RPTV Brightness Problem: Help (1 Viewer)

[Andrew Beacom]

I have a 15 month old Toshiba 50H81. My wife noticed a problem tonight when she was watching the tennis.
I played around with it and sometime in the last 24 hours the brightness has changes dramatically. The previous contrast/brightness setting on avia was 30/58 (out of 100). The setting after redoing avia tonight are 23/98.

Now I know contrast has changed but I had to push brightness up to 94 before I even touched contrast. Thats a change of 40.

Any ideas what could have changed in a day? Are my picture tubes going?

I'm also noticing something strange with green. When looking at the blue bars the yellow is green not blue. Is that wrong? I can't remember seeing it before. I also noticed in the color decoder checking that none of the green boxes match the background. They are not green enough. Kind of yellow.

I'm obviously concerned about what this means for my set and it's future. I won't be able to push brightness any higher if this happens again.

 

[Kevin P]

Sounds like something's not quite right with your set. You could have a bad CRT, or a problem with the drive electronics. You didn't do something in the service menu that could have messed something up, right?

I'm also noticing something strange with green. When looking at the blue bars the yellow is green not blue. Is that wrong? I can't remember seeing it before. I also noticed in the color decoder checking that none of the green boxes match the background. They are not green enough. Kind of yellow.

I don't understand. The "yellow is green not blue"? If you meant "it's green not yellow" then there isn't enough red to make it yellow. In your color decoder test, it seems like you have the opposite problem, too much red in the green? That sounds contradictory to me. How does white look? Is it still white, or is it off as well? A bad CRT would affect all shades of gray.

What sources are you watching (e.g. satellite, DVD?) Are you having the same problems with all sources? If it's just on DVD, and are using component video cables, maybe a connector is loose or disconnected.

If your green CRT is going, it could cause a loss of brightness, since most brightness is coming from the green CRT. In this case yellow would look too red, and cyan would look too blue, and gray would be magenta looking.

KJP

 

[Andrew Beacom]

Kevin,

Didn't touch the service menu. I only go in there to do 56 pt conversion and I haven't done one recently.

The shades of grey look ok. But the green boxes in the color decoder don't match the background. The blue is at 0% and the red is at 5%.

All sources. Cable, VCR and DVD.

If your green CRT is going, it could cause a loss of brightness, since most brightness is coming from the green CRT. In this case yellow would look too red, and cyan would look too blue, and gray would be magenta looking.

No that doesn't apear to be the problem.

 

[Andrew Beacom]

I now appear to have some bigger problems than brightness. I went in a did a 56 pt convergance. Same as usual and exited. Upon turning the set back on again, same as usual, I heard a click, and the red gun, and maybe the blue gun, are way fubared.
When I look at the white convergance grid it looks like the top 1/4 has been pulled off screen at a 90 degree angle. So there are white lines and then curvy red and blue lines. I took some photos and I'll update this post with the address later.
I tried the touch focus on the set, twice and got a "touch focus error". Any clues WTF happened. Looks like the guns went way out of line in a split second when I turned the TV on?
BTW the manual says to fix a touch focus error you need to converge manually. I guess I can try that tomorrow night?
Edit: the pictures are here - http://community.webshots.com/photo/...55051538RjPWHA
and http://community.webshots.com/photo/...55051558YhywMQ

 

[Andrew Beacom]

The Sears tech left earlier after ordering some convergence amplifiers (or transistor). He openly admitted never having worked on any Toshiba before let alone a HDTV. He then went on to open the back of the set and unconnect alot of stuff to be able to slide the assembly onto it's side. He wasn't watching while he did this and he didn't label anything. He checked for bad solders and obvious broken bits.

Not finding any he called some engineer who looked up the TV on the Sears DB and found the only problems logged were for convergence amp's. He had never laid eye's on the service manual and he looked at mine. He did some more prodding and tapping before muttering that the TV was a nightmare and that the designer should be taken out and shot.

Now I get to watch him (I assume) take 3 hours plus to install the $60 worth of parts. And hope that's the problem. All with the big assumption that he can actually put it back together. Otherwise we try something else. Who knows how many trips that will take. And how much time off work!

Who should I complain to at Sears about getting a qualified technician. Tried calling the Repair center and they offered to send someone else who also may not have worked on Toshiba's.

 

[Guy Usher]

Tell the Tec. that you are concerned about what he is doing. Ask him if he thinks he can fix it? I would think there are similaritys to all TVs and he may get it right, some of these guys think out load aND MAKES YOU THINK THAT THEY DON'T HAVE A CLUE. Since he has been in it no one wants to pick up where someone has left off.
I think I woul tell the repair man that you are a little nervous about anyone working on your TV and you just want a little re-assurance about what he is doing because you don't understand what is happining.

 

[Greg Kolinski]

On the Toshiba I have ,not HDTV ,but 50 RPTV.I ran into weird convergence stuff.After getting a similar tech,messed around ,for a while had it on the wrong video source for the sat dish,picture ,but horrible!Left saying it was fixed When I got home and wife told me this ,and I saw the TV I just BLEW!! Called owner ,threw a fit,and HE came out and worked on it,turns out that on mine ,and probably yours also,the "Cold soldier"connections take a dump after a while,he basically redid all the soldier connections on main board.fixed it Seems that this condition could cause many different types of complaints depending on where the poor connection is.Ive also run into this on lots of Japanese car componants at work
GREG

 

[Andrew Beacom]

I dunno. About the only thing he did know how to do was check the solder connections on the convergence board.

 

[Andrew Beacom]

Update:

2 Sears tech's came out this afternoon and the Senior tech (not the one we originally had) ended up doing the 2 hours of work.

After the guts had come out been taken apart, soldered and put back together the net result was nothing. So now they have ordered a convergence board and a "temp" plate (?template).

That is going to push the total cost up to just undert $500. Slightly less than 1/4 the price of the TV. Not including the time taken off work. And of course this won't be done until the week after Thanksgiving. Which will put us into our 4th week without an operating TV.

We are still pushing Sears corporate for a replacement/ a different outcome to more repair costs.

My wife tried calling Toshiba and spoke to a Service manager who re-iterated the party line that : "It's not that they dont care, they can't do anything to help". Although we both got the impression that Toshiba has washed their hands and don't give a rat's ...

This was all after the tech's called 75 minutes early to start before the arranged start time. We had to call the national customer service to tell them to wait till the agreed time. They don't get that some of us have jobs where we can't just walk out the door.

 

[Kevin. W]

Is the TV under warranty or an extended warranty?

My wife tried calling Toshiba and spoke to a Service manager

If the Service Manager can't do anything for you go above his head. If the next one can't do anything go further. Keep pushing it. Inform them you'll be contacting your local action group(newspaper, TV news channels), you know the ones that try to solve problems for consumers. Some times the possibility of bad publicity can sway their decision making. Especially right before Christmas.

Kevin

 

[Andrew Beacom]

Kevin,

No it's not under an extended warranty. In hindsight I would change that but even then it would only be a saving if the cost of rerpairs goes over what the warranty costs.

My big concern is that if the convergence board doesn't fix the problem then apparently theres nothing else to try. So i'd have a dead RPTV.

 

[Kevin. W]

Andrew,
I'd be calling Toshiba again as I had mentioned in my last post. See if they can give you a "goodwill" warranty coverage. 3mths after the warranty runs out the TV goes bad on you is not good
Kevin

 

[Andrew Beacom]

Kevin,

I'm going to see if the new convergence board fixes the TV. If not then Toshiba will be getting a call and I'll be writing to them also.