Entertainment Center: TVs, Stereos, VCRs and DVDs - magnavox el4972 projection tv problem

Have a big problem with this 7 year old tv----46"---it loses the picture completely and the sound distorts after about 10 minutes. It works perfectly up until then, but once it dies, there is no reflection or anything emmitting from the 3 lights.

i'm somewhat handy myself and wonder if this is an easy enough fix or is it cost prohibitive and I have a boat anchor right about now.

Well to be honest ¾ of the life of this set is over. If you have never had it repaired before then spend the bucks keeping in mind that sets of this nature are designed to last about 10 years. Over that is gravy. Fred should be around soon with a more technical answer. Also a brand name and model would be helpful. This to me almost sounds like solder joints. Since the set fires up until it gets hot then shuts down is indicative of cracked and broken solder joints. Age and heat cause this so look around area that will be hot, look for heatsinks etc. WATCH out in the high voltage areas around the anode/wires coming from the gun tubes. This may also be a component going thermal.

Unregistered, The power supply/high voltage module may be the culprit here. To be sure I will need the model number and date of manufacture on this television. This imformation is located on the back cover.


Fred:)

Thanx. The model # is; fp4620 w103

The date of manufacture is march 1996. 391 6a1 21b.

Like I said it'll come on and be fine for about 10 minutes, then the picture goes to nothing--not even a static picture like if you tuned to say channel 174 when you have 99 channels. And the sound distorts as well. Periodically, a faint horizontal line will show up every 5 seconds or so. It's almost like the set acts like it's set to channel 16 or something and not channel 3. I let it sit for quite some time---10 hours or so--and it will work normally once again. 10 minutes later it's gone.

Is this a moderate enough fix where a guy like me can change the power supply?

Thanx again.

Unregistered, Lets do a simple test here first. Remove the lower back cover (that will expose the modules). Look on the inside cabinet or on the inside cover you removed and find the diagram that tells you which module is which. Find the one that says power supply/high voltage or just power supply module. Get yourself a piece of 1/4" x 6" dowel rod. Turn the television on and wait for that problem to occur, When it does look and see If the filaments (the lights inside the neck of the picture tubes) go out along with everything else you mentioned. Take that piece of dowel rod and push down on different areas of the power supply circuit board gently, you don't want to break the circuit board by pushing down to hard. If the picture and sound do not return while your pushing down on the circuit board the next step is to remove the board and check for cracked solder joints on that board. Post back and let me know what you found.




Fred:)

A new wrinkle---I can't even get my 10 good minutes any longer. It's dead from the word go now.

1. when I took off the back panel, the air holes were covered with dust. so are the boards and everything else.
2. The green light comes on/ the blue light is dim and almost pulsing/no red. I gently pushed on these dangling cards with no success.
3. There was no specific board that said power supply or high voltage or anything. I figured it's the one where the power cord comes in though. It's dust covered but if I push gently it doesn't do anything and the board itself is pretty secure to the bottom of the cabinet anyway.
4. I have a wiring diagram from the owners manual & that indicates what the other boards are, so a kind of process of elimination lead me to suspect I had the right board.
5. I'm trying to blow the dust and dog hairs--I have a st bernard--out and see if that's a culprit. At any rate the dust and hairs sure aren't helping matters.

I forgot---getting nothing from those filaments.