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RCA Scenium is now a big door stop

post #1 of 13
7/7/12 at 6:54pm
Thread Starter 
It wont display anything anymore.

HD61LPW62

I had an upscaling dvd playing connected via HDMI previously. The DVD player only upscaled, to 720 p, through HDMI. Suddenly the HDMI stopped working. It didnt work for the DVD player, it didnt work for xbox. I figured it was an HDCP handshake problem. I did the turning everything off trick. I turned things on in every possible combination. No luck. I changed HDMI cables a couple of times. No luck. This was a couple of years ago.

So I have not watched DVD's for a couple of years. Cable is hooked up through component. For Fathers day this year, the kids got me a blu ray player. It only had a HDMI connection. Same problem. I went online and ordered a Samsung BD C6500 which has component output prior to January 201 encryption change. But they sent a BD D6500. I hooked it up via component anyway. It did not work and interfered with the cable tv component connection, and now it doesnt work at all. So now, no component connection through either input, and no HDMI. Its useless now, but what the hell is going on?
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post #2 of 13
7/8/12 at 9:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drsyme2 View Post

It wont display anything anymore.
HD61LPW62
I had an upscaling dvd playing connected via HDMI previously. The DVD player only upscaled, to 720 p, through HDMI. Suddenly the HDMI stopped working. It didnt work for the DVD player, it didnt work for xbox. I figured it was an HDCP handshake problem. I did the turning everything off trick. I turned things on in every possible combination. No luck. I changed HDMI cables a couple of times. No luck. This was a couple of years ago.
So I have not watched DVD's for a couple of years. Cable is hooked up through component. For Fathers day this year, the kids got me a blu ray player. It only had a HDMI connection. Same problem. I went online and ordered a Samsung BD C6500 which has component output prior to January 201 encryption change. But they sent a BD D6500. I hooked it up via component anyway. It did not work and interfered with the cable tv component connection, and now it doesnt work at all. So now, no component connection through either input, and no HDMI. Its useless now, but what the hell is going on?

RCA is not real clear on software resets, but you don't have much to lose so try this:

-remove all signal inputs of all kind
-with tv off, unplug power for 20 seconds, then replug power. Wait until the usual cycle completes and nothing else is happening.
-press both the power button on the front and the channel-down button on the front at the same time and hold them down until power LED starts blinking, then release. Wait until all blinking stops. I believe the tv will be off now.
-try a normal powerup and see if it's any better.
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post #3 of 13
7/9/12 at 5:56pm
Thread Starter 
By "normal power up" do you mean with the inputs plugged back in?
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post #4 of 13
7/9/12 at 6:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drsyme2 View Post

By "normal power up" do you mean with the inputs plugged back in?

Start with one dumb input plugged in, like ANT or Cable or Composite from a cable box.
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post #5 of 13
7/9/12 at 6:17pm
Thread Starter 
It didnt work anyway. When I followed the sequence the power LED never blinked. It went off once, came back on, and nothing else happened. The lamp did not power up, and it stayed in that mode until I unplugged it again. I hooked the component back up, turned it on, and no change.

Could it be the menu button and the power button?
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post #6 of 13
7/9/12 at 6:31pm
Thread Starter 
Hmm.

Ok I got it to follow the sequence you suggested. I got the power LED to blink, waited for it to cycle off and turned it back on with the composite cable hooked up. And the video, poor quality, worked for a minute then it went back to the same message "unusable signal"
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post #7 of 13
7/9/12 at 7:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drsyme2 View Post

Hmm.
Ok I got it to follow the sequence you suggested. I got the power LED to blink, waited for it to cycle off and turned it back on with the composite cable hooked up. And the video, poor quality, worked for a minute then it went back to the same message "unusable signal"

When the tv is in the state where it says 'unusable signal', and you press the Menu button, do you get a menu display with characters that are as good quality as was once normal?

It sounds like you are feeding it a signal from a cable box, composite you said; in the options for the cable box are there different settings you can give the tv, ie 480i, 1080, etc, and if so have you run through them all?
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post #8 of 13
7/9/12 at 8:54pm
Thread Starter 
Yes the quality of the menu display is the same as it always was.

I hooked it up again, and the composite signal through one of the inputs worked fine for 10 minutes, then went to "unusable signal." I have not tried switching the output settings of the cable box. Isnt the composite output always 480i or less, is it possible to make it more?

Could heat or a nearly burned out lamp be the problem?

I have a backup lamp that I will switch out tomorrow. I will try to clean the dust out when I do that.

I have never been able to get the component back even for a short time.
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post #9 of 13
7/9/12 at 9:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drsyme2 View Post

Yes the quality of the menu display is the same as it always was.
I hooked it up again, and the composite signal through one of the inputs worked fine for 10 minutes, then went to "unusable signal." I have not tried switching the output settings of the cable box. Isnt the composite output always 480i or less, is it possible to make it more?
Could heat or a nearly burned out lamp be the problem?
I have a backup lamp that I will switch out tomorrow. I will try to clean the dust out when I do that.
I have never been able to get the component back even for a short time.

If the menu display is as it was when the tv was new, it can't be a lamp problem. This tends to tell us that the problem is not the light engine. It points to the decoder board with all the input connectors, or possibly the power supply that feeds that board.
Let me think about how to confirm which of the two.
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post #10 of 13
7/10/12 at 5:54pm
Thread Starter 
I replaced the lamp with a backup. It did not really make any difference, except that I got the front input to work. The weird thing is that even this low resolution image gets completely fuzzy at times, and then pops back to normal.
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post #11 of 13
7/10/12 at 6:03pm
Thread Starter 
So none of the inputs on the back of the TV work, but the one on the front does. Does that mean anything?
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post #12 of 13
7/10/12 at 9:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drsyme2 View Post

So none of the inputs on the back of the TV work, but the one on the front does. Does that mean anything?

The inputs on the front are composite too, right? The fact that the composite 480 inputs work some of the time and pretty much nothing else works points to the formatter board, the one with all the connectors on it, or the power supply that feeds it. The 480 composite input requires the least processing, if any, to put up a picture, ie it is most likely to be the last surviving function of a bad board.

The power supply however does seem to be feeding the main board and the light engine okay, pointing back to the formatter board.

Your main board, the DM, appears okay because you get bootup, menu, basic remote functions, etc.

Even when you get a bad picture on the composite front input, I suspect you still get a good menu display. Your light engine appears to be good, as well as the ballast.

There's no simple test I can think of that will absolutely condemn the formatter board though, so I don't know if you want to look for one on your own or not. The advantage a repair guy has in a case like this is that he can shotgun it with both a power supply and a formatter board. On the other hand, RCA is not that good about keeping spart parts in stock.
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post #13 of 13
7/11/12 at 2:08am
Thread Starter 
I had a repair guy come out. He said that without the tv remote he couldnt do anything. At this point I think my suspicions are confirmed, I need a new tv.
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