No R but plenty of G&B

[Roger]

So I hooked up my dad's TV for him, and everything was fine last night.

 

Now, he has no red displaying on the TV from the sattelite receiver. If you run the self-test on the TV, it displays a red bar on the test pattern so I figure it must be something with the sattelite receiver.

I checked all the component connections, thinking somewhere the cable for the red must be loose, but they were all seated properly.

What are the odds of just the red channel crapping out on the sat receiver? I told my dad to pick up a cheap HDMI cable and try that, if the picture displays correctly with that then it is either the component video switcher on the amp/receiver, the red output on the sat receiver, or the cable (although it seems unlikely it would be the cable).

 

Just seems odd that it would stop working all of a sudden after working fine for years. Now I've got to test each of those component cables separately. Only other option is that something is wrong with the outputs on the sattelite receiver or the switcher on the amp.

[robcat2075]

When I was a boy we'd just whack the side of the TV cabinet and it would be good for another 15 minutes.

[Wildsided]

funnily enough the red on our Cable - TV signal is always a bit flaky, if we jostle the TV it often goes off. My experience is wiggling the wire until it works again is the solution. I put it down to a dodgy connection into the TV.

[robcat2075]

If you have another HDMI output device (a computer?) you could plug that into it and see if it looks right.

 

But whacking the TV is still my first impulse.

[Rodney]

99 percent of the time, it's a connection.

[Roger]

If you have another HDMI output device (a computer?) you could plug that into it and see if it looks right.

 

But whacking the TV is still my first impulse.

 

Yeah, there will be no whacking of this TV, not anytime soon anyway. I don't think these new TVs could stand much of a whack.

 

Anyway, I told my dad to go to Home Depot (great place to pick up inexpensive AV cables) get an HDMI cable and try that instead of the component cable. He plugged that in and that fixed the problem.

I figured it must have been a problem with the component cable or maybe there was a loose connection somewhere, but I reseated all the connections (I thought) and still no red in the display.

Maybe I missed one, or maybe the connectors on AV switcher in the AM or the sat receiver had a cold solder joint and popped loose, who knows.

[John Bigboote]

Take out all the tubes, bring them up to the drugstore and use their tester... (Just kidding, things like this will make you tear your hair out, hope you get it.)

[Roger]

On another note, they just don't make stuff like they used to. My dad had a 27" Sony Trinitron that probably lasted damn near 20 years before it died, then he bought a fancy big screen DLP projection TV that I think had to be fixed 3 or 4 times in the time he owned it.

[Roger]

>>>

 

Yeah, it is fixed now. I still want to test the receiver and the component cables separately some time when I have more time, but that isn't something I'm going to bother with just now. It has to be a loose connection I missed when I was checking them, it was a pretty tight fit getting the cable hooked to the back of the TV and I may have inadvertently pulled something loose. Don't know why it would work fine for several hours the night before, though, and then quit working the next day.

 

*tried quoting John Bigboote but it grabbed my other post instead (???) - hence the manual quote*