When it comes to fixing anything, often times, the best and most effective solution is usually the simplest solution. Remember the word KISS that you may have learned in school? No, no, we're not suggesting being homo with each other (not that there's anything wrong with being homo). But this is an acronym, a mnemonic, that stands for "Keep It Simple, Silly" and this is true when you're fixing your car, your bathroom toilet, or your kitchen appliances (toasters, coffee makers, ovens, etc). And common sense goes a long way to making your repair less of a hassle. TV repair is, indeed, a complex job but there are some things that people often times overlook because they are preoccupied with the fact that the TV is not working or it's doing some pretty funky things and you don't know why exactly. 

Like computer repair, it is often times taught in school or trained under a more experienced technician to eliminate the simple stuff first. Stuff like: "Did you try restarting your computer?" "Did you try power cycling the router?" "Did you plug in the computer to a working power outlet?" "Is the power cord working?" TV repair, in this sense, is a lot like computer repair. Once you've eliminated all those simple stuff, then you can start considering the "complex" stuff that might be causing issues in your TV. And you would go down the row to narrow down the problematic circuit board just like you would in a computer.

So what's the first step, you might ask? Well, you're going to want to be sure that the power cord is working fine. Try a different power cord or maybe do a power cord swap. Try a different AC outlet. It may be possible that AC outlet in your home isn't quite working right. Have you tried turning on your TV on the TV itself, rather than the remote? If those two check out, the next order of things is to check the ribbon cables that are interconnected between each circuit board. This, of course, assumes you've already opened up your TV, taken apart all of the brackets, cages, steel enclosures, and what have you and have all the circuit boards in plain view that you can easily access. Dust, dirt, and moisture may have built up gunk in and around the connectors and other components. Try blowing out the connectors and ports with an aerosol spray can and gently wiping down each port with a damp cloth. Then wait until the connections and ports are dry before reconnecting everything. Make sure not to bend any pins when disconnecting or re-connecting the cables and make sure that each of the connectors are securely seated in each port. Go down the row with each circuit board and repeat the same procedure. Then try turning on the TV to see what it does. If all of this checks out and you were thorough about making sure that there were no grime or gunk that may be preventing the pins from fully connecting with the ports on each of the circuit boards, the next step is to check the individual components on each of the circuit boards. 

Now, before we go any further, we're going to assume that you do not know how to use a soldering gun and therefore, do not know how to properly remove individual components and replace them with an equivalent new component in its place. Given that, you should start with the Power Supply first. Are any capacitors "blown"? That is, do any of them have a "rounded top"? If so, those capacitors are on their way out. What about the resistors, condensers, IC chips, and coils? Are there any unusual burnt marks in or around the components? These burnt marks are fairly obvious. The center where the component is located will be pitch black and burnt through while the outer ring will be dark brown in color. Bear in mind now that some forums will advocate that a dark discoloration of the surface area around the the component indicate a bad component. Nay, nay. This isn't necessarily true. That dark discoloration of the surface area is like biting into an apple and then waiting a few minutes and noticing that the apple's 'flesh' turns brown over time. It's the same thing here with circuit boards. What you are seeing here is oxidation and it isn't necessarily a bad component. This is especially true for Backlight Inverter Boards where the area surrounding the transformers may be darker than usual but the pins that hold the transformers in place and the small area surrounding those pins are the same color as the "normal" colored portions of the board. Moving on. Next, you should check if the component's 'legs' are broken off. This would mostly apply to capacitors, resistors, condensers, IC chips, and transistors. Basically, that would be any component where there are two or three 'little legs' helping the component stand up in an upright position or perhaps lying face down or slightly tilted to one side or the other. Then go down the row with each circuit board and repeat the same procedure.

If everything checks out, and there are no burnt marks or broken off components, the final step is to ask yourself "What is the TV doing?" That is, you need to figure out what the symptoms are. Get a notepad and a pen or pencil and jot down everything you notice about what the TV is doing. Can you replicate the symptoms consistently? If so, jot that down. If it doesn't, jot down the additional symptoms you may have noticed. Is there a pattern? Does the LED light on the bottom right corner of your TV (where it tells you whether it is on, on standby, on sleep mode, etc) flash in a particular way? Like short, 'quick' flashes or long, 'holding' flashes? Or does it just continuously flash without any real pattern? If the TV turns on, how long does it stay on before it shuts off? Use a stopwatch to count how long and jot that down. All of these details will help you figure out what may be wrong with your TV. Then take that information and start researching online what may be the cause. Don't take any single person's advice or repair tip on any forum as the solution to your TV's problem. Take it as a grain of salt because there's a lot of information out there and a big chunk of it are people who don't know any better. Maybe they do or maybe they don't. The point is, find a pattern. If an overwhelming amount of people all share similar symptoms, then it is probable that the problem is the board that those folk claim that it is. If half of the folks say one thing and another half say the other, then it's a 50/50 chance you'll get it right. If there is almost no information out there for your TV, at that point, we would suggest taking an educated guess based on all of your research on what the problem (or problems) might be. This is where "common sense" comes into play. If your TV won't turn on, what do you think is the problem? Do you think it's the Main Board that's causing this? Why? What does the Main Board do for your TV exactly? You need to ask yourself what all of these parts are designed to do. And if you don't know what they do, ask around until you have a general idea of what it does in relation to other circuit boards and ultimately how the TV "functions." If, at this point, you're thinking, "Man, this is starting to get too complicated, time consuming, and expensive," we would totally agree with you. This is why we strongly encourage our guests to consider a TV repair professional to fix your TV to save you all this hassle. If you found this article helpful, please share it on Facebook or Twitter!