My Plasma is Dead or Dying

[Ripon83]

Sound is there, pic just went kaput. Flashes, mostly black a few waves and all the connections seem in tact. I hate to pull from savings for a TV, but is it better just buying new or are there affordable people who can possibly fix them? It's a 55 inch, it's 8-9 years old, one Great Dane already had her way with it when we left the dog channel on. What to do? If I spend on repairs and it's not fixable I'll have to go without until I save up the diff for a replacement?

Are coscto's deals good?

[Equis]

There are a lot of DIY plasma tv repair videos on YouTube.

[the_natterjack]

Can you bring up the menu?

If yes, then it's likely something else. Maybe a bad cable, bad cable box, etc.

If no, well maybe time to go shopping.

- Brian

[Ripon83]

No

Ugh....no I tried that the past hr and can't switch inputs or get to the menu

Can you bring up the menu?

If yes, then it's likely something else. Maybe a bad cable, bad cable box, etc.

If no, well maybe time to go shopping.

- Brian

[low67vdubinnocal]

Someone gave me one a few years back that would come on sometimes and sometimes not. Had a couple bad capacitors got another repaired board $40 range on ebay and it worked fine till I gave it to my kid that had the same brand for a spare. Capacitors were bulged.

[general_disarray_prk]

Use Google - enter your brand name and model along with "have audio but do not have video." Believe me, it's all out there, especially as these Plasma's get older. The Hope & Change depression has ensured it even more so ;-)

My 7 year old plasmas were having a "sudden turn off" issue. Used Google and found out that it's a well known issue in my model - in short; the power capacitors (3 of them) get old and eventually start to go bad. As low67vdubinnocal wrote, my sets 3 bad capacitors all had bulged tops.

If you can work on a desktop or laptop, and can de-solder and solder, you can work on your Plasma.

I recently replaced my bad capacitors for $40 per Plasma, doing nothing more than taking the back off the Plasma, removing the power board, de-soldering the old bulged top capacitors, and soldering in the new ones. 1 hour work total :-) In fact, it took even less than that BUT I spent the time to fire up the air compressor, lug the TV into the garage, and blow out all the accumulated dust from the inside of the Plasma.

I bought my parts from Digi-key.com

Link: http://www.digikey.com/

I like digi-key because they list the dimensions (diameter & height) of the different capacitors they offer.

In short, there are many places on the web that you can find aftermarket parts that are rated the same as what you are trying to replace. BUT, many times the aftermarket parts can be/are sized differently from the Original Equipment Manufacturer parts...

Different sized aftermarket capacitors can be a big problem with regards to their diameter (such as touching another part on the circuit board ) or height (touching the backside cover of the Plasma).

IIRC, Digi-Keys search parameters will allow you, among other things, to input diameter and height info of the capacitor you're looking for.

[M1NM]

Ebay is your friend when it comes to getting parts. Local shop wanted $99 for my DLP set. Factory bulb on ebay $47 & 6 shipping. Also needed a cooling fan $30. My set displays a code as to whats wrong so it's easy to troubleshoot.

[JDay]

It's time to replace that TV. Plasma picture/color quality degrades with age and you're is well past its prime.

[gorn5150]

My original plasma was a nice LG. It lasted about 10 years then died like yours did. I researched it and found it was a common death for that model. I replaced it with a much bigger panasonic from Amazon. The new plasma didn't cost much more than repairing the LG.

With a TV that old it is worth it to replace it if for nothing more then the new technology used.

[r1ghtw1ng]

I have an old Panny plasma EDTV that will celebrate its 10th birthday this year. Darn thing has given me fits over the years, but just won't die.

[klewan]

8 years ago there was a bunch of bad caps, like multiple posters have mentioned before me. It's not hard to replace them. Plasma is going the way of Betamax, won't be around in a few years. From what I can tell, plasma doesn't have a big commission to the sales guy, so they push the inferior LCD and variants.

[iron330]

I would advise getting the best Panny plasma you can afford ASAP. They're not going to make them anymore. They are superior to LED/LCD. None of that clay face, soap opera effect garbage that plagues most of the LCD models by all makes.

[MaHoTex]

8 years ago there was a bunch of bad caps, like multiple posters have mentioned before me. It's not hard to replace them. Plasma is going the way of Betamax, won't be around in a few years. From what I can tell, plasma doesn't have a big commission to the sales guy, so they push the inferior LCD and variants.

^^^ The Capacitor Plague.

I have fixed 2 TV's and 3 LCD Monitors by simply replacing a handful of Electrolytic capacitors. The bad ones are usually very obvious.

I would recommend replacing all of the Electrolytics if you are going to open the unit up. Cost and work are both negligible.

[REDdawn6]

Plasma`s are crap. Get LED LCD

[e90bmw]

Plasma`s are crap. Get LED LCD

Nope. For fast action nothing beats a plasma.
The response time on plasma is faster than LED and you get a true black.

It's subjective, but I like plasmas better than LED.