No picture on T.V.

Hi Guy's

I have an LG 42LB5500 made April 2014
The picture has just gone, we have sound but no picture.
Does anyone have an idea if its repairable?
I noticed the picture going a bit dull a few times before it finally went all together.

Thanks.

no expert
have you tried things like
first time instillation
factory/virgin reboot
hardware update ??

big-all said:

no expert
have you tried things like
first time instillation
factory/virgin reboot
hardware update ??

Click to expand...

It's going to be a bit difficult for him to do any of that without being able to see the onscreen displays or picture from Virgin though.

catlad said:

Hi Guy's

I have an LG 42LB5500 made April 2014
The picture has just gone, we have sound but no picture.
Does anyone have an idea if its repairable?
I noticed the picture going a bit dull a few times before it finally went all together.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Almost certainly repairable. Costs and time depend on the nature of the fault.

IME, faults like this are caused by either the back-lighting system that illuminates the screen, or something in the video drive system. These are minor in comparison to the cost of replacing a screen panel which is everyone's big worry.

You can do some home DIY diagnosis to help narrow down some likely causes.

If it's the back light that's gone then take a torch and shine it on the screen when the set is on an playing sound. You should see the pixels moving. The screen is still making a picture, but without a back light you won't see it.

If the back light is okay but there's no video drive to the screen then you should see the screen glow when the set is viewed in darkness.

YouTube has plenty of How To Fix videos for LG TVs with picture issues. All the LED sets work on the same general principle. Once you have a fair idea of which board it is that needs to be replaced then it's just a question of finding the correct board for your particular model.

Ebay and Amazon are as good a source as any for spares if you fancy seeing this through yourself. If not, then look on Facebook selling groups in your local area for guys doing TV repairs.

Hardly worth paying for a repair on a television as technologically ancient as that. Buy a new one.

Pete 50
Ancient!!! what are you trying to say about my baby
I still think of it as new as the one I had before that lasted 15yrs.

Lucid
Thanks for the tips I will try the torch thing later when it goes dark.
I looked on you tube and saw a few clips about how to replace those strip
LED's and I think I could manage that, My only worry is will it happen
again in a couple of months time

At 3-4 years old the TV is hardly ancient. 4K is de rigueur now, but really of little benefit unless the screen size/viewing distance is optimum, and sod all benefit for those who don't subscribe to 4K/UHD services. I suppose the main criticism for that LG TV (apart from the failing back-light) is the tuner. I can't find a spec that suggests it's anything other than bog-standard Freeview SD. That's really not so important if the main source is Sky or Virgin. The rest is pretty much in line with its peers at the time it was new.

The torch trick isn't about seeing in the dark. It's to put a strong light source on the screen. This can be done during the day. The only test to do in the dark is the screen glow. This is where you're looking for the background glow of the back-light on an otherwise inactive screen.

No brand is without its issues. But LG does seem to have carved itself a bit of a reputation for using short life components. They last the warranty period but how long they'll last beyond that is a bit of a guess. I suppose it comes with the price and the competitive nature of the TV market. If you replace the LEDs with something better then that might be the end of the issue.

Thanks Lucid
As you can probably tell by my choice of tv I don't watch it a lot, but I am starting to feel the pressure from the rest of the family!
I tried the torch test last night and you can see the picture, albeit faint.
One of the kids turned the tv on tonight and claimed she had a picture on
a dvd for a minute before it went dark again.
Its the only tv in the house so I may buy another and then have a go at
fixing the old one.
Do you have any recommendations or one's to stay clear of besides LG of course.

Samsung, Panasonic and Sony are all reasonably safe bets. Apart from them and LG and to a degree Philips and Hisense, pretty much everything else is badged out of 3 or 4 bulk manufacturers based in Eastern Europe, Turkey and in China. That means all the old Japanese brands (Hitachi, Toshiba, Sharp etc) share the same electronics and screens as your budget sets from supermarkets / Argos etc such as Polaroid, Technika, Bush.

Thanks Lucid
I will let you know if I decide to have a go at fixing it.

catlad said:

Thanks Lucid
As you can probably tell by my choice of tv I don't watch it a lot, but I am starting to feel the pressure from the rest of the family!
I tried the torch test last night and you can see the picture, albeit faint.
One of the kids turned the tv on tonight and claimed she had a picture on
a dvd for a minute before it went dark again.
Its the only tv in the house so I may buy another and then have a go at
fixing the old one.
Do you have any recommendations or one's to stay clear of besides LG of course.

Click to expand...

Steer clear of Panasonic. There have been serious issues in the past and customer service did not want to know. One recent issue was Panasonic Freesat sets that started glitching on ITV HD after a slight change to the broadcast parameters. Panasonic blamed ITV but the change was within the DVB spec that the set was supposed to conform to. No other brand was affected.

Personally the main difference between the sets I have is the electronic program guide. We have a Blaupunkt very cheap from Tesco £150 for 43" on black Friday two years ago, reasonable EPG and stations in right order, but locks up some times, specially if used as a computer monitor, will not record, it is HD. We have two very old LG sets 32" with built in hard drives, the EPG is useless, and not HD for freeview, but around 15 years old so what can one expect. Panasonic 32" also around 15 years old, EPG A1, again no HD on freeview but been a good set.

Last 32" is a Polaroid only available from Asda, it is a love or hate TV, attach a hard drive or stick and it will record, EPG not very good, again only £150 so can't expect too much, however it is the program order which is good/bad point. 1 to 99 are analogue, and 100 to I think 300 are digital and you can change the order to suit yourself, so if some one says did you watch channel 14 last night, it means nothing, but to can get ITV3 and ITV3+1 next to each other.

Although we have freeview at mothers house, never set up an aerial here, all TV's use a dish and a satellite receiver. So not worried what freeview does, so TV is in the main a monitor, except for internet viewing, both the £150 sets get Utube Polaroid and Blaupunkt, the latter falls over with BBC Iplayer, not tried the Polaroid, the two sets need moving inputs to get full screen with PC, and Polaroid has higher resolution to Blaupunkt, since using Sky+ HD with Blaupunkt not worried that it will not record.

Non of my TV's are A1, however the LG is rather old, and the modern ones are rather cheap. I love Utube I watch old films on Utube regular. So yes like the new TV's, as to spending double to get a better model, to my mind no point, freesat has far more than freeview, so not going to bother getting a set with better freeview, as I don't use it.

Main TV has a windows 10 PC connected, So although can get Utube direct on TV, no real point as can also watch with the PC. Over the years I have collected as well as Sky+ HD two other Sky boxes, one HD satellite box, and two non HD boxes, I have 8 satellite connections, and I need 7, so although Moel-y-parc is direct line of sight, it is not at this point used.

I am considering getting rid of Sky, yes I do watch some Sky only programs, but not enough to be worth the fee. I hope this helps you decide best way forward.