If anyone in the teeming millions knows anything about tv’s I need your help before I lug my Toshiba 27 inch down to repair.
When I turn it on normal TV the heads of people talking are elongated to the top. I see no visible v-hold control in the front or back. I see nothing on the remote either. Another example would be if I press play on a DVD the play is barely visible on the top, just the bottom of the letters are visible. And when I view a DVD in widescreen the problem is not there, so I can only deduce it is the V-hold. Anyone know how to adjust the V-Hold on a Toshiba model # CF2768B 27" TV???
The vertical hold control will likely be inside the case. EXTREME CAUTION should be taken whenever you open the back of a TV EVEN WHEN THE SET IS UNPLUGGED.
Sorry to yell, but I had a friend who touched the wrong thing on a circuit board and was nearly killed.
If the TV is worth it, get it repaired by a qualified technician. It is unlikely you can fix the problem.
On the back there may be small holes in the chassis where small plastic tools (available at Radio Shack for $2-$3) can be inserted to adjust vertical and horizontal hold without removing the case. Unfortunately a failing vertical hold on a modern TV does not bode well for future system reliability. For 27 inch class TV’s, unless it’s in warranty or it’s a high end unit with special features it’s usually about the same cost to get a new 27" set vs letting a repairman service it.
If the bottom looks normal, and only the top is stretched out, then your vertical adjustment is not going to fix it even if you find it. The are actually two types of vertical adjustment: one moves the whole picture up/down, the other changes the height of the picture by squeezing it shorter or stretching it higher. In either case, there should be a top/bottom symmetry of effect.
I think you have serious problems with the guns at the back of the tube. IANA TV tech, I’m a media technician (I operate, I don’t fix). I know there are some serious techies around here who can confirm or deny my theory more authoritatively than I can.
Sounds like vertical sizing problem. Adjust knob on back of set. However it could be a capacitor in the vertical section going bad. This would shrink your picture also.
A thousand thanks! Actually I heard the same thing about not opening the back of the TV from Mrs. Phlosphr’s Dad. He said one should take special caution opening the back, and as my father-in-law has been an electrician for 25 years I had better take his advice. I really really do not want to buy a new TV, that would just suck. This one is a 99 Toshiba, not the best but certainly not the worse.
Thanks again though, any other suggestions are welcome.
This problem on that specific model is apparently not altogether unknown and seems to be beyond the scope of a simple vertical hold adjustment. There are components that need to be replaced. TV Repair FAQ
I always unplug any appliance for a minute & plug back in, this usually resets them. That’s what I try the first time. Works pretty well in my experience too.
Don’t most TVs have a service menu thats accessed through the remote control or front panel by hitting the right buttons, for adjusting things?
This has been said several times here already but I will add to it just the same. DO NOT OPEN YOUR TV! As said leave it to trained folks. Even unplugged there are capacitors inside that maintain a significant charge…potentially enough to kill you but certainly enough to hurt A LOT if you touch it. A friend of mine is trained in TV repair and he hit the wrong thing once anyway…gave him quite a burn. He recovered fine but still no fun at all.
I always purchase a Service Manual when I buy a new TV/stereo component. They’re usually $20 and worth every penny. (At the very least you can provide it to the technician who’s working on it.) So my suggestion is to first purchase the Service Manual…
This is a bit of a “far out” suggestion, but sometimes the basic stuff gets overlooked in the search for the high-tech answer…
Is there anything on top of your set that might be causing this asymmetric distortion? Anything magnetic, or that might be emitting a magnetic field? A huge sub-woofer, for example?
I second the practical joke angle. I know I’ve played it more than a few times. Now, every time my x-coworker gets a set with a strange deflection problem, he checks inside the case for magnets before he does anything else.
That being said, I can’t really get my mind behind what the problem looks like. Are you saying that all the people on TV look like Herman Munster?
The most likely suspect is always the hardest working part, in this case the vertical amplifier (a transistor) or the power supply that feeds it. It’s definitely going to be a tricky one to troubleshoot without service literature unless you can see something obvious like a cold solder joint or loose connection.
I believe that a defective damper diode will give you ½ loss of vertical deflection, but that doesn’t sound quite like what you describe. Flipping through my Sony bulletins I see numerous instances of leaky capacitors causing ½ vertical stretch, which sounds more like your problem.
Wherever you take it for an estimate, make sure they will deduct the cost of the estimate from the cost of the final repair (if you approve the estimate). This was Circuit City’s policy when I worked there 3 years ago.