Remember when you could fix a TV by just tapping the side?

Had a 2008 Sony Bravia come in last month with a dim, flickering picture. The backlight inverter board looked fine, no obvious bad caps. On a hunch, I pulled the main board and reflowed the solder on the LVDS connector pins with my old Weller station, even though the joints looked okay. Fired it back up and the picture was solid. I guess those early HDMI-era sets just get tired connections from the heat cycles. What's the weirdest 'just try it' fix that actually worked for you lately?

3 comments

3 Comments

tarac161mo ago

My old boss always said reflowing was a hack, but that fix saved my neighbor's PS4 last week.

oliver_anderson1mo ago

Honestly, your old boss sounds like one of those purists who hates any fix that isn't by the book. Reflowing is totally a hack, but sometimes a hack is all you need to get something working again for a while. It's not a real repair, but it can buy someone time to save up for a proper fix or just keep their console going. Tbh, calling it a hack doesn't mean it's useless, it just means you know it's a short term solution. If it got your neighbor's PS4 running so they could finish their game, then it did its job.

tyler_fox411mo ago

@tarac16 Your old boss was right about it being a hack, but hacks get the job done. That PS4 is working right now because of it, not despite it. Nobody's saying it's a permanent fix but calling it useless is just gatekeeping. A working console is a working console.