Nathan J

Need Help with a Sony TV

OK, So I have an 11 year old 27" Sony tv, Model KV-27TS27, and my brother had the tuner replaced in it once already (it was his, then he got a new one and gave it to me.) Anyway, the problem I am having is,
I will turn it on, and start to watch a movie, and then like 5 minutes after the tv is on, all the color disappears, and it just goes to white static/snow, but the sides are drawn in, almost like someone was sqeezing the sides of the tv or something.
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(Something kinda like this ) (
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Now, when it does this, if I bump the tv, ot tap it slightly hard, it will go back to normal, but then it continues to do this perhaps 4 - 5 more times, until the TV is completely warmed up....after about a half hour or so, it stops doing it, and I can watch the movie fine. I can also leave it on all day after that, and it has no more problems after that, its just the first intial turn on and warm up or whatever, that it gets all fuzzy and distorted.

So does anyone know what is causing this? Or what I can do to fix it? Its a nice tv, and still has a great picture, so I hate to just get rid of it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks alot,
Nate

SoLoItHz

Steve Berger

The tuner is having problems, solder connections inside of it are breaking down. Since it shares the data bus with everything else , it's problems tend to corrupt data for other things , like horizontal frequency , pincushion , etc. With all the engineering feedback and years of experience with them , any good (authorized ?) servicer should be able to fix the tuner without replacing it. (I'm running about a 97% success rate).

When we had to replace tuners we would usually resolder the new ones before we even put them in. Tuners are vendor type items and quality control has been poor accross the entire industry.

Stereo decoders were also a high failure item on these sets. Prices should vary on them from $15-$35. If they want $85 for the chip then they have poor parts sources. (or they are buying for $10 and selling for the manufacturer's original suggested price)

If you use the line-in jacks (RCA connections) you can bypass both the tuner and stereo circuit for testing purposes ; or you could slave it permanently to a VCR or satellite receiver using those inputs.

Jack Briggs

Budget permitting, you should simply consider replacing the set with a new one.

Nathan J

Thanks for the help guys.

SoLoItHz

Andy Kim

That's exactly the same problem I've had for the last 10+ years with my Sony 27". We replaced it eventually with the 36" Wega but its funny reading your post and thinking that was me.
I had to hit, shake violently, so on and so forth that I wound up wearing down the hardwood flooring underneath the stand's caster wheels cause I was shaking the unit so much.

Anyways, I got around this solution eventually by just using my VCR's tuner and hooking up the video/audio via composite cables (use S-VHS if you got'em). Yes, you'll have to turn on your VCR everytime you watch but atleast you'll save yourself hitting the TV.

PS. We also had the tuner placed which fell just under warranty, but in a year or maybe less, it started again.

ChuckSolo

Andy Kim is right on about using the tuner on the VCR. I had a 20 year old Hitachi 21" TV in my bedroom that only tuned to 47 channels so I always watched the TV through the VCR I had hooked to it. I finally gave it to my brother's mother in law a couple of months ago and it is still going strong. I attribute this to the fact that I NEVER watched the TV through the TV's tuner. I have continued the practice now that I have a 27" Apex TV and a Zenith DVD/VCR combo unit. For some reason, the picture looks better coming from my VCR than if I use the TV tuner.