Hey guys, welcome back to Rutter Renovations where today we're going to be learning how
to repair a Smart TV that keeps rebooting.
Here we go!
This is the problem that we've been experiencing with our TV.
We would turn it on, it would come up to the splash screen, show the smart apps and recent
input on the bottom of the screen, and then it would just power cycle and start the process
over again.
There are one or two times it allowed me to select an app on the tv before it rebooted,
but most of the time I wasn't able to input anything with the remote before it power cycled
again.
This started happening after a thunderstorm, so I'm sure it was because of a power surge.
What's odd is that the TV continued to work after the storm, but it started doing some
weird things like losing the ability to play audio until it got to the point where it is
now.
So, I could either buy a new TV for 100's of dollars or take a chance and spend $70
to try and fix it.
Since we rarely use our TV, I decided to try and fix it.
You can start by removing your tv from its stand or mount and laying it down on a flat
surface.
I laid ours on a thick blanket on top of our table, but you could use any soft flat surface,
such as a rug or carpet.
Then you'll start the disassembly process by unscrewing the back of the TV.
Not including the screws for the mounts, this 55" Samsung has four screws on each side,
three on the top, nine on the bottom, and one located by the power plug and another
by the ethernet port.
Luckily all the screws were the same size, but if your screws are different sizes, you'll
want to lay them out in order, so you'll know which screw went where.
Once all the screws are removed, the back cover should just lift off, but if yours has
little clips that lock it in, you can wedge a plastic putty knife along the edge of the
back cover, where it meets up with the TV, and it should pop right off.
TVs are pretty simple devices and aren't comprised of too many parts.
The brown board is the power supply, the board with the audio/video ports is the smart board,
and the tiny board on the bottom is called the T-con board, which controls the smart
applications on the TV.
I started by troubleshooting the power board to make sure it was giving the right voltage
to the smart board.
Right next to the cable that goes to the smart board there's a little diagram on the power
board that shows the correct voltages that should be going to the smart board.
Four of the connections should be around 13V and the last connection is a ground.
I unplugged the cable going to the smart board, powered up the tv, kept my black multimeter
lead on the ground, and checked each one of the four connections being careful not to
touch two pins at the same time.
All the pins registered around 13 volts and with the smart board unplugged the tv actually
stopped rebooting and the backlight remained lit, which told me the backlight was functioning
properly and the power board was putting out the correct voltage.
After doing this test, I felt certain the smart board or t-con board was the one that
was defective.
I unplugged the t-con board and powered on the tv to see if any of the symptoms would
change and the tv wouldn't even come on.
After doing all these tests and remembering that the first sign of our TV having a problem
was the loss of audio, I took a hunch and ordered the smart board because the speakers
plug directly into that board, so that's the one we're going to swap out.
I ordered the board from TVpartstoday.com, but there's other websites such as shopjimmy.com,
eBay, your manufacturer's website that you can get these boards from.
Now, the smart board is what contains all the memory for your apps, logins, Wi-Fi networks,
settings, etc. so when you swap this board out all of your settings are going to be lost.
So, if something looks a little different when you turn it back on, you're going to
have to go into your menu settings to change it back to how you like it.
You'll also have to download all of the apps that you used to have and uninstall apps or
logout of apps that someone else previously had on that board.
Alright, we're going to plug it back in and see if the new board fixed it.
It didn't automatically come on like it has every other time.
I'll use the remote and see if I can turn it on.
So, that's one difference.
It does come on.
It does say "HDMI".
"Check that the device is connected properly."
"Try turning on the device and then select the standby button."
Okay.
Oh, I guess that's just because there's no source to it, so will see if we can play something.
Alright, so we're going to go ahead and check, just put it on smart tv, and will select an
app and we'll see if we can actually connect.
Alright, looks like it's working now.
Once you tested it and it works properly, you can reattach the back cover and any mounts
and you should be good!
Alright guys, I hope that was helpful for you.
If you have any questions, you can comment below.
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Peace and God bless.