I have cable TV in three locations. The bedroom unit is the only one that acts up.
In short, turning the set on is a crapshoot. About half of the time it comes on with no problem. But often it takes 2, 3, sometimes up to 6 attempts before all is good.
When it is behaving badly, I get a “no signal detected” error message. I then have to shut it down and try again until the stars align.
I’ve checked all the connections more than once. It appears to be completely random; if there is a pattern, I haven’t detected it.
This is clearly a minor annoyance in the grand scheme, but I would be just a little bit happier if I didn’t feel like I was spinning the wheel of fortune every time I want to watch some bedtime telly.
If it is purely a TV problem the most likely issue is the power supply. These are typically the first thing to go in modern consumer AC electronics. Often caused by bad capacitors. (Something you might be able to fix for an LCD set if you’re good about parts and soldering.)
Note that turning the set on and off repeatedly itself stresses the power supply so a flaky one goes down hill faster as a result.
One thing to try is to unplug the TV and wait a while. You might get lucky and it resets. Then it could be okay for a bit.
Not sure what the “no signal” thing is about unless there’s a combo problem with the cable box and the TV. What sort of connection do you have between them, HDMI, RCA?
Does the cable go directly from the wall to the TV or does it make a stop anywhere (DVR, receiver etc).
I think the first thing you need to do is swap the bad TV with a known good TV and see which one acts up then. If the problem follows the TV, you’ve isolated the issue. If not, it’s somewhere between the back of the TV where the cable connects and…who knows? But it could very easily be a bad junction box or a bad cable, especially if that cable jack was added by a homeowner.
I don’t know about where you are, but for me Time Warner (now Spectrum) have always been very good about coming out, for free, finding the problem and fixing it. Since I’ve lived in my house, they’ve replaced almost all the splitters and a good amount of the wiring, again, all for free.
One time, I even asked them which spliiters should be used. The tech said, just get any splitter you want, then call us and say your TV isn’t working and we’ll put in the good ones.
The first thing I’d try is just swap the HDMI cable with one from a working TV. Intermittent HDMI handshake problems like this are often caused by a bad cable.
I missed the cable box/TV/HDMI thing. Yes, you can get handshake issues from bad cables.
Also, in some cases, handshakes don’t work if you turn things on in the ‘wrong’ order. Next time your TV doesn’t work, instead of turning it off and on, try turning (only) your cable box off and back on.
For example, I have a TV and receiver (amongst other things). I’ve found that if I turn on my receiver before my TV, I don’t get sound. If I turn on the TV, wait a second or two, then turn on the receiver, the sound works just fine. It took me a looong time to figure that out.
Hauling another TV in there to test it is not practical.
I suppose it could be the HDMI cable. That could be easily swapped out.
As for the order of turn-on: I hit the remote and both cable box and TV turn on (apparently) simultaneously. I could try turning on at the devices in different orders and seeing if I note any pattern.
More info: I installed the TV (it is wall-mounted). I installed a standard electrical box behind the screen and fitted it with 2 HDMI ports. So, the cable runs from the cable box, into the wall, and up to the HDMI fixture. Another cable runs from that fixture (plugs into it) and goes to the TV.
I think I’ll get an HDMI cable and bypass the fixture for a while, running it directly from cable box to TV.
mmm
I second the idea of first swapping out the HDMI cable, and also trying turning on the devices (cable box and TV) in a different order and seeing if that makes a difference.
But yes, HDMI protocol errors can be due to marginal cables, and even cables that work fine with some TVs or applications may not work with others, either not work at all or have intermittent problems. I’m not sure what this “fixture” is that is in the HDMI path or what purpose it serves, but that could be introducing a problem, too, so a direct connect with a good quality cable would be a good place to start.
I started getting intermittent HDMI protocol errors that would occur every couple of weeks or so at random when I replaced my TV, so I know how sensitive these things can be. That problem was fixed by replacing the HDMI cable.
It could also be the HDMI circuitry in the TV. I had an Onkyo receiver with a very similar problem - when you turned it on sometimes it would work, and other times I’d get a ‘no connection’ error. It turned out to be a very common problem with the HDMI daughterboard, which got too hot in that receiver causing the HDMI decoding chip to become unstable. I think quite a few earlier HDMI devices had these kinds of issues.
I would google your brand of TV and ‘HDMI problem’ and see if there are any outstanding issues with the HDMI circuitry.
Exactly. Complex systems like this can have many points of failure. It is not feasible for even experts to know with certainty what the problem is from your description.
So the easiest way to narrow it down is to take actions that subdivide this list in half. If you swap the TV/cable box/cable apparatus with a known working one, and it works, that means it’s not any of the wiring or connectors in the wall. Then swap cable boxes. If it still works, it’s the TV or the cable. Then swap cables. If it still works, it’s the cable, if it doesn’t work, it’s the TV.
Well, it gets worse than that in these systems. Sometimes you can have variance in the output of one device that, when added to the variance of the receiving device push the whole system out of tolerance. Somyou swap the cable box, and the okd one works fine on another Tv. sonyou decide it’s fine and put it back, and try the cable. it works fine elsewhere too. But when you combine them together, the interaction of them causes a failure.