Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

[FiveOhFour]

Hi guys and gals, thanks for being here it means a lot to have such a great resource. I have a Panasonic TC-P65VT60 (65VT60 for short) that i was only able to purchase because it was heavily discounted as having picture problems and i decided to bite after doing a little research and being confident i could replace the board or get help if needed. It is showing vertical lines sometimes all the way up and down on some screens and on others just in a portion of it, and not at all when it fades to black. Someone suggested the buffer board connections may be loose over at AVS and directed me here. I am a technical minded person, i have built and repaired many computers for instance since i was in high school (am now 27) and was a manager at radioshack for several years but have zero experience in tv hardware or repair but am comfortable following instructions. I want to be sure how these ribbon cables operate before yanking on anything as well, i've seen a few different designs on videos some that snap off and some that you release a clasp and slide it in and am hoping someone can tell me how these operate (like im dumb, please tell me step by step where to grab and which direction to move or apply force) as i know at least with similar ribbon cables in ultraportable laptops with hard drive connectors of the LIF or ZIF (low/zero insertion force) types that you can easily break them or the board. Obviously a loose cable would be ideal but if that proves not the case i will hopefully get some advice on proceeding to replace the necessary board. I will attatch some photos below of the symptoms and the connectors, i have already removed the back panel.

Ok, thats all i believe, Help me diagnose this sick tv please so it can live its life as a "sick" tv!

here is the photostream i uploaded my photos to https://www.icloud.com/photostream/#A2GY8gBYdJhhg

[freakaftr8]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Hopefully all it is is a ribbon cable off the a board needs reseating. Theseare the two wide white tape ribbon cables coming off the A board going into the panel bottom. check the right one. disconnet and re seat. If this doesn't help you very well might be looking at a bad panel. Let's hope not that is a very nice TV.

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Hopefully all it is is a ribbon cable off the a board needs reseating. These are the two wide white tape ribbon cables coming off the A board going into the panel bottom. check the right one. disconnet and re seat. If this doesn't help you very well might be looking at a bad panel. Let's hope not that is a very nice TV.

First of all thanks a great deal for the reply. Ok I have verified the model number as being the A Board, just trying to be careful here and prudent in all my movements.For these particular cables does it simply slide in and out or does the black plastic need to be flipped up because it serves as some sort of retaining clip and then the cable can be withdrawn? Maybe i am sweating the small stuff i guess i just tend to not be confident 100% in how somethings done until i have seen it or preferably done it, and in this case i don't want to learn the answer by discovering the wrong way to do it first thanks

[aaronwt6]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

You need to flip the tabs up then remove, reseat the cable, then flip them back down. Just be gentle with them. They should come up very easily.

[freakaftr8]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Also if that doesn't work check the ribbons that connect those bottom boards to each other as well.

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Great thanks y'all, another question is "on the right" facing screen or board?

[freakaftr8]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Just for safe measure reseat both the bottom cable on the a board and the one just to the left of it on the side of the a board.
Right is facing the screen. Reverse if looking in from the back

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Much appreciated. I've reseated both of those both at the a board and the other end to no ado. Board between cables is what I'm trying now.
Edit:cable between (lower) boards**

[tom66]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Just a note, do NOT reseat any cables while power is connected.

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Just a note, do NOT reseat any cables while power is connected.

Thanks duly noted, I was actually told to post here and that Tom66 would help me

Upon reseating all advised connections i've seemed to have solved nothing. there is possibly a slight color shift in some areas of the lines but its really quite hard to be sure, i could easily just be hungry and seeing things differently than i was.

[tom66]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

It looks a lot like the PDP screen is bad, which is not repairable. You can try replacing the A board, it should be cheap for such a new TV (lots damaged, not many sold to fix other faulty TVs.) But I would not expect that to fix the issue.

Interestingly, Panasonic have moved to using a scheme where they only address lines that they need to light up -- which is evident in how the block moves on dark scenes. Me guesses this is some kind of power saving scheme, older panels did not do this. Could save quite a bit on 21:9 content.

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

It looks a lot like the PDP screen is bad, which is not repairable. You can try replacing the A board, it should be cheap for such a new TV (lots damaged, not many sold to fix other faulty TVs.) But I would not expect that to fix the issue.

