LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

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Trench
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LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by Trench »

Had a surprise this weekend when suddenly all the HDMI ports on my TV can still tell that "something is plugged in" such that the input selection is enabled, but it simply says "Connecting..." and finally gives up with "no signal".

That wasn't the surprising part. The surprise was that there are a whole slew of LG owners out there with the same issue, for years. I've usually only bought Samsung and have never had an issue like that; but this is my one and only LG, and it turns out I'm not alone.

Here is the fun part: People are literally taking apart their TVs, removing the mainboard, and putting it in the oven at 385°F for ten minutes to reflow the solder. And they are being successful. Those who can't stomach opening or removing components are using hair dryers through the rear vents to try and achieve similar effect.

I didn't want to do the oven either, but I did open the TV and used a heat gun for ten minutes at 420°F on and around just the HDMI controller chip. That didn't fix it, but a repeat "treatment" at 460°F for fifteen minutes, and I've got all my HDMI inputs back.

Hedging my bets and leaving the rear cover off the TV for now in case I need to repeat the process again, but for now just adding my +1 for any LG owners out there that this is fix is indeed worth attempting.
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Re: LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by HairyRussianDude »

My only concern would be cooking something other than solder.
If you have the hands for it, you can always heat up a pin and melt the solder joints manually.

+1 on the Macgyver though. Takes me back to taping a stack of pennies on an xbox chip to act as a heat sink and prevent red ring.
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Re: LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by Trench »

Yeah, I do have a solder iron and thought that would be the way to go, but once I was looking at it, I think it's one of those "floating" or leadless chips with all the contacts underneath. Reflow by air seemed to be a not uncommon approach for those, so I gave it a shot. With only slightly more precision than the oven. 😜 Indeed, trying to stay in the solder flow range and not up into the "everything flows" temperature range.
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Re: LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by Otto Kontrol »

Good fix. In a previous life, I work in high end screens and TV's.

LG are less expensive for a reason. They use a good 'screen' but are notorious for skimping on peripheral parts like connectors, buttons fans, and lights etc.
They have a horrible factory preset but they can be tuned out nicely.

Have you ever had it tuned? You will be surprised at how dynamic new TVs can look if you set it right for your room and the lighting in it.
It's been a while, so I can't offer any suggestions on a good tuning app.

oTTo
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Re: LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by Trench »

Well that sounds like fun, Otto.

No, I've never tuned any of the televisions. Nor the sound, for that matter.

I didn't know to consider that LGs were less expensive. Always thought, at least price-wise, that they were in the same tier as Samsung.

Not that I had any good reason for always buying Samsung; they were just pretty on the outside.

The LG was chosen for me, and I was quite happy with it, too. Until.

It took me a while before coming around to believe it was actually the TV. This TV only has a single connection, to an HTPC. So after swapping cables, I had actually swapped video cards in the HTPC before finally suspecting that the TV itself wasn't accepting HDMI input on any port.


edit: I finally recalled after what you said about lower standard for components, that when I first got the LG, I thought the sound was notably thin and "tinny" compared to all the Samsungs I had before that. And had finally forced me to consider getting a 2.1 sound bar, where the Samsungs had never pushed me into that. (Which probably still doesn't say anything good about my audio standards.)

Not sure if that's totally fair, since the LG is one of those 1" thick or so configurations, and the Samsungs have all been the 2" - 3" thick ones. Can't quite pack the same speaker range into that 1" space.
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Re: LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by Trench »

Just to update: The fix I performed did not hold. After about three weeks, it was back to saying the HDMI ports could not connect.

So I went ahead and pulled the main board out and sent it to a local repair shop. They don't disclose what they did or how easy it was to fix, but based on the symptoms I expect it was still just a proper re-solder of the HDMI controller chip to fix a cold/dry solder. US$90 for the service. This repair has held since September so far.
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Re: LG television - All HDMI ports suddenly will not connect

Post by tonawandares »

Samsung all the way

~ tona
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