BACKGROUND:
Alright, so earlier this week I picked up a broken Samsung UN60E6003F HH01 locally for $80. Panel isn't broken, backlight is good, but TV was reported as not working, guy got it from his brother-in-law, typical sort of story. Let me preface everything by saying I've been spending hours looking through forum posts and I believe my situation is slightly unique. I'm just looking for the next step to troubleshoot.
SYMPTOMS:
So I get it home, plug it in, hear the start up chime, backlight comes on, and then nothing. No logo, no menu, no image, just backlit black. I open it up, and turns out there is NO T Con board in the TV at all. Someone has been into this TV before and whoever was just scrapped the T Con board for whatever reason. So at this point I don't know if there's other damaged parts or what.
I look up the specs, and from the best I can tell, the T-Con board originally in this TV is a BN95-00628B (or A or C). This ShopJimmy website I've found seems to indicate that boards BN96-28943A, BN96-28944A, BN95-00944B, and BN95-00944C are all drop in replacements for that board, and supposedly fail less. I'm not sure if I can link out to external sites since I'm new, but if you search for Shop Jimmy BN95-00628C you'll see the page.
PARTS:
Off to ebay to buy a T con board. End up buying a pack salvaged from a UN60H6203AF model, which is quite similar in external apperance/dimension and comes with a BN95-00944B T Con, a BN97-08810A mainboard, and the wifi module/ power button cable for under $50. Seems like the T Con board should drop right in and everything should be fine. The mainboard currently in the TV is a BN97-06989A.
Parts showed up yesterday, I put in the T Con board and carefully connect the LVDS and ribbon cables. Plug in the TV, hear the chime same as before. However, no backlight striking, and the red LED front indicator is blinking. TV sits for maybe....8-10 seconds, then reboots, plays the chime, etc. etc. So a boot loop.
TROUBLESHOOTING:
My research led me to think that perhaps the IC901_16M EEPROM needed to be reset in order to get the TV to play nicely with a new T Con board. Spent a ton of time here and the consensus for this board is that the M_E_SCL and the M_E_SDA needed to be shorted/jumped to 'remove' the chip from the system, somewhat similar to a cmos clear on a PC. I'm not 100% confident I've done this correctly. Here's what I did:
In the attached picture (file 2048), you can see small holes with a set of labels above. I assume the one slightly offset to the left is "FL_PWR". then of the 10 in the line, while the TV was unplugged, I jumpered a paper clip from the 2nd hole down (M_E_SCL?) and the 7th hole down (M_E_SDA). While the clip was inserted, I plugged in the TV to power for approx 20 seconds. The TV was unresponsive during this time, no chime/backlight. Afterwards, I unplugged, removed the paperclip, plugged back in and the TV behaved exactly as before, no change. Did I do this procedure correctly?
To dig deeper I disconnected the LVDS cable at the T Con board end, and the TV would then power on, chime, light the backlight, and do nothing, as in no continual reboots. I tried doing a "Easy" EEPROM clear in this state, by holding "Exit" on the remote for 15 seconds, then pressing left, then pressing Enter, but this seemed to have no response. I can power the TV back off using the physical power/joystick button by clicking in, then up, then clicking in again. So the control system seems to functional.
When the LVDS cable is connected, the TV boot loops. I tried disconnecting the power cable between the PSU and the main board to inspect for discoloration or debris, and everything looked peachy. If I plug the power board into the wall outlet while it's disconnected from the main board, the backlight comes on immediately, which I understand to be normal behavior.
So a really rough guess at this point is that the power board has enough juice to EITHER power up the mainboard, or power just the backlight, but when it powers the main and then 2-3 seconds later tries to power the backlight, the voltage dips and a reboot happens. Thoughts? All caps look healthy on the power board, no bulging tops or leaking that I can see.
One other important item to note, one of the HDMI connectors on the main board has been damaged. I didn't notice this until taking pictures tonight just before writing this post. I only need one HDMI port, so I'll just use the other, but if it's possible that is somehow shorting something, I thought I'd mention/photograph it. I would have tried the main board from ebay from the UN60H6203AF to rule this out and see if it works, however it has a different power connector on it.
I do have a multimeter available, but I'm not very experienced using it and I'm not sure what to look for/expect. If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them. Sounds like that big capacitor on the power supply should be above ~380V while the system is powered. How can I (safely) check that? I just have a $20 Innova meter from Amazon.
If I have to replace the PSU (I'm open to replacing caps, I've used a soldiering iron on electronic repairs more than a few times), I'm tempted to purchase the power board from the newer UN60H6203AF, as I already have a mainboard and T con board from it, and it has better outputs (mainly digital/analog audio out). If I went that route, I'd have T Con, main board, and power board from the 6203AF, and just the panel from the 6003F, which I suspect is identical. If anyone has ever done an 'upgrade' like this, I'd love to hear about it. If this is a terrible idea, perhaps just a replacement 6003F power board (or caps) is the last thing I need to get this up and running.
NOW WHAT?
What is my next step here? I appreciate your collective expertise and time!