Interestingly, Panasonic have moved to using a scheme where they only address lines that they need to light up -- which is evident in how the block moves on dark scenes. Me guesses this is some kind of power saving scheme, older panels did not do this. Could save quite a bit on 21:9 content.

:'''''''''''(
Man what a bummer.....ok i hear you, should be a cheap board but no telling if that will fix it, your thinking it likely wouldn't though....man life has just been whipping my butt as of late.

That is interesting, i just eat this stuff up i am so intrigued by it all and there isn't even time or info out there. I was intrigued by the fact that the "anomaly" is not static but changes based on content as you can see in the images in the gallery i posted; when there is just the single bar on screen at top there is only a equally sized group of lines, same thing with bigger grouping to go with the warning box that no signal is found and same behavior with the full menu being called up causing the lines from edge to edge. I took note but wasn't exactly sure of the cause but it sounds like what you are speaking of but my first thought would be energy saving methods at well as far as motivations. I am curious as to what possible side effects if any that would cause on the picture.

to clarify i reseated all the cables from the A board to the lower boards and the very short cable between the two boards at the bottom below it but did not do the short cable between the lower boards on the right side (facing display)...nor did i touch any cables at all on the right side. I am fairly sure no one spoke of anything that would cause me to but just making sure.....no reason to fool with the Y buffer boards either?

[tom66]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Basically a plasma display panel works by selecting each line one by one, programming it with information, this is repeated for every line on the panel, the panel is then sustained, which makes it light up. After that it is erased and the cycle repeats about 1,200 times a second on these TVs. The bottom drivers are used to program the video information onto the panel. When the bottom drivers go bad the information gets stuck on the screen because they are driving lines randomly not according to a desired pattern. Internal damage to the driver typically causes this.

Obviously Panasonic have realised that selecting lines which are going to be blank is unnecessary, so they can reduce the addressing power consumption, which is fairly significant on a large screen plasma (up to 10% of the total power usage.) Hence they can also make the display brighter given fairly strict energy star limits. This is why the block only shows where there is content.

This kind of failure typically occurs when the Vda to the bottom panel drives goes askew, which may be due to a power supply fault or an intermittent connector. If that occurs the drivers experience secondary breakdown due to being reverse biased. This wrecks the drivers which are bonded to the panel (necessary by design.)

These are fantastic TVs, it's a shame Panny is leaving the plasma business. OLED's got a lot of catching up to do on price. Hopefully they make 42" panel too unlike newer plasmas which are pretty much 50" and above only. LED is a massive let-down.

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Thanks thats great info, makes sense of the chaos. Yes I am saddened by that too, pretty sad and unlike the situation with the Kuro this time around its really everyones loss, some very interesting societal implications can be drawn from the superior tech dying out while the inferior lives on and not for any issues related to cost to own. Yes i believe there is much ground needing to be covered with regard to OLEDs and production yield as well which I guess correlates directly with Price, i will own plasma's until OLED is a viable option. Thanks again.

[FiveOhFour]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Oh and let me ask this way..... if confronted with this particular issue would you try replacing the A Board or you feel you have seen enough to pass.

[tom66]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Depends on the price and amount invested in the TV. What did you buy the TV for? I would probably pick up one looking like that for about £30 to £40, given its size, taking a risk that it could be an A board or loose connector.

[freakaftr8]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

That coupled with popular demand to keep making these plasma TVs thinner and thinner there is a coefficient cooling problem for those lower drive ics to keep cool. The heat syncs in my opinion are not as effective as the older generation plasmas. You could do a visual inspection of the lower drive ics but it is a bit involved.

[tom66]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Yeah as can be seen there's hardly any heatsinking, but given how catastrophic the failure is (multiple ICs) it's probably something common rather than an overheating problem. xx30 and xx50 Panasonics are also known to have stuck vertical line issues caused by overheated drivers.

[freakaftr8]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

That's no good. I just forked out $650 on a TC-P55UT50. All the other sets in my house were repairs picked up broken. Crossing my fingers. Lol

[freakaftr8]

Re: Panasonic 65VT60 Vertical lines HELP

Theres astory behind this set. Ive already been in it. Its ve r y similar in design to the ops post