Westinghouse LD-4258

[jcole1]

Couple days ago we flicked on the lights and it knocked out the breaker in our bedroom. The TV was not on, but was plugged into the wall on the same breaker. The TV will work fine and you can mess around with the menu, but the HDMI ports appear to have been broken. One of the ports will not detect anything I'm assuming it's toast and the other will work for anywhere from 5minutes to 10 seconds and then it will turn a weird color (almost looks like a brightly colored plaid shirt). Have tried different HDMI cables. It does the same thing with my PS3 and our directv boxes.

Just wondering if when the breaker blew something in the TV did also or is this something that can possibly be fixed?

[tom66]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

It is very rare for the breaker tripping to cause a failure in HDMI ports. The more likely cause is a previous power surge or damage to the TV's HDMI receiver IC. The fix would usually involve replacing the whole main board, which varies in cost depending on if the board is readily available.

[jcole1]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

Thanks for the reply. Is this normal for a blown HDMI port to work for a little bit and then go all weird bright colors? I figured since it's digital it would either just work or not work. But I don't really know much about it.

And it looks like unfortunately all the boards are sold out everywhere on the internet. Worth popping the back off and poking around? Got a picture of the board but there are no caps or anything to the HDMI ports just ICs.

[tom66]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

I have to say this failure mode is new to me. I've not encountered it before.
There are some checks you can do:
- Does the colouring problem affect the menus too?
- Any problem on any other input, including VGA and internal tuner?
- You have done a factory reset I presume, where available?

[jcole1]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

I have to say this failure mode is new to me. I've not encountered it before.
There are some checks you can do:
- Does the colouring problem affect the menus too?
- Any problem on any other input, including VGA and internal tuner?
- You have done a factory reset I presume, where available?

We can leave the TV on as long as we want and it won't go all crazy colored until we switch it over to the HDMI outputs. One of them HDMI 2 is completely caput and won't detect anything, while the other one will pick anything up fine but will only work for a short period of time. Have tried different cables also.

Don't have a VGA cable to test it but I was looking at getting a VGA converter and using the TV that way instead of just junking it.

And pretty sure we did that factory reset, we had to enter a 5 digit code and not sure it did anything.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. We won the TV at a bar a couple years ago so it's not a huge deal, just a little frustrating to lose it.

[tom66]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

If you do decide to get rid of it, list it on Craigslist or a similar site for $50 and it'll be gone within the day.

[jcole1]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

Yeah I'd imagine it'd go fast for that price. It'd probably still work with a VGA converter, but just wondering if since the HDMI port kind of works it could be something else. Or is this common with blown/broken HDMI ports to work for a short period of time when they're bad. From most of my reading online when they blow it seems like they won't detect anything and one of the ports on the TV kind of works.

And as far as getting another mainboard I used most of my google-fu skills but it looks like nothing is available and everything is out of stock. I'd gladly pay the 80-100 for a new one and just put it in myself, I'm pretty handy, but I can't even get the part to fix it.

http://www.shopjimmy.com/westinghous...3111-u042a.htm

This is the board I'd need but it's sold out all over the net.

I'm not tech savvy enough to know if you can just start swapping in boards from other TVs, but this one appears to be the same layout but its from a 26" TV and mine is a 42".

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Westinghouse...item53fb13d3f7

[tom66]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

That board will only work if the 26" screen is the same but bigger, for example same vendor, same version, same 1080p/720p (must match) and if it has 120/240Hz capability that must be shared too.

[jcole1]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

That board will only work if the 26" screen is the same but bigger, for example same vendor, same version, same 1080p/720p (must match) and if it has 120/240Hz capability that must be shared too.

So do you think getting a VGA converter would probably be the only way to make this thing work at all? Do they support 1080p? I know most of the time people use them with a computer so they can adjust the resolution to whatever, but on a TV I have no idea how'd you'd do that.

[tom66]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

Devices like the HDFury do support 1080p, but are expensive. As for other devices, I do not know. You will also have to make sure that the TV supports 1080p over VGA. Most do not, except by forcing them to (i.e. they don't advertise their capability but they do support it.) I recommend using the component video port (and appropriate adapter) for 1080p as virtually all 1080p TVs support 1080p over that port.

[withalligators]

Re: Westinghouse LD-4258

Yeah, I second that as the easiest fix. I've got a Epson projector and a old but awesome Sony 36xs955 CRT. I use a PS3 as my main entertainment box and have HDMI to the receiver / projector and component to the CRT doing 1080i. It looks great and component is capable of 1080p.
The sound is better over HDMI though, so if your tv has a digital in use that over analog stereo. Though my set undoubtably has better built in speakers.
If I ever get any of the broken sets I'm working on to turn on, I'll probably just keep it the same with component to the TV and HDMI to the projector.