Shorted DVD drive keeping Vestel-based Orion TV from starting (and how I fixed it)
Good day fellow "cappers". Another piece of troubleshooting I felt like sharing with you today, even though it's highly unlikely someone will EVER run into this issue 
Anyway, I got a small "kitchen" TV (the brand's called Orion, but it's really a Vestel, of course) which wouldn't turn on: you'd plug it in and the blue standby light would begin flashing rapidly. It was not the sort of flash you get when the set tries to turn on, but rather when you've got a short somewhere that causes the PSU to power-cycle. I naturally started with the power supply (a Vestel 17ips15-4): checking the voltages, I noticed there was no 5VSB when the power connector to the main board was plugged in (it tried going up but fell back down to 0 at around 1.5v) - pulled out that connector and we've instantly got 5v. Applying said 5v to the "on/Off" pin turned on the power supply and inverter and I got all the proper voltages happening, following along with a schematic diagram, of course (see here). I was just about ready to pack it up and pass it off as an unrepairable main board issue (or rather an issue that I did not feel like hunting down, since it's an absolute piece of rubbish TV anyway), but then, mostly out of curiosity, I though: hey, that DVD drive...I'll try pulling out its connector just for sh!ts and giggles. I did so, plugged the set in and the blue light at the front stays on and a few seconds later we've got picture :| Ok...so is the drive busted ? I plugged it back into the main board and sure enough: same flashing standby light from earlier and going in with a multimeter on the "DC-in" and GND pins of the drive itself confirmed there was a short there ! Out of all the places where it could've been - go figure :|
Of course, I could've just stopped there and leave the drive disconnected, since I'm sure the owner has never used that (never will), but I pushed it even further, removed the drive from the TV's chassis and removed the board from it. There were two capacitors on the underside of the board going between DC-IN and GND (filter caps) and putting my meter across them, sure enough, dead-short. I wasn't sure if those were indeed the cause, since the short could've been somewhere further down the line (perhaps in the CPU itself), but I decided to pull them out anyway. Flux over the caps, hot air nozzle....bla bla..the first cap came off. Now it must've been my lucky day, because not only I removed the right one from the first go, but the short also disappeared It got even better: the TV fired back up AND managed to play a disc I had lying around, so the next time you have a TV with a puny little disc drive in it, check it - you might be surprised where you find a tiny component that keep the whole set from starting Cheers 
Anyway, I got a small "kitchen" TV (the brand's called Orion, but it's really a Vestel, of course) which wouldn't turn on: you'd plug it in and the blue standby light would begin flashing rapidly. It was not the sort of flash you get when the set tries to turn on, but rather when you've got a short somewhere that causes the PSU to power-cycle. I naturally started with the power supply (a Vestel 17ips15-4): checking the voltages, I noticed there was no 5VSB when the power connector to the main board was plugged in (it tried going up but fell back down to 0 at around 1.5v) - pulled out that connector and we've instantly got 5v. Applying said 5v to the "on/Off" pin turned on the power supply and inverter and I got all the proper voltages happening, following along with a schematic diagram, of course (see here). I was just about ready to pack it up and pass it off as an unrepairable main board issue (or rather an issue that I did not feel like hunting down, since it's an absolute piece of rubbish TV anyway), but then, mostly out of curiosity, I though: hey, that DVD drive...I'll try pulling out its connector just for sh!ts and giggles. I did so, plugged the set in and the blue light at the front stays on and a few seconds later we've got picture :| Ok...so is the drive busted ? I plugged it back into the main board and sure enough: same flashing standby light from earlier and going in with a multimeter on the "DC-in" and GND pins of the drive itself confirmed there was a short there ! Out of all the places where it could've been - go figure :|
Of course, I could've just stopped there and leave the drive disconnected, since I'm sure the owner has never used that (never will), but I pushed it even further, removed the drive from the TV's chassis and removed the board from it. There were two capacitors on the underside of the board going between DC-IN and GND (filter caps) and putting my meter across them, sure enough, dead-short. I wasn't sure if those were indeed the cause, since the short could've been somewhere further down the line (perhaps in the CPU itself), but I decided to pull them out anyway. Flux over the caps, hot air nozzle....bla bla..the first cap came off. Now it must've been my lucky day, because not only I removed the right one from the first go, but the short also disappeared
It got even better: the TV fired back up AND managed to play a disc I had lying around, so the next time you have a TV with a puny little disc drive in it, check it - you might be surprised where you find a tiny component that keep the whole set from starting Cheers
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