Alright, so earlier this week I picked up a broken Samsung UN60E6003F HH01 locally for $80. Panel isn't broken, backlight is good, but TV was reported as not working, guy got it from his brother-in-law, typical sort of story. Let me preface everything by saying I've been spending hours looking through forum posts and I believe my situation is slightly unique. I'm just looking for the next step to troubleshoot.
SYMPTOMS:
So I get it home, plug it in, hear the start up chime, backlight comes on, and then nothing. No logo, no menu, no image, just backlit black. I open it up, and turns out there is NO T Con board in the TV at all. Someone has been into this TV before and whoever was just scrapped the T Con board for whatever reason. So at this point I don't know if there's other damaged parts or what.
I look up the specs, and from the best I can tell, the T-Con board originally in this TV is a BN95-00628B (or A or C). This ShopJimmy website I've found seems to indicate that boards BN96-28943A, BN96-28944A, BN95-00944B, and BN95-00944C are all drop in replacements for that board, and supposedly fail less. I'm not sure if I can link out to external sites since I'm new, but if you search for Shop Jimmy BN95-00628C you'll see the page.
PARTS:
Off to ebay to buy a T con board. End up buying a pack salvaged from a UN60H6203AF model, which is quite similar in external apperance/dimension and comes with a BN95-00944B T Con, a BN97-08810A mainboard, and the wifi module/ power button cable for under $50. Seems like the T Con board should drop right in and everything should be fine. The mainboard currently in the TV is a BN97-06989A.
Parts showed up yesterday, I put in the T Con board and carefully connect the LVDS and ribbon cables. Plug in the TV, hear the chime same as before. However, no backlight striking, and the red LED front indicator is blinking. TV sits for maybe....8-10 seconds, then reboots, plays the chime, etc. etc. So a boot loop.
TROUBLESHOOTING:
My research led me to think that perhaps the IC901_16M EEPROM needed to be reset in order to get the TV to play nicely with a new T Con board. Spent a ton of time here and the consensus for this board is that the M_E_SCL and the M_E_SDA needed to be shorted/jumped to 'remove' the chip from the system, somewhat similar to a cmos clear on a PC. I'm not 100% confident I've done this correctly. Here's what I did:
In the attached picture (file 2048), you can see small holes with a set of labels above. I assume the one slightly offset to the left is "FL_PWR". then of the 10 in the line, while the TV was unplugged, I jumpered a paper clip from the 2nd hole down (M_E_SCL?) and the 7th hole down (M_E_SDA). While the clip was inserted, I plugged in the TV to power for approx 20 seconds. The TV was unresponsive during this time, no chime/backlight. Afterwards, I unplugged, removed the paperclip, plugged back in and the TV behaved exactly as before, no change. Did I do this procedure correctly?
To dig deeper I disconnected the LVDS cable at the T Con board end, and the TV would then power on, chime, light the backlight, and do nothing, as in no continual reboots. I tried doing a "Easy" EEPROM clear in this state, by holding "Exit" on the remote for 15 seconds, then pressing left, then pressing Enter, but this seemed to have no response. I can power the TV back off using the physical power/joystick button by clicking in, then up, then clicking in again. So the control system seems to functional.
When the LVDS cable is connected, the TV boot loops. I tried disconnecting the power cable between the PSU and the main board to inspect for discoloration or debris, and everything looked peachy. If I plug the power board into the wall outlet while it's disconnected from the main board, the backlight comes on immediately, which I understand to be normal behavior.
So a really rough guess at this point is that the power board has enough juice to EITHER power up the mainboard, or power just the backlight, but when it powers the main and then 2-3 seconds later tries to power the backlight, the voltage dips and a reboot happens. Thoughts? All caps look healthy on the power board, no bulging tops or leaking that I can see.
One other important item to note, one of the HDMI connectors on the main board has been damaged. I didn't notice this until taking pictures tonight just before writing this post. I only need one HDMI port, so I'll just use the other, but if it's possible that is somehow shorting something, I thought I'd mention/photograph it. I would have tried the main board from ebay from the UN60H6203AF to rule this out and see if it works, however it has a different power connector on it.
I do have a multimeter available, but I'm not very experienced using it and I'm not sure what to look for/expect. If anyone has suggestions I'd love to hear them. Sounds like that big capacitor on the power supply should be above ~380V while the system is powered. How can I (safely) check that? I just have a $20 Innova meter from Amazon.
If I have to replace the PSU (I'm open to replacing caps, I've used a soldiering iron on electronic repairs more than a few times), I'm tempted to purchase the power board from the newer UN60H6203AF, as I already have a mainboard and T con board from it, and it has better outputs (mainly digital/analog audio out). If I went that route, I'd have T Con, main board, and power board from the 6203AF, and just the panel from the 6003F, which I suspect is identical. If anyone has ever done an 'upgrade' like this, I'd love to hear about it. If this is a terrible idea, perhaps just a replacement 6003F power board (or caps) is the last thing I need to get this up and running.
NOW WHAT?
What is my next step here? I appreciate your collective expertise and time!
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