Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

[Daveleone]

Hi! I got this Philips 50PF9631D/37 for free. It has green sparkles, no audio, and I think the ambilight lights are broken. But let's worry about the sparkles.

Black screen has a lot of green sparkles with some dark vertical bands on the sides and center (still with some sparkles in there). When a picture is displayed on the screen it actually looks good except where there is black you still see green sparkles (see video).
I already replaced the YSus because that's what I thought it was, but no luck. I'm hesitant to replace the XSus until I get some feedback from this community on what might be the culprit.
I checked Ve, Vs, Vscan, and Vset and they are all within a couple volts of the panel specs. There is a buzzing coming from the right side of the power supply, but not sure if that is important.

Video of the sparkles: http://******/2tC4ofh
Let me know what you think. Thanks!

[Moreno83]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

If voltages are ok then my guess is that the buffer boards are bad deu to age.....

[Daveleone]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

If voltages are ok then my guess is that the buffer boards are bad deu to age.....

Why do you suspect buffer boards and not XSus? Thanks!

[Daveleone]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

A little more info. I tried adjusting Vs, Vscan, and Vset +/-10v (based on some info I found in this post about failing plasma panel https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=63449). No effect. Hopefully that means the plasma panel is not failing

[tom66]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

Try setting the brightness setting down in the user menu. Some PDPs generate green or blue sparkles to represent low brightness.
The shading either edge may be burn in, nothing you can do about it, but if it only affects the black level it may be non-permanent bright image sticking, which will go away after a while of watching normal TV.

[Daveleone]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

Try setting the brightness setting down in the user menu.

No joy. I played around with all of the settings (brightness, contrast, NR, etc) and none of them had any effect on the red & green sparkles. I put the brightness all the way up then all the way down and I saw no discernible difference in the sparkles.

[Daveleone]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

If voltages are ok then my guess is that the buffer boards are bad deu to age.....

I'm picking this project back up again (took some time off because this TV is HEAVY! )

Moreno83, I still would like to know why you think the problem is the buffer boards and not the X-Main? Thanks!

[Moreno83]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

Because bad buffers can cause the same problem. I had it once on a older LG plasma.

Are you sure the voltages are correct? It is a old plasma , maybe the panel is simply failing or you needto adjust the vsus on the ysus board to correct the sparkles.
Ps , you will always see some sparkles if you look closely. Watch from a 2 meter distance and see if you notice it , dont search for it but just watch tv.

[Daveleone]

Re: Philips 50PF9631D/37 green sparkles

Just to follow up, I've determined the problem was likely the plasma panel. I replaced they Y-Main, X-Main, and E/F/G buffer boards and still had green & pink sparkles all over the screen. So, I'm scrapping the set and selling the parts.