Okay so this post is not like the usual post where we try to look for saner ways to fix televisions but seems like a good trivia post and a nice break from the site’s topic monotony. The guy in this Youtube video set out to fix his dead LG TV without spending anything and insists he achieved it by a seemingly unconventional method of taking out the faulty component, in this case it’s the mother board (aka the main board), and baking it in the oven.
He did show the symptoms he was encountering in the video. He turned on the TV and the screen turned on, blinked a couple of times and went back to black. The LED backlights did seem to be working and it was producing sound. There are few potential causes to this but somehow he thought it was a good idea to follow another Youtube video and just get the mother board out and bake it in the oven. He did mention that the TV was 7 years old and he presumably preferred not to spend on repairs and just go buy a new one if things did not work out with his approach.
While it was probably better to have the unit repaired (by replacing or repairing the mother board) mainly to help keep it off the landfill, it was definitely his prerogative. He did manage to extend the life of the TV by another 7 months with this method so I guess all was good and the repair hack of cooking the mother board in the oven seems to have actually worked. However, we should not assume it will work 100% of the time so please do take all these info with a couple of grains of salt.
Find below the TV owner’s account on how the entire experiment ended:
May 31 / 19 Turned the TV on tonight and it was blank again. I was not ready to give up and wanted to know how many times this could actually be done and plus it would be great for people watching this video to know too. I had it apart in no time and had preheated the oven. This time I used the oven in the kitchen. ( FYI: the first time I did this, it was very smelly, but each time after that it was not too odorous at all) Me doing this and meal time coincided and my wife and I were in the kitchen at the same time. I put it in the oven and set the timer. Unbeknownst to me, my wife had reset the timer to use herself not aware I had set it. Once we figured out that this had happened, it was too late and instead of being in the oven for 11 minutes, it was in for 18! When I took it out and let it cool, I could see small droplets of soldier on the tinfoil. I put it back in the tv and turned it on. Nothing. Zippo. Zilch. Nada. The experiment has ended. Heading out to get another TV. In total from start to finish the TV lasted an additional 7 months and may have gone longer is not for the meal time mix up! Oh well. Cool experiment and I learned quite a bit
– Chris Notap
We also noted a couple of comments in the video’s comment section that gave probably valid insights into why the method worked that long.
Was there potential danger to his approach? One cannot discount the possibility. For one, it was definitely a fire hazard and you really cannot fully predict what happens to the board while under the intense heat of the oven. The danger of it short-circuiting while in use is always there. It would probably be a good idea to have a fire extinguisher next to the TV and to never leave it plugged in when not being used.
At any rate, I guess the guy now has a new TV which is always great news!
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