Re: e701i-a3 no picture but backlights

An update on the refurbished E701I-A3 I bought from Fry's Electronics and that died in a week with the exact same symptoms-- back light OK, no picture. Fry's said they would take it back no questions asked and they did. No restocking, no reverse shipping. They sent an email a few days after picking up the TV saying that they received it and that they refunded my credit card.

I note that Fry's no longer ships this TV, its only available for in-store pickup. I sent them this thread, so maybe they can see it is a risk to have to...

Re: e701i-a3 no picture but backlights

budwich, I suspect the Vizio M series are fine, they are a later model, and probably use different chips for row drivers. My problem is they don't have VGA, which I need to make the TV a computer monitor.

freakaftr8, when I lived in Silicon Valley, 200 bucks was nothing. Now I am in a Florida retirement community and 200 bucks is a fortune. Great work figuring this out to you, budwich, and the whole cadre of folks on this forum and the Tom's Hardware forum that sent me here. I am glad you think Sharp is an OK TV, I still plan...

Re: E701i-A3 no picture but backlights

Well Freak, its not that I am awesome, its that I am old. When I was a kid I was pulling a tube from our TV set, got my fingers down too low by the pins, and the shock launched me across the cocktail table to land on couch.

What is awesome is how you figured this out, and even more so the courage it must have taken to rip those first ribbon cables off the panel. Talk about the land of no return.

Ha! So you have even worked on Muntz TVs. Now really blow me away and tell me you have a [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicta"]Philco...

Re: E701i-A3 no picture but backlights

The people I see worry about response time are the PC gamers. It certainly matters when you go faster than 60p, but I suspect most of us would not be able to see anything.

My buddy's dad was a TV engineer, and my buddy can see every little artifact and tiny little thing in a video. Its hell watching anything with him, he does not care about the movie, but the 29.9 drop-frame 4:2:2 yuv rgb blah blah blah.

I am not a video expert, just a retired chip guy and for analog chips at that, not these row drivers. When...

Re: E701i-A3 no picture but backlights

I am not worried about the cost since I can just cancel the credit card payment. I used to live where Fry's is, so they are known for taking stuff back. I suspect it might be some hassle, but sooner or later they will send a truck, especially if I cancel the payment. I feel blessed it happened so soon, and doubly blessed that guys like you and "da freak" figured it out. Double kudos for your patience walking non-technical people through the fix.

I was going to use this TV as a computer monitor, and then buy a Sharp...

Re: E701i-A3 no picture but backlights

Man this is some awesome work. It is a privilege to watch this unfold, and to see how you folks have figured it out, and then made a fix. I salute you all.

I just got a refurbished E701i-A3 from Fry's Electronics in California. It had sound but no picture the moment it went to a broadcast channel, but the menu system worked. I did a factory reset, went through the prompts and it worked for about a week. Now its the classic symptom-- sound but no picture, no menu, no nothing on the screen. Back-lights are coming on then dimming...