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Can reconnecting cable service kill a TV?

I have a 4 1/2 year-old Sony Bravia KDL-52W4100 LCD TV. I typically watch a couple of DVDs a week, but rarely watch television broadcasts. I hadn't us ed my cable service in over a month, and when I went to try it yesterday, I had no cable service. I called my provider (Comcast), who eventually told me that my account had been suspended because I had not used it in over a m onth. The Comcast rep sent out whatever signal was necessary to restore my service, and was successful in doing so. I watched a few minutes of a hocke y game, then shut off the cable and TV. In the evening, I went to watch a D VD, and my TV would not power on. It was (and is) completely dead: nothing lighting up anywhere. I contacted Sony support, who put me through all the steps I had already tried (different outlet, resetting the power cables, et c.). Nothing doing. Completely dead. I have to wonder: Is this definitely a coincidence--first cable service is out, then it's on and TV dies--or is t here some way in which restarting the cable service could have caused my TV to fail?

Reply to
gf1701
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Well, I don't think this is the case. Reconnecting cable wire again and again has nothing to do with the failure of the TV. Get some help of the technician rather.

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janegray78
Reply to
janegray78

janegray78 wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@diybanter.com:

the

A neighbour of mine had a new tv in the bedroom. Did not use it for about a month, and all settings were lost. Happens to be a "feature" of that tv, and you have to repeat the factory setup for it again........ , or watch tv at least once a week. (The tv was connected to the mains the whole period....)

Reply to
Sjouke Burry

"Post hoc ergo proctor hoc" fallacy

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

The main thing is if you reconnected the physical cable or the cable service.

On some equipment the chassis might be at half mains voltage (but low current) due to a mains filter.

This could cause the input curcuitry to fail when you connect the physical cable, if the cable is grounded somewhere. Or another tv could ave a bad filter which puts voltage on the cable network.

But restoring the cable signal remotely should do no harm.

Leif

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Reply to
Leif Neland

Then why wasn't the receiver already damaged?

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

No. While the cable company controls the cable box, there is no way a control signal can arrive via a DVI or HDMI cable, from the cable box, to the TV, and blow something up. The only remote possibility is that the cable box applied some voltage to the +5v (50ma max) line on the HDMI cable. That would hardly do any damage. All the other pins are isolated and protected. Also, to the best of my limited knowledge, there is no destruct command in the TV's remote instruction set, and that Sony does not include a self-destruct feature.

The good news is that a totally dead TV usually means a power supply problem. These are often a seperate board and can be easily replaced. Usually, the problem is bluging electrolytic capacitors, which are fairly easy to identify and replace. It is also possible that you may have experienced an AC power glitch, which may have blown a fuse in the TV. The bad news is that you'll need to contact a TV repair shop in order to get it fixed.

Hmmm... there are some odd KDL-52W4100 boards for sale on eBay. Here's a power supply: There are several others for sale, but have someone diagnose the problem down to at least the board level before spending money.

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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yes, and the op does not indicate that the TV wss even disconnected from th e cable at all.

ther eis a strange set of circumstances that can result in a failure when c onnecting to cable, but usually this is due to a gorund fault and sparks us ually occur. There was no mention of disconnection and no mention of sparks , therefore I conclude the folowing : This is a bulb TV, they are about as reliable as a flea driven coast guard cutter, forget it. It failed on it's own.

In a CRT TV I would say there is a posssibility that it got kicked up into a higher scan mode and blew some sweep components, but this is a bulb TV. S ome sets actually synchronize the lamp, but this is unlikely to cause a pro blem because there are no time constants. Plus the thing worked before.

If the set has been used otherwise, this is simp[ly a failure and has nothi ng to do with the connection or payment of the cable bill.

They probably wish they could break your TV remotely, but they cannot as of yet. Wait. They can disable cars and trucks now, and the almighty cellphon e. just wait.

Reply to
jurb6006

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