This is a quick post about fixing a TV that had the HDMI connector melted off the main board.
Got the TV as junk – so there was no pressure to fix it.


The TV’s id numbers are ( stickers on the main board / firmware, etc):
C/N: PC07035
P/N: CV028E_V5E0_01238
D/N: 20070322X00005
M/O:J03A117



After opening the TV i got this:

As you can see, the HDMI connector had a little accident. Looks like someone tried to weld the pins to the case. Half of the main board was covered in sooth and the panel’s connector is partially melted.


The first step was to clean up the board, to see the damaged area.
After a lot of scrubbing, using the hot-air station and a lot of flux i ended up with:

There where a lot of missing traces and deep burns inside the PCB. The protection on the HDMI lines was minimal, so it failled instantly when whatever hit the board happend.
After cleaning the board and checking there are no shorts on the main 5V rail I tried powering it up from my bench power supply.
I had to provide 5V and connect 5V_STBY to the 5V rail.
Surprisingly the board reacted to the “power on” button and the status led changed color.
All on-board power supplies where working ok – proper voltages and no noise.


The video processor IC that was connected to the HDMI and panel was getting very hot and I could not see any activity on the LVDS or attached DRAM lines -> the conclusion was that the chip was dead.
Also, there was the risk that whatever killed it also fried the panel, as it’s directly attached.
The main CPU was actually starting and trying to put stuff on screen. I could see data going out of it and I2C activity to it’s settings EEPROM.


After looking on ebay I found a board that seemed to be the same. I ended up buying it, knowing that the panel could be dead.


The new board was the same hardware, but it had a completely different firmware on it.
At least, it produces LVDS signals as soon as I connected it to 5V.
After connecting it to the chassis it started the backlight and the panel.
The different firmware meant that the panel could not sync to the data stream => just random lines on the screen.


Swapping just the settings EEPROM did not work – the new CPU just froze with the original EEPROM.
I ended up swapping the old CPU as well(you can still see the flux)

After that the new board was able to properly driver the panel -> I could see the OSD and the TV reacted to the remote.


The next step was replacing power supply caps. Due to the strange design where the decoupling caps are under the heatsinks all the low voltage caps where venting electrolyte. It was a wonder that it was able to power up the system.



After a quick mouser order and 2 hours of pulling off and installing the new parts the board become:

The hardest part was removing the heat-sinks what covered the entire capacitor banks. There was no room to unscrew all the components from the heat-sink so i had to desolder all the attached components to pull off the entire heat-sink.


So after putting everything back together the TV works again. The only thing might need some work is the HDMI EDID eeprom – I might have to reflash it with proper data, but i’ll check it once I get a HDMI cable.


=> got myself a big old LCD TV (CCFL based)
Note: I really like the TS100 soldering iron. As the TV is very big I had to work on the floor -> TS100 + a repackaged 4S2P pack( with an added protection board) from an old notebook battery was a great combination. The cissel tip works great even on soldered heat-sinks.


Update: there was no need to reflash EDID eeproms, as they match the old board.
Also, the TV found a new home – recovered the cost of the replacement parts + some honey 🙂