A S-Video connection fried both my laptop and TV! Help needed!

I would *guess* (it's hard to tell without seeing the setup live) that your cheap un-earthed extension cable is the problem. I'm betting it also transposes Live and Neutral. I'm not sure where you are, but if your AC mains includes the earth, it is there for a reason, so throw out that extension cable anyway.

Ken

I just can give quesses also... To giv definitive answer, I would need to be in place with some measurement instruments...

Generally sounds OK. The safest idea is to do the connection while the components are turned off and not plugged to wall... Sfest bet in connection is to make sure your PC is not connected to mains, connect the video cable and then plug it to wall if needed...

Sounds like you got quite a surge to the system....

Most propably the problem here was not in the cable construction itself..

The surge could have damaged the video output on your PC or the input on the TV.. A surge through RCA connector can cause this.. RCA connector is a very stupid connector for audio/video connection because normally it connectes the center pin that carries the signal before the signal ground, allowing the potential difference between the different equipment to enter the equipment as surge! This has damaged many equipment in systems where there are ungrounded PCs or other grounding problems... I know people who have damaged for example PC sound cards, PC video cards, TV audio/video inputs, AV amplifier audio/video connections etc.. And the real life experiences (few damaged components) have teched me to become careful.

In the computer connections there would be lots of less damaged equipment if proper connections for the applications are used... Professional audio/video world prefers XLR and BNC connectors for their connections, both of those guarantee that ground gets always connected first... Lots of less fried equipment and more reliable connections.

If things are correct, meaning the cable is correct and still working, computer settings are correct, TV video input still working and TV settings correct you should get picture when you run the computer from battery. Generally with a laptop it is safest to run the computer from battery on its own (not connected to anything else connected to mains power or anything else). When you have just the computer running with batteries it is harver to fry it...

I would have tried the computer running at batteries without mains connection. Your sirge problems are most proplably somehow related to AC power connection.

There was some form of surge formed when you do the connection. There are varuous possibilities. Some possibilities:

- your TV is conencted to cable TV system that is not properly grounded and there is some energu there that gets through your cable and equipment to mains ground

- your ungrounded TV + DVD system is not connected to cable TV outlet, but some equipment inside it is damaged to that the mains power gets to the equipment case + AV conenctor ground, when you do connection to grounded PC you will create a short circuit (this will generate huge surge and generally burn fuse on mains panel),

- Your TV system is connected to properly grounded cable TV connection (or properly grounded antenna on your roof) but the is something wrong in the grounding of your mains outlet grounding (miswired etc..) so you mains outlet ground has some power on it, when you equipment chain makes link to cable TV ground you get a large current surge through your wiring and equipment (might not burn any fuses..)

- your TV + DVD system is not connected to cable TV or other ground, the ungrounded properly working equipment "leak" some small amount of power to their cases (this is normal), so the cases are not at ground potential (usually at around 30-60V AC potential if you measure them agains ground with a modern multimeter), when you do the connection with RCA connector, this voltage difference causes a surge to both equipment on the end of cable (before the voltage difference gts nulled when groudn gets connected)

- laptop computer power supply is damaged and leaks mains power to PC case, this gets though your witing to cable TV ground

Here are few tips:

- do the connections only when equipment are not powered up and not plugged to wall

- run your PC preferably with it's internal battery only and not connected to anything else (modem and Ethernet with UTP cable are OK, USB connection to equipment with its own power supply is not a good idea)

- do the connections so that you always the ground gets connected before the signal itself (might need you to used special RCA connectors or adaters to BNC connections etc..)

Best if yuo can use all of those tips... Sometimes you can only follow some of them and you need to take your changes...

With a properly caefully done connection will work well...

The problem could in any equiopment or your house wiring (antenna/cableTV/mains).

Hopefully my tips have helped you.

Your message was very well readable and understandable English.

--
Tomi Engdahl (http://www.iki.fi/then/)
Take a look at my electronics web links and documents at 
http://www.epanorama.net/

What you had was not a power surge, but a bad short circuit.

It would be very difficult to tell what happened, without actually doing some tests with a DVM, and determine what the voltage is between the TV and the laptop.

I can tell you that once you smell something burning from any electronic device, there is some damage of some kind. It looks like both the TV and laptop will be in need of service. In your laptop, the display card is part of the mother board, so I can see what is going to have to be changed in it.

As for the TV set, the video input circuits, especially for the S-Video must be damaged. There are going to be components that will have to be changed.

It is very possible that there is something defective on the power supply of one or both of the units, that prevented proper isolation between them. If the ground, and or the neutral for the AC mains outlets are not wired correctly, this type of damage can also occur.

I am wondering if you didn't accidentally use the PS2 port as an S-Video connection! This is something that I have see done by accident. I have seen some low quality adaptors be able to be forced in. The S-Video connector is supposed to have a blocking pin to prevent this, but there are some cheap ones that do not. If there is no blocking pin, the 4 pin connector will fit in to the 6 pin one, because the rest of the connector can align.

The PS2 port on your computer has some supply voltages on it. These will certainly damage the input circuits of the TV set, and at the same time will damage the components on the mother board for the PS2 port.

Your PS2 port should have 6 pins, while the S-Video connector should have 4 pins.

Normally you should be able to connect your computer to the TV set. I have done this many times. The TV will look crappie with the computer, unless it is the type of TV that has full VGA compatibility. The HDTV sets will do this type of thing.

If you are reducing the S-Video output back to combined baseband, then the quality will be even worse. So, I would not see the point of all of this.

As for the TV set, it can be serviced. Find out who in your area is authorized to service your set. The computer will probably have to go back to the factory service outlet for its repair as well. Since it is a laptop, it will be expensive to service, but probably cheaper than buying a new one.

--

Jerry G. =====

Recently, I had a big power surge problem involving both my brand new laptop and my less than two years old TV. Two total looses.

My main concern is that I don't really understand what happened and, thereof, can't see a way to prevent it in the future.

Here's the story :

I bought a few weeks ago an HP notebook with an S-Video output. I used my laptop (on battery and AC power) a week and a half before trying the S-Video output and did not have a single problem.

So, someday, I decided it was time to try to connect my laptop on my TV by using the S-Video output. I bought a S-Video-to-RCA cable at Radioshack because I thought it would be more practical to have my laptop connected to the front RCA jacks of my TV.

As soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off and I could smell a light odour of burnt electronic components. The TV did not seem to be damaged because I could turn it on almost immediately. As for the laptop, I simply had to reinsert the battery to make it start.

Maybe it was very stupid, but I thought that the problem could be the cheap RadioShack cable. So I decided to buy a true S-Video cable.

For my second try, I choose to not plug the laptop into the AC outlet and just use the battery. After connecting the laptop to the TV, all I see is a black screen. By the way, I did not feel like there was a power surge problem this time.

Days later, I really wanted to make my S-Video port work. So, I downloaded the latest devices drivers for my graphic card and gave the S-Video output a new try with the laptop connected to the AC outlet. Not a good idea.

Again, as soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off and I could smell a strong odour of burnt electronic components. This time the damage was terrible. Both my laptop and TV are completely fried. There is just no way to make'em work anymore.

So my questions are :

1) What happened ? 2) How could I prevent this kind of surge ? 3) Should I never try to connect a laptop to a TV ?

I made a diagram of my living room electrical setup. You can see it at this URL :

I don't think that the problem is from my TV since it is almost new and because it never fried my DVD player or VCR. I guess the problem comes from my laptop, but I still don't really understand.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really need to understand since I don't know much about electricity.

Thank you very much.

(By the way, I am very sorry for the poor English. It is not my language.)