Can you repair a flat-screen television?
One of the greatest successes I reclaim frequently to remind me of my power is when I fixed my first flat-screen television.
It was around 2008 and the television we had, which wasn’t really a television but a souped-up monitor in whatever way monitors could be souped-up in 2008, broke down. We took this monitor/television to a television repair shop. Now, I don’t know about you, but going to a television repair shop is similar to going to an automotive repair shop — they can tell me just about anything, and given that I have little to no knowledge on the subject, I’d have to have faith and trust in the advice I was being given.
As it stood, free-standing television repair shops had always inspired little confidence in me because, and this may be shallow, it seemed they cared so little about their professional appearances, both at the store level and then the employees themselves. Store windows usually mirrored the inside of the shop — wires, television shells, bulbs, parts, etc. strewn about in pure chaos behind a glass curtain. And unkempt men in the role of “salesmen/repairmen” just oozing with shady waiting around for innocent minnows like me, chomping at the bit to give their spiel.
It turns out my assessment was pretty spot-on. They gave me some rigmarole about having to open the television and do diagnostic tests and that it was probably this or that and it would cost me in the neighborhood of what I paid for the monitor/TV originally.
I forewent the agony of trying to bargain and then hoping they’d actually successfully fix the monitor and decided to cast my it adrift, “Go ahead, keep it, it’s worthless to me now.”
One might say this experience will go down as a loss, but I chalked up as a win because my wife and I decided that we would invest in a brand, spankin’ new flat-screen television. For those of you who don’t know, a television is a measure of a man’s worth, similar to the size of his penis. And man was I going to be worthy now.
For the purpose of keeping this story being labeled a TL;DR, I did the research, found a Samsung television I liked that had great ratings, and we plunked down north of $1,000 for it. (Mind you, as we all know, twelve years later I can buy a television with one thousand times the features and power for less than that kind of money.)
Suffice it to say I was on cloud nine. I had a new flat-screen.
But that euphoria lasted for a short time. I must’ve gotten a lemon because, hyperbolically, a day after the warranty expired, the television just showed horizontal bands of color across it.
“ARRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!” Here we go, I was going to have to call the dealer, plead my case, and pray for the best.
I called and was shut down immediately. The television was out of warranty. It was going to cost me a pretty penny to have repairmen out to diagnose the issue, pay for parts, and have it repaired. I decided, intuitively, that I could research the issue, assess the situation, procure the parts and, with the aid of a DIY video, repair the television myself.
So with my trusty nothing in tow, I turned to youtube and identified the issue as possibly being a blown capacitor. The remedy? Open up the television, unscrew the board, solder out the old capacitor, and solder in the new one. So, I clicked through to the company’s site that had posted the video and they sold a full DIY package including soldering iron. It was on.
I remember being so deliberate about my every move. Laying down a towel on the table for the television to lay face down, placing all the screws in specific resting places until they’d be called upon again to seal the television back up. Looking in wonder and amazement — read: complete confusion- at the whole hidden ecosystem of a television. Identifying the possible board and… VOILA, I found the capacitor!! And sure enough, it was blown.
The harder part went as smooth as could be. I ended up doing what needed to be done, removing and replacing the capacitor with no problem.
Thinking back about the moment I turned on the television and saw it working again gives me goosebumps. Almost as many as when my daughter was born. Not really, but you get the idea. I ROARED one of my loudest roars ever, usually reserved for live sporting events multiplied by the number of drinks imbibed, and threw my hands up in the air.
I did it.
