Have an LG 55 inch TV in our living room. Don’t watch it all that much. Have a bigger, better set in our rec room in the lower level. Bought living room set circa 2015. It’s never been turned off. You can see the screen through slotted curtains. Makes it seem like someone’s always home or up at night.
Today the screen started flashing in 1/2 second intervals. All black, then the picture. Continuously. Turned it off for a while and back on. No change. Changed the inputs via remote, DVD player, cable, antenna, ROKU, VCR (yep. we have our old VCR hooked up to this set). Everything the same, flashing. Sound is fine.
I’m thinking that after being on all the time for over 9 years the set is just done. Anything I haven’t thought of?
You have done the basic steps to get it back and that failed. I can’t think of anything else worth doing. Even if it could be repaired (doubtful) that would likely cost as much or more than a new TV.
ETA: Is there a system reset on the TV? Put it back to factory settings? I’d give that a go if it is there. I doubt it will fix your problem but worth a try.
Don’t even think about repairing a 9 year old TV set, it’s toast. Not even giving it a good whack will help like in the old times. But you could try anyway, I’d do it.
difficult to say for certain, but probably. Two things you may want try is 1) unplugging the tv for a minute and then plugging it back in and, 2) a factory reset, which should be accessible in the tv menu. If neither of those work, getting the tv repaired will cost more than it is worth, of that I am certain.
Why anyone would think I’d get a 9 year old set repaired when a replacement for a model like this is less than $200 is beyond me,I just don’t want to trash something if there is a home fix I haven’t thought about.
My brother in law said that he saw some light “halos” in the screen about 6 months ago. He said it was indicative of the motherboard going bad. Seeing we don’t watch this set much I didn’t think or worry much about it.
I never said LCD. It was an HD. Already found one at Wal Mart for $188 marked down from $228. And it’s 4K. Not going to splurge on this room. Plus can’t get one any bigger than 60’ as the TV stand is an electric fireplace model and can’t hold any bigger than a 60". Too bad. Found a 65" Hisense for $268 marked down from $298.
ETA: It looks like the lower priced ones are in fact LCD.
I had the exact same thing happen to an old LG, it would’ve required replacing the control board (I think, been awhile) and quite frankly TVs are disposable commodities these days. I even opened the whole thing up and peeked inside, no visible issues but the parts weren’t available at an economic price.
It does weird things like turning itself on for no reason I can discern.
It will occasionally just drop whatever I am watching and go back to the app screen.
My main issue is it is sooooooooo slooooooow to respond to any input. It’s awful. Even changing volume is a multi-button push process on the remote and the TV might respond in 10-20 seconds (or more). Almost any use of the remote is slow slow slow. Pause the TV? 2-3 button pushes…sometimes they stack up so you push to pause…nothing happens so you push again…nothing happens so you push again and then the TV pauses, un-pauses, pauses.
These things are common. Happen all the time. And yeah, I have gone through every menu possible on the TV to try to improve things…nothing helps. I wrote them and they were very nice and then did fuck-all.
But it is never broken. It just sucks.
That said, if your goal is to put a TV in a room, turn it on to deter thieves and do nothing else then it is fine for that. Even then it will piss you off but it will only be that one time.
My LG TV which is two years older (but more expensive) is as smooth as butter and a joy to use. Every button push gets an immediate response. So, so much nicer to use (also a better picture and sound).
Cheaper TVs are all LCD these days. Some are sometimes called “LED” which just means the backlight is LED but it’s still a liquid crystal. The more expensive ones are OLED or QLED. You can probably get one for $200 but I’d at least spend a little more for a name brand with a warranty and you can for sub-$500. Probably 4k and other features you didn’t have before. O/Q LED will get spendy.
You might want to install a Roku or Apple TV or Firestick type device, “Smart TV” interfaces are notoriously crappy. $30 for a headache removal. It can be hard to find a “dumb TV” these days but you can also just bypass it with the Roku, it may work (though the volume being sluggish is unusual). You can get the fancier Roku remote with its own volume, I’m sure Apple and Amazon have their own similar features.
We don’t just use it as a night light. We watch it. Just not as much as we watch the TV’s in the rec room or the bedroom. I would say the watching ratio is 50%/30%/20%.
The living room is away from the bedroom. Having the TV light up the room doesn’t bother us a bit. From the outside it looks like there is activity going on inside. Started keeping the TV on when we moved in here and never stopped.
I would suggest the truism you get what you pay for applies here.
As with many things I think there is a sweet spot which is somewhere in the middle. The really cheap shit is shit and the really expensive stuff is not worth it. You’ll find the best bang-for-your buck somewhere in the lower-middle cost range.
He could have followed the numerous YouTube videos and recovered the gold plating on the connectors. For less then $100 worth of chemicals and a few hours of breathing deadly fumes he would have about 2 cents worth of gold. But he could be smug and happy.
Milwaukee sanitation will take it for $5. That’s not unreasonable.
Electronics
Drop Off Centers will accept electronics. NOT ACCEPTED CURBSIDE.
Drop Off Centers will accept up to three TVs per visit with a recycling fee of $5 per TV. All other electronics listed on the Drop Off Center website are accepted free of charge.
Electronics are banned from Wisconsin landfills. Learn more here.
Consider repairing electronics to extend their useful life.
I love how they recommend repairing electronics. Those days are long, long over. Plus if you try it yourself and don’t know what you are doing you’re going to get electrocuted by a capacitor.
