Help with flaky HDMI issue on older Samsung plasma TV

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We recently had a storm that knocked out power to the neighborhood. TV was on standby at the time, we weren't home. Now the TV appears to have an issue with HDMI inputs from some sources:

An old DVD player gives "unsupported resolution"
A Newer BluRay player also gives unsupported resolution
The Tivo is like the other devices, unsupported resolution

Prior to the storm, all devices worked fine
All 3 devices currently work fine on a different TV
Changing HDMI cables makes no difference

A USB drive inserted directly into the TV plays jpegs just fine, screen looks great displaying pictures and also when the menu is up, so I know the screen works.

One could decide from all this that the HDMI input was no longer working, but here is the kicker - if I plug in my Nvidia Shield K1 Android tablet, which has an HDMI output - it works fine and I see a mirror of the tablet itself - picture looks great!

I have tried all sorts of resolution adjustments (480, 720, 1080, i and p, auto, etc.) on the Tivo and DVD players to no avail. I was headed down the path of the tablet outputting something unique that worked (I think 1080p), but nothing else at that setting did anything at all (I set them with the other TV, then moved the cable over).

Please help! What am I missing here?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Get an HDMI EDID spoofer? Re-flash the TV's EDID data/firmware?

You've tried shutting the TV off, unplugging it from everything, pushing the power button to drain the caps, and plugging everything back in again?

Btw, power glitches can obviously damage electronics, but they can also corrupt flash memory chips, which is where the TV's EDID info is likely stored.

 

[tracerbullet]

Nice, I hadn't even thought of something like an HDMI "EDID" chip issue or known it existed. I'll definitely look into it, and a spoofer. Seems logical. However - even if an HDMI EDID chip went bad and couldn't allow devices to detect the TV's resolution, wouldn't hard-setting them on those devices, as I have tried, still make them work? Perhaps not, but it seems like it. Not even their menus work, and it would seem they would be at the minimum or most popular resolutions out there?

I've completely powered down the set and unplugged it, but other cables were still installed and I didn't try holding down the power button. I'll give it a go.

I can't update the firmware, it seems. It is the latest as it is now and does not want to re-flash itself from the USB drive, apparently because of that. Hmm I wonder if a service menu setting might over-ride that somehow.

Open to more ideas but this is a great start. Thanks!

 

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I left the set off for about 48 hours with all cabling unplugged, no difference.

Tried the RGB inputs, they seem to work, which is nice. It's not a great solution but it may get me by for a while.

I'm on board with the EDID idea but I think since I can hard set that on some of the devices and they still don't work at any of those resolutions, that may not be it (note I say "may"). I got into the service menu but didn't know how to do anything but look around and confirm, I believe, that EDID was on and at the defaults.

Also confirmed with Samsung (though it was a low level tech) I can't update the firmware with a copy of itself. I tried poking at it w/ Notepad, Winzip and Daemon tools but no luck. Was hoping to give it a new revision or something to see if I could trick it into overwriting itself. Nothing in the service menu jumped out as a way to over-ride that.

Tried all my sources and cables again, just to be sure, and noted that the Blu-Ray player worked intermittently. It'd show the menu (with a very sparkly background) on occasion. Mostly it would change between gray static, then pink lines, then nothing, and cycle among those 3 things but occasionally the DVD menu would make an appearance. I noted that when it did, the TV would say 1080p and the rest of the time would just say unsupported. Hard setting the player to 1080p made no difference.

Still have no idea why the tablet seems to work through HDMI. Stronger? I've been unsuccessful at trying to do something with that fact.

I'm about to buy a board form ebay that contains the HDMI inputs, hopefully swapping that will do it. Seems per the AVS forum to have worked for a few people.

 

[tracerbullet]

I ordered a used board from ebay, the one which had the HDMI and other inputs on it, and swapped it into my set. Pretty simple job.

TV is fixed!

FYI for anyone else that stumbles across this thread with the same issue.

 

[Midwayman]

Yah, had to do a main board swap last year after a lightning strike. Gotta keep those plasmas running until OLED is cheap enough.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I ordered a used board from ebay, the one which had the HDMI and other inputs on it, and swapped it into my set. Pretty simple job.

TV is fixed!

FYI for anyone else that stumbles across this thread with the same issue.

Awesome news!!! Thank you for the heartwarming follow up.

 

[tracerbullet]

Yeah, us plasma owners have to keep these things going until OLED's become more affordable.

 

[razel]

Recent former plasma owner here. My in-laws 2010 era LCD rival-ed my 2011 era plasma with black level. Even my replacement 2016 LED active backlight surpasses it. However, I do miss the limitless viewing angle of the plasma. That's where current LCDs still suck, but it's all relative. If I never owned a plasma, I honestly wouldn't care. My TV before my plasma was rear projection so it was a part of life.

I am with you with OLEDs. I wanted to buy the 2016 LG OLED next year around Super Bowl when the 2017s are out and the 2016 will be on clearance. Oh well. My plasma decided to show it's old age and become unreliable this year. I still do miss a lot of traits my plasma had, but it's replacement got a lot of other things to make me forget them.