Our Big Screen TV has a dark area that comes and goes on the right side of the screen when we are watching TV.
Is this a repairable condition or is it on its way out?
Thanks!
What kind of TV? Flat panel LCD? LED? Plasma? Rear projection CRT? DLP? LCD?
Sony Flat panel LCD.
Try shining a flashlight into the screen in the area where it goes dark. Is there an image there, or is it completely featureless? You may have to experiment with different angles to see this. Also, look at it in a completely dark room, with no image (black screen) displayed. Is the dim gray light relatively uniform across the screen, or is the part that has the image problem completely black?
If there’s an image, you have a backlight problem. If there’s no image and the view in a dark room shows a relatively uniform shade of gray, then you have a pixel driver board problem.
Both of these problems tend to manifest as clearly-delineated areas of the screen, square or rectangular. If you have more of a blob, that tends to come from physical damage.
Does your panel have fans? Are they all turning properly? Overheating of one region can cause this sort of issue, but normally only on plasma sets, not LCDs.
How big a set is this, and how old? It tends to not be cost-effective to repair older (out of warranty) sets unless they’re something special.
The main issue for a DIY repair is that you need to throw parts at it and see if that fixes it. An advanced service shop (which may be limited to “factory authorized” places) will have a set of spare boards to try to track down where the problem is.
Make sure it’s not your cable box or dvd player or whatever by changing the input source. Then if you are out of warranty, tough luck. Rarely repairable for a reasonable cost. A TV repair shop may not charge you for a diagnosis, so it doesn’t hurt to check, but most of these TV’s aren’t built to be serviceable in that manner. New electronics or a display panel may cost more than a new TV.