sony/virgin update

[Terry7556]

never had a great deal of trouble with TVs as such but now i have a couple of things occuring and i w onder if they are related
so 20/12/13 virgin fitted broadband/tv/phone.
on 28/12/13 main tv stops working.sony bravia bought on 2/10/10 at john lewis and so repaired under warrenty. the repair firm from birmingham came to the house, took one look at it,said workshop job ,wrapped it in clingfilm and took it away
delivered it back an hour ago. me not in but the wife said 2 young lads put it together , were here 5 minutes and left, she said virgin (tivo box) dont work.looked at the back of the telly and see areial connection in.this was not plugged in to the temporary telly, i know this as i was looking at this a couple of hours ago when main temporary telly started freezing like other v plus box is doing regularly. i know fook all about tvs but im learning as i go along and i know the tv has to tuned or talk to the hdmi setting. i would have thought that guys setting up TVs would know this or perhaps couldnt care less on a saturday afternoon
they commented that we were unlucky with the parts changed , a psu power supply and a BAL board.
so the fault with the virgin service is TV in other room on the v plus box is freezing when remote control used and we have to turn off at wall and back on again to work.this is happening regularly. this has happened once or twice with tv in living room, the one with the the tivo box
rang virgin, they said signal at house below strength and they would send an engineer out, so more fooking time off work to meet him
so advice please
what is a BAL board on a tv?
why does a weak signal affect one tv and not the other one as much?
are the things related/connected or just unfortunate?
thank you for sticking with it

 

[Terry7556]

now the screen goes blank without using the remote control

 

[Lucid]

I'm having a bit of trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff in your ramble

If your TV picture is freezing then there's some basic trouble-shooting to try. Put the TV on to Freeview (presuming you have a Freeview signal) or DVD/Blu-ray. If it still freezes then it's probably something to do with the TV's main processing. If not then it could be source related. Work through and eliminate/isolate potential causes.

Coincidence is always a possibility. The BAL board is where all the input sockets connect. There's always a chance that connecting an external source have put some stress on the board.

The Virgin connection from the box to the TV should be made using HDMI. It's rare to need the aerial connection for much other than pass-through of the TV (Freeview) signal as an alternative source.

Virgin's cable signal is "balanced" for the street. That means that you can't go splitting the signal as and where you wish because it can (in extreme circumstances) affect your neighbours. The install guys from Virgin adjust the signal level so all of the receivers get an appropriate amount of signal. All that being said, I have taken a two-way splitter and replaced it with a 3-way splitter in a client's house before now with no adverse effects. There was plenty of signal before and after the splitting.

The Virgin signal would have to be very marginal to be bad on one box and okay on another. Has anyone tampered with the wiring or added a home extension?

 

[Terry7556]

lucid cheers for the reply
no one has added an home extension or tampered with the wiring
feel a bit silly now but i appear to have sorted it
the second tv is in a conservatory and the tv sits on top of the v plus box, literally
since putting the tv on the window ledge behind the v plus box the screen does not freeze and responds to the remote

 

[Terry7556]

lucid you were spot on with your assessment
the virgin guy has just left and its all ok again
the signal was too strong, on 8 or 10 and he adjusted it down
also when checking the boxes afterwards , he was not happy with the responses on the v plus box, took it to the van to check it on his rig and he came back in with a new box,

 

[Sam Gangee]

A word of advice for Terence:
http://sam-radford.me.uk/info.htm#english

 

[Diyisfun]

A word of advice for Terence:
http://sam-radford.me.uk/info.htm#english[/QUOTE]

Sam, that could be posted to many of the new posters. Good link.
Well done.

 

[Terry7556]

update
the tv has failed again after 4 days.When switched on the red standby light appears and after 5 seconds goes out and switches the TV off again.
Is it normal to have recurring electrical faults or just unfortunate?

 

[Lucid]

Given that there are so few components in a modern TV, and that repair is now mostly by board substitution rather than replacing discrete components so the chances of missing something are greatly reduced, then I'd say it's very disappointing.

Contact JL, let them know that the TV has failed again. Give them one last chance to repair on the proviso that if it fails again then your faith in the product will be gone and you'll be looking for a pro-rata refund.

 

[Terry7556]

lucid we contacted John Lewis this morning.As expected a very positive and apologetic response, so will have to wait untill next saturday for presumably another collection from the repair company and see what happens.
once again thank you for your advice

 

[Terry7556]

after a couple of phone calls to john lewis to find out why our repair was taking a month to sort out,we have received a call from the repair company saying the parts were taking longer than usual to fix the set and then last week a text from the repair company saying john lewis or our insurers would be in touch
john lewis called offering a replacement set for our bravia kdl40ex713.
they offered a samsung ue40 f6500 with 13 months warrenty or the value of that tv towards another set in store, which would give a new 5 year warrenty with that purchase
is the samsung a resonable upgrade or perhaps not an upgrade at all?