36" TVs, clicking sound at power-up, no picture

Skew 20 years ago

My 7 year old 36" RCA TV stopped working about 3 weeks ago. I'd try turning it on, I'd hear 3-6 clicks that sounded like the relay clicks during power-on, and then it would stop with nothing happening. I've been too busy to troubleshoot it so far, but that was my plan.

An old neighbor of mine called about his 5 year old Sony 36" WEGA doing the same thing, right down to the click count. I thought I better ask on here if this is a semi-common problem before tackling it blindly, since I'm merely a wanna-be tech and not a full-fledged TV repair person.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

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Mike Berger 20 years ago

The clicking is an indication that the power supply is trying to start up and detects a fault. The number of clicks is usually dependent on how many attempts it makes to turn on before quitting, and not an indication of where the problem lies.

The trouble might be > My 7 year old 36" RCA TV stopped working about 3 weeks ago. I'd try

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Skew 20 years ago

Thanks Mike... a couple other things I should've mentioned...

- no sound (it really appears that the TV didn't turn on, rather than just the tube)

- There is electrostatic charge on the screens, so that if I'm lucky that means the high-voltage supply is ok

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Tom MacIntyre 20 years ago

For the RCA, if it'll come on in Service Mode, it may mean that you have an I2C (communication and control) bus problem. I don't recall how to do it; it's a combination of 2 or 3 front panel controls. Don't do anything but determine if it'll come on, as, without knowledge and experience, you can really mess things up in Service Mode.

Tom

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Rono 20 years ago

Very likely the flyback transformer! Rono.Very likely!

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Skew 20 years ago

I found the service mode sequnce

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for those of you reading this thread), it didn't come on, at least not visibly. The TV seemed off, but it's hard to tell for sure at this point.

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