LCD TV dead should I even try to fix it?
 

I was wondering if anyone has had their LCD repaired. Last night I lost the backlight on my 4 year old Toshiba flat screen. I have heard it could be an inverter board...should I try to have this fixed? Or just buy another one. There is an inverter board on the Bay for $35 but I do not know if it is worth even that much of a small gamble.


4 years?
at least by Toshiba DLP still works and it is 7 years old.

Does it have a lamp used to backlight it? I have never needed to work on one but seems to hear a lot of stories about a lamp in the back. Or recap the power supply is another common fix I hear of.


Barney

Depends. Is it the thick, projector type LCD? I had a Hitachi and the projector some how rattled out of focus. I had it repaired, but it was expensive. ~$300 IIRC.

Dave

I will have to check that out...I was under the assumption that the LCDs do not need a lamp...I have had to replace my DLP Lamp twice already...I will do some research.

I will take it apart and do some general stuff like reseat some cable connectors

thanks
Robbin

I've never had the back off any of my flat panels. Just blow them with canned air every now and then. Dread the day, but would attempt a recap of the power supply board. Like you will pull the back and give it a look see when it messes up.


Barney

Thanks guys...I think I will just go buy a new one and take some deoxit to this one....
it is not a real thick one...pretty slim I purhased it in 2009. Amazing how things do not last. It was like $600 plus brand new but I guess in 2009 dollars that is not alot...

shame how things do not last like they used to

If it's older fluorescent tubes provide the backlight. The common failure modes are power supply caps and the inverter board. I've successfully repaired LCD monitors via recapping. Now, whether or not it's worth the time given the current price of LCD TVs is a different matter. Did it show any symptoms before failure or did it simply not light up when you turned it on? I noticed on some LCD monitors that the picture can sometimes be seen even though it appears dark. BTW all the monitors I fixed were Samsungs and had Crapon caps. Good luck!

No symptoms at all...it just died on me when I started to watch Starship Troopers 3. Yeah the flashlight test works....
are the power supply caps accessible and are they expensive or just common ones you can get at Radio Shack?
thanks!

They're normal electrolytic caps and are cheap. I search on the internet and buy kits for ~$10.00 to save the time of ordering. I 've had good luck with these guys:

http://lcdalternatives.com/Default.aspx

Access to the PS board and inverter board is the difficult part IMO. I have a set of Nylon pry tools for opening plastic cases. Everything is so tightly packed and snapped together. See if you can find a tutorial on the internet for your specific TV. I suspect the same make, model, and run all died about the same time, thus some enterprising individual may have posted a repair procedure.

Given the quick onset of the problem, I'm guessing a bad inverter board.

Thanks Bhunter! Cool site and it has great videos on desoldering that I need to learn to do ....they do not have Toshiba caps.....I think the Toshiba invertors use a different sort of form factor since on Ebay the one I need for my model does not have radial capacitors that I can see from the pictures.
However I am going to tear the Toshiba apart...and it is a bit thick at about 2.5 inches wide and has screws so hopefully will not have to pry....

just bought a Sharp 39 inch LED for $350.....
maybe I will buy the extended warranty for 4 years at $70.....
I have 30 days to decide,,,

I have a Sony 1080I projection TV with a huge sound system in it. We really wanted it out of the house because it is so big (50" screen, huge case). Two weeks ago we loaded it into the back of my truck, drove 150 miles , and unloaded it at my mother in laws house. After all that rough treatment I plugged it in and it did not even need a lens realignment. It is ten years old and gets a fantastic HD picture. I kinda miss the old war horse already. If it dies tomorrow I will consider it money well spent.

On thing to remember when buying a flat screen TV/monitor is that our eyes are not fast enough to tell the difference between an 850P and a 1080P. Save some money and get a high quality 850P. I am going TV shopping this weekend to replace the Sony and will see if I can tell any difference between the two.

You know my Toshiba DLP is going on 7 years .....except for the lamp replacements it does has worked well and provides an excellent picture.
I was expecting the Toshiba LCD I have to last a bit longer...hopefully a inverter board replacement can fix it.

Update

got the tv apart not as difficult since the panel just required base removal and had screw connections instead of being snapped together. The power supply lytics do not look blown at all...I just bought an inverter off of the bay for 12 bucks lol..did not want to gamble too big...maybe I can bring this Toshiba back to life.

the general consensus is that most failures on LCDs are either the inverter or the smaller capacitors on the power supply board simply because the big brand name companies are buying really god awful caps. However the the main filter caps (the big ones ) never seem to be the issue. I think the vdc ratings on the smaller caps in general on these lcd power supply boards are too low mine are all 1000uf 25vdc ....

the main filter caps are 550 uf 220vdc

I think I will maybe recap the 1000mf caps this weekend

This might explain why mine often takes multiple tries to start. I'll get sound, but no picture until I restart it. Sometimes it takes 2-3 tries.

Dave

Well if you are brave you may want to take yours apart unless it is really new and/or expensive. I may just wait until I get this inverter board connected then will try to recap if it does not work. I have nothing to lose it is either this or the landfill.

It's about 3 years old. $1,200. Eh, I don't think I'll screw with it unless it dies altogether.

Hurray!!!!
It was the inverter board as Bhunter said.
I replaced one with a $12 dollar ebay and it is working

the old one looked like it overheated...which may suggest a recap in order but the caps look ok

thanks bhunter and everyone else...

notise the burn marks on the back of the original inverter on the right

That is so cool that you fixed it. Congrats.

Thanks!
It has a better picture than the new 39inch led sharp I bought....the sharp is on reserve in my closet perched on an orphan Optimus STS-1500....

either a better picture or I cannot calibrate it right....
I think these things are sort of like laptops...small circuitry trapped in tight plastic boxes with less than adequate cooling

The replacement board that I put in 2013 died last December...I got 5 plus years of life on the Toshiba tv with that cheap board I bought on Ebay. The inverter on this model has gotten more expensive with time. I bought one from ShopJimmy.com but I am not getting a lit screen so sadly my LCD has to go. But TVs are so cheap these days.

My Toshiba DLP from 2006 is still going strong on I think its third light bulb. I just bought a brand new back up DLP bulb just in case on Ebay for just about $25.
They used to go for about $80-$100. My DLP just does Walking Dead/AMC duty on Sunday nights but I never thought it would outlast the LCD.