Most TV's will go into standby if switched off and on at the wall. The point of the test is to see if you can get it to resume normal operation with some very rapid switching. You're trying to simulate a brown-out. I expect the TV to go into standby. If it doesn't then that's evidence against the brown-out theory.
Puzzle
- Thread starter andyb32
- Start date
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Next time the TV goes into standby and the LED flashes, count the sequence of blinks it makes. Dependig on the manufacturers info available, you can then check what it's trying to tell you. One common one is when it goes into "protection" mode. This can be due to the failure of components within the TVs PSU. Don't leave the TV in standby mode if you're not in the room; if it's the LOT (line output transformer) that's failing you could have a house fire on your hands. How long did the TV repair shop soak-test the set for? if it's heat related then it needs a decent length of time and they'll need to identify the component with the freezer spray. Not saying they were slack, but they may not have given it a decent test. The fact that the hiFi is suffering from heat problems too may jus be beacuse they're not well enough ventilated etc.
However a mains transient may cause similar effecs to the PSU problem with power brown-ous as the others said.
However a mains transient may cause similar effecs to the PSU problem with power brown-ous as the others said.
I'm not 100% sure about the blue tint but unexpected things do happen when voltages sag. Unless it's a flat screen model there are three electron guns at the back of your tube. I wouldn't be at all surprized if these 'dimmed' at different rates; quite the reverse.
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Except that in the TV will be a complex mess of voltage regulators and video amps with negative feed back all optimised to keep it all stable.
Colour tints are more often caused by gun mis-register, due to a static magnetic field - Speakers or other magnets are the usual suspects, or a duff de-gauss circuit in the TV (the bit that goes 'thunk' on switch on and draws ~50 A for the first quarter second on big models is a degauss coil wrapped around the tube frame in series with a thermsitor that warms up and throttles the current back smoothly, but pretty sharpish to an acceptable level.)
Is the tint uniform, or to one side more than the other?
I'm not a great fan of this one being simple EMI, as the symptoms are a bit extreme, usually you get snow or patterning, and strange clicks and pops on the radio, as an early warning. Is any battery operated equipment affected?
regards M.
Colour tints are more often caused by gun mis-register, due to a static magnetic field - Speakers or other magnets are the usual suspects, or a duff de-gauss circuit in the TV (the bit that goes 'thunk' on switch on and draws ~50 A for the first quarter second on big models is a degauss coil wrapped around the tube frame in series with a thermsitor that warms up and throttles the current back smoothly, but pretty sharpish to an acceptable level.)
Is the tint uniform, or to one side more than the other?
I'm not a great fan of this one being simple EMI, as the symptoms are a bit extreme, usually you get snow or patterning, and strange clicks and pops on the radio, as an early warning. Is any battery operated equipment affected?
regards M.
Thats why my lights dip when I turn on my wide screen 
Re: Concerns about a 3G mast and the health effects, it is my opinion that if there were anything to worry about (and I personally don't think there is), then you are in far more danger from the 2W phone that you clamp to your ear rather than any mast some hundreds of metres away.
No doubt about it, as regards the field from the mobile (10s of volts/metre at the head) being much higher than the millivolts/metre from a base station (BS) at 500yds. Even bang underneath the tower is OK, as most of the beam fires over your head (to get better reach to the horizon). Actually if your mobile operates power control corectly, it will throttle its transmitter back, when you are nearer the BS as it will only use the minimum power required to get through to it... longer battery life and all that, so the safest place to make the call is nearer the base station. Sadly, people don't think about it very hard, and see a big aerial, and instead of saying, "oh good, its well away from me on the ground", they panic.
regards M.
regards M.
The TV's standby LED indicator pulsates on/off in bursts of 3. I haven't been able to find any information from the manufacturer that would provide an indication as to what the TV is trying to tell me. It could well be 'protection' mode that applies here (?). Definitely don't leave the TV on standby, so hopefully there won't be a fire.
The Sony repair people had the TV for a week. They told me that they had it switched on in their workshop for nearly 12 hrs per day -which I found hard to believe. They also said that the symptoms I described to them (overall blue tint of equal intensity across the screen) did not appear at any time. The TV is a Sony flatscreen cathode ray tube (model KV-36FS70). It's five years old and just out of warranty.
Interestingly, while it was in for repair, I brought my Sony portable down from upstairs and plugged that in. Watching a DVD on that, the screen went funny (not blue, but kind of distorted -as though it was a channel that wasn't tuned in properly). That TV also shut itself off and the LED was pulsating 3 times too. Very strange. The DVD didn't recognise ordinary purchased DVD's after that either -so that's in getting repaired.
This really is a mystery, although perhaps it's not down to the recently installed mobile phone mast nearby. Perhaps the thing for me to try over this weekend is to leave a table lamp switched on as I'm watching the TV and see if it dims when the problem recurrs.
Hopefully that will provide an indication, otherwise I'll surely go (more) insane!
Andy.
The Sony repair people had the TV for a week. They told me that they had it switched on in their workshop for nearly 12 hrs per day -which I found hard to believe. They also said that the symptoms I described to them (overall blue tint of equal intensity across the screen) did not appear at any time. The TV is a Sony flatscreen cathode ray tube (model KV-36FS70). It's five years old and just out of warranty.
