board, placed the new board, screwed everything back in, and plugged it in.
I go to turn on the TV, and… nothing. Same error as before. Still undaunted, I tried replacing the input board to see if that was the problem. No such luck.
So, having now replaced the input board and power supply, I turned to the internet to see what I could find. A little more Googling yielded an unanticipated information cache: a service presentation on repairing my particular TV, including a troubleshooting flowchart. Based on the number of blinks, I was able to work my way through the flowchart steps, having already replaced the input and power boards, to one of the Sustain boards. The Sustain boards are what actually drive the Plasma panel. Armed with new information, I decided to test something out to see if I could narrow down the problem.
I popped downstairs and unplugged one of the Sustain boards from the power supply. I plugged in the TV, hit the power, and got 6 blinks! 6 BLINKS! For troubleshooting like this, a change in the error code can be great information. In this case, 6 blinks meant that the SC Sustain board (my TV has two Sustain boards: SC and SS), had had it’s SOS circuit tripped, which meant that there had been a power surge through that board and rather than fry everything, the circuit had blown limiting the damage to only that board.
However, I’m a meticulous fellow, so I ordered both the SC and SS boards from the vendor I’ve been working with, mostly because I wanted my friggin’ TV working and didn’t want to have to wait another week to get all the parts I needed.
I decided to keep my TV unscrewed so I wouldn’t have to go through the process of putting it back together. As with the rest of my repairs, I laid out all the screws, and set to work.
The SC board was situated underneath two other boards that actually drive the plasma panel, the SU boards. To get at the SC board, I had to remove the SU boards. Along the edge of the SU boards are a series of ribbon cables and connectors that deliver electricity to the panel. So, I removed the SU boards by flipping up the connector elements, removing the ribbon cables, then disconnecting it from the SC board.
With the SU boards out of the way, I removed the SC board. Fortunately, there were only two connectors, but one of them was a serious power connector. Following my own advice, I gave the TV a bit to let the capacitors discharge.
After some time (about an hour), I disconnected the SC board from the power supply. I removed the old board, screwed in the new SC board, replaced the SU boards, plugged everything back in, and plugged in the TV.
SUCCESS! The TV powered on to the setup menu.
However, I noticed something wrong. Along the bottom of the screen were a number of black horizontal lines, one pixel wide. Some quick Googling told me nothing, other than I might have done some damage to the panel. Boards are easy and relatively inexpensive to replace. Replacing the panel would have been the same cost as buying a new TV.
At this point, I’m freaking out. I unplugged the TV, took an hour to calm down and have a beer, and decided to check the connections before I declared it a loss.
I took the TV off the stand, and started checking connections. The SC board only had two connections, and both were fine. That left the SU boards as my last hope for redemption. If the A Board was Khazad-dum, and the P Board was my Helm’s Deep, and the SC board was my Pelennor Fields, this was my battle of the Morannon.
I carefully reset all of the connections, paying special attention to the ribbon cables, making sure they were fully plugged in.
I plugged in the TV.
I said a quick prayer to the Sky Wizard.
I hit the power button.
The TV flickered to life.
My TV, a week and a half, two hours worth of work, and $200 later, was fixed.
With arms outstretched toward the sky in victory, I tweeted my triumph to the world.
“VICTORY IS MINE! THE BEAST IS BACK! FUCK YOU, PANASONIC! FUCK YOU, BEST BUY! SUCK MY GIGANTIC GEEK COCK, BITCHES!”
This was a victory hard earned through blood (the steel casing edges are kind of sharp) and sweat (it’s been 90+ here the last week and a half).
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit down, put up my feet, crack open a beer, and watch my TV.
