My Vizio 55" TV doesn't turn on unless unplugged!

August 14, 2016 3:44 PM

Hola Mefi!, My 55 inch Vizio suddenly stopped turning on recently. The pain in the butt thing is that the only way to get it back on is to unplug it for ~90 minutes. Then it'll work for a few days until it doesn't. Rinse/repeat. I'm having trouble tracking down repair guides besides the standard backlight/flashlight test. Anyone else had this issue? Is there a great TV repair forum I don't know about somewhere?
posted by GilloD to Technology (10 answers total)

Vizparts.com is one of Vizio's authorized parts sites. They have a live chat and also a phone number somewhere. They should be able to narrow the problems down for you. It will probably come down to the capacitors on one of the boards. They may have a replacement board which you can probably replace yourself.
posted by Yorrick at 3:52 PM on August 14, 2016

It's probably capacitors. It's almost always capacitors. If you know what you're doing, you can open it up and look for bulging caps. If you google the make/model number and the problem, you'll probably find other folks who have had similar issues.

If you want to get it fixed and can't do it yourself, many of the "fix your iphone" stores will also fix this sort of thing.
posted by Slinga at 4:39 PM on August 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Yeah, this has all the hallmarks of a cap issue, but I didn't see any bulging or otherwise abnormal caps. Made me think it was a deeper, weirder issue.
posted by GilloD at 4:51 PM on August 14, 2016

For what it's worth:
http://vizhdtv.com/fix-power-problems-in-5-easy-steps-what-to-do-when-your-vizio-tv-wont-power-on/

But it does sound like a cap issue. Take a look at the main board, order a new batch of caps from Mouser.com or Digikey, and just swap everything. Or just get a new main board.
posted by Slinga at 5:22 PM on August 14, 2016

After an expensive visit from a TV repair contractor failed to fix a similar problem with my Samsung, I decided to simply stop turning the TV off. When I'm done watching, I switch it to the PC input. Connected to my PC input is a VGA cable with a VGA-DVI adaptor at the end, but no computer. For whatever reason, this combination shuts down the screen on my TV. The result is indistinguishable from a powered-off TV, except I change inputs to turn it back on. This has not noticably increased my electricity usage, and the fix has worked for five years and counting.
posted by deadweightloss at 5:59 PM on August 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Do you have an HDMI cable plugged into your TV at all (for your cable box, DVD player, Roku, whatever)? Try a brand new cable. Sounds ridiculous, but this fixed my Samsung's extremely similar issue (per suggestion from TV repair guy, after spending a ton of money for him to not find any problem).
posted by dayintoday at 6:14 PM on August 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

Short term fix: Christmas tree timer. $10 at RadioShack. Have it turn off ("unplugged") for a few hours in the wee early morning.
posted by jeffamaphone at 7:15 PM on August 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Literally just "fixed" (?) a problem very much like this on my own Samsung TV by replacing an HDMI cable.

Still makes no sense to me, but it worked. With the cable attached, as it's been for four or five years, the TV refuses to turn on, unless it's been unplugged for awhile and/or given a dozen opportunities. Remove the HDMI cable, or replace it with a new cable, and it's fine again. Doesn't even matter if the (naughty) HDMI cable is connected to anything.

Again, this makes no sense to me at all, electronically, but it just happened today.

So before diagnosing, unplug everything, even things that "should not" matter.
posted by rokusan at 10:28 PM on August 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've seen similar stupid problems with no apparent hardware cause. The 3 solutions I've found that actually worked were:

1. Factory reset, especially if it's a smart model

2. Firmware update. If this is a tv with wifi, go download the firmware from their site and manually install it over USB even if it says "up to date". Try and re flash the firmware even if it's the same version number

3. Leaving it unplugged for like 24 hours. Hell, mash the power button every few hours to REALLY make sure it's drained. This has depressingly been a solid troubleshooting step since the earliest "soft power switch" stuff from the 80s.

On my tv it was shitty firmware. But I've seen the other steps consistently work.
posted by emptythought at 1:14 PM on August 15, 2016

I will also second unplugging everything from it. This could be an HDMI-CEC issue where it won't turn on because it thinks something else is telling it to turn off, or spamming some other signal(even if it's just a bad cable or flaky device it THINKS is sending that)
posted by emptythought at 1:15 PM on August 15, 2016