Interestingly, while it was in for repair, I brought my Sony portable down from upstairs and plugged that in. Watching a DVD on that, the screen went funny (not blue, but kind of distorted -as though it was a channel that wasn't tuned in properly). That TV also shut itself off and the LED was pulsating 3 times too. Very strange. The DVD didn't recognise ordinary purchased DVD's after that either -so that's in getting repaired.
This really is a mystery, although perhaps it's not down to the recently installed mobile phone mast nearby. Perhaps the thing for me to try over this weekend is to leave a table lamp switched on as I'm watching the TV and see if it dims when the problem recurrs.
Hopefully that will provide an indication, otherwise I'll surely go (more) insane!
Andy.
andyb32 said:
Andy,
It's ridiculous that Sony's designers went to the trouble of incorporating an error indication, but then won't tell you what it means! Keep on at them - try to get hold of their technical department, because it sounds like this is indeed trying to tell you what the trouble is - especially as different models from the same manufacturer do the same thing.
From the fact that it affected the DVD too, if it's EMI through the air then it must be incredibly powerful. But my vote goes for something weird happening to the mains, spikes, dips, surges, or just possibly conducted EMI.
But get after Sony - someone *must* know what the three flashes mean, even if that someone is in Japan!
Cheers,
Howard
I still favour bad EMC somewhere. Do you live anywhere near a pylon, or do any of your neighbours run anyhing with a big electric motor in ? Any loose screws in the microwave, or even the location of your meter. Alternatively, check the deeds of your house to see if it was built on an Indian graveyard or anything (Red Indian, that is)....
S
supersparks
another idea
what about getting a UPS
about 80 quid though though i reckon you can get cheeper, i have a belkin one with bulldog monitoing software.
put this in line with it and connect the serial cable to your PC.
the UPS will record a log of low voltages/high voltages and frequency changes and some other stuff but cant remember what.
another thing to do, is to get some lead flashing
tie an earth cable to it and tie it to a rod outside
this will sheild any interference from the direction, if you move it about it will eventually sheild it out and give you the direction the interference is comming from.
should work, but just nother idea to try mind
what about getting a UPS
about 80 quid though though i reckon you can get cheeper, i have a belkin one with bulldog monitoing software.
put this in line with it and connect the serial cable to your PC.
the UPS will record a log of low voltages/high voltages and frequency changes and some other stuff but cant remember what.
another thing to do, is to get some lead flashing
tie an earth cable to it and tie it to a rod outside
this will sheild any interference from the direction, if you move it about it will eventually sheild it out and give you the direction the interference is comming from.
should work, but just nother idea to try mind
B
breezer
lead is for x-rays, tin foil will do
I assume from this that the problem happens only downstairs. That doesn't rule out RF interference but it would have to be very localized or, more likely, coming in through a wire. The aerial wire is a prime suspect in this case. Was your upstairs TV working on a different aerial?
Other things can come in through a variety of wires. If it's brown-out or spike trouble it seems to affect only the downstairs ring. What else is plugged in? Do you have anything else connected to your TV such as a Sky box with a phone line attached? In what way is the hi-fi interconnected, if at all?
Here's one I don't think has been considered yet. Is some faulty piece of equipment occasionally shooting 240 volts out through it's audio/video/aerial connectors? That sounds like a good way to do a lot of damage.
That's an awful lot of possibilities but you can eliminate them by disconnecting everything from everything else. If the fault goes away, reinstate connections until it comes back, hopefully without destroying any more DVD lasers!
Diffraction will defeat your best efforts with this one though, as Breezer has just pointed out, it will block X-rays. Sorry, tinfoil won't work either.
Thanks once again to all these useful pointers.
I did have my TV aerial replaced a few months ago, so maybe the guy didn't do a proper job (?). The TV upstairs hasn't been used, as I'm waiting for an aerial socket and power sockets to be installed (on Tuesday). I have a different aerial installation fitter/engineer coming along to fit a distribution amplifier in my loft too, so I'll get him to check for interference in my lounge.
I've just noticed that the picture on my PC monitor is unusually dark too. I'm not sure if this is related, but even with the brightness and contrast set to maximum, images still appear dark. Very strange.
I will get back onto Sony and press them for some answers. Oddly enough, I tried plugging a desk lamp into the same double socket as the TV last night, and managed to watch the whole length of a film and still the picture didn't go blue causing the TV to shut down. This could be incidental (sometimes the TV will last several hours before the problem is apparent). I'm going to try this again tonight though, just in case it holds a clue as to what is going on.
The UPS sounds like a good idea too. I'll have a look on kelkoo to see how much they are.
Cheers,
Andy.
I did have my TV aerial replaced a few months ago, so maybe the guy didn't do a proper job (?). The TV upstairs hasn't been used, as I'm waiting for an aerial socket and power sockets to be installed (on Tuesday). I have a different aerial installation fitter/engineer coming along to fit a distribution amplifier in my loft too, so I'll get him to check for interference in my lounge.
I've just noticed that the picture on my PC monitor is unusually dark too. I'm not sure if this is related, but even with the brightness and contrast set to maximum, images still appear dark. Very strange.
I will get back onto Sony and press them for some answers. Oddly enough, I tried plugging a desk lamp into the same double socket as the TV last night, and managed to watch the whole length of a film and still the picture didn't go blue causing the TV to shut down. This could be incidental (sometimes the TV will last several hours before the problem is apparent). I'm going to try this again tonight though, just in case it holds a clue as to what is going on.
The UPS sounds like a good idea too. I'll have a look on kelkoo to see how much they are.
Cheers,
Andy.
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