Any way to fix color distortion along the right side of a CRT HDTV?

March 9, 2006 4:38 PM

After moving apartments, my Sony CRT HDTV has some color distortion along the right side of the screen. I'm guessing the TV took a bad bump somewhere along the way. Anyone else have this problem and found a solution?

On the right side, blues appear green, and eveything else has a tint like blue has been added (reds go purple, whites are blue, etc.). It's model KV-34XBR910 and it's out of warranty, so if there's anything I can do to fix it, I will. This thing is a monster and having to take it in would be a real pain.

posted by parttimesaint to technology (12 comments total)

Check to see if there is a degaussing button somewhere on the TV.
posted by banshee at 4:46 PM on March 9, 2006

Is that side of the TV up against a wall? Poorly shielded wires can do that to a tube as well. Have you tried moving the TV a bit to see if the colour distortion changes?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 4:46 PM on March 9, 2006

sounds like something magnetic was around it... it could likely do with a degaussing... i suppose you could have someone out to fix it with a degaussing wand... or i suppose you could build your own with a power drill and a pair of magnets... although that would increase the chances of a larger gauss problem...
posted by MonkNoiz at 4:50 PM on March 9, 2006

No degaussing button, but according the manual the set automatically degausses whenever it's turned on. Would a degaussing wand have any chance of improving it?
posted by parttimesaint at 4:54 PM on March 9, 2006

Yeah, the power drill and magnets are what you want. Probably your TV was stored next to your speakers or somesuch on the truck and the screen got gaussed up.
posted by kindall at 4:55 PM on March 9, 2006

You don't have a speaker next to your TV, do you?
posted by designbot at 4:58 PM on March 9, 2006

No speakers next to the TV. I'm wondering now if there might have been a speaker in the back of the van near the TV set.
posted by parttimesaint at 4:59 PM on March 9, 2006

Deguassing coils frequently just stop working. You could try putting another TV face to face with yours and switching it on. Or buy some magnets and tape them to the side where the problem is.
posted by cillit bang at 5:14 PM on March 9, 2006

Wow, is this serendipitous. I just got a CRT computer monitor from Ebay, and it was badly packaged. (bezel is quite dented).

It had exactly the same symptom. Fortunately, the adjustment buttons had a setting called "landing" for each corner. I don't know what it means, but it's mentioned on page 10 of the manual. This fixed it - or at least made the problem invisible.
posted by mediaddict at 5:21 PM on March 9, 2006

A proper degaussing coil isn't very expensive, but it's a bit tricky to use properly. You might be able to borrow or rent one from a TV-repair shop... they probably wouldn't be too panicked about losing it. You'd only need it for a few minutes.

The way you use one is by starting quite close to the monitor. Turn the monitor on and wait for the image to stabilize. As soon as you switch on the coil, the screen will go crazy. You start making circles about a foot from the screen, which will 'pull' the entire screen toward the coil. You make circles big enough that it pulls the whole screen pretty much the same direction... usually about six inches wider than the width of the monitor.

You go around and around and around, and gradually back up, making bigger and bigger circles, until you can't see the distortion from the degausser anymore... you then turn it off. You'll need to make thirty or forty circles at least... I usually did four or five per step backward.

In the repair shop I worked in, we had to back up about 20 feet before the monitor quit moving at all... this could be a little tricky in a house. I realize that Sony TVs are enormously heavy, but you may have to put it at the end of a hall or something to get enough backing room. (unfortunately, a hall might not give you enough waving room, so you might potentially need to go outside.) Try it in the room where it's placed first, as your coil may not be as strong as the one we used.

If it helps but doesn't fix the problem the first time, repeated attempts will usually straighten it out. If it doesn't help at all, that's not the problem.

If you can't get a coil, each degaussing cycle by the TV will likely improve the image a little. If you turn the TV on and off many times, that may eventually fix it. But a coil, assuming that a magnetized screen is indeed your problem, is a lower-wear and faster solution.

(and no, I'm not a monitor repair tech, I just worked as a PC tech next to a guy fixing monitors, and I helped a little occasionally.)
posted by Malor at 7:33 PM on March 9, 2006

I've heard you can deguass a TV screen by holding a CRT computer monitor screen-to-screen against the TV and then activating the degauss feature of the monitor. Seems logical enough.
posted by -harlequin- at 7:43 PM on March 9, 2006

Depending on how bad the gaussing is, the repeated power-cycle thing might work.

On a lot of TVs, the de-gausser only fires when the TV is starting cold, so you might need to let it sit for a while before powering it on. Just listen when you turn it on, you'll be able to hear it if it fires.
posted by cosmonaught at 2:37 PM on March 11, 2006