Any of you guys ever have your HDMI ports break?

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah so this happened over the weekend and apparently it's a common problem, but other than "buy a new mainboard" I haven't found any real solution to it.

I was just watching a video on my vizio tv via hooking up my pc to it with a  long hdmi cable and boom, no more signal.  I tried various cables and hooking up multiple devices to the tv on all three ports but they aren't working.  Everything else works fine though, it's just the hdmi ports.  There was one solution that involved doing a hard reset and holding down the power button on reboot, but that didn't work either. 

I'm sure it's a fuse or something stupid, but tv components are so tiny these days.... it'd be nice to know what I'm looking for ahead of time. 

[pbj]

Yes, and it turned out one of the pins inside the connector on the TV had gotten bent out of its slot.  I had to go in there with a needle and flashlight and thankfully it snapped into position when I bent it out straight.  Things are plugged very carefully and rarely into that input now.  That was isolated to one input, though.

Shop Jimmy is your best resource for a mainboard, IMO.

[Howard_Casto]

I'll check the pins.  One of the ports was acting up prior to this.... it would lose signal and I could wiggle the cable and get it working again. 

That's the thing.... I'm not sure if it's worth replacing.  A board is probably going to run 75-100 bucks and they have a Westinghouse 1080p smart led for 150 right now.  If it were the big living room tv sure, but this is my smaller bedroom tv. 

[voltz]

You should have seen the issue I had when I was in the middle of cleaning/arranging everything and in the process of taking all the cords out.  I thought since I was right behind my tv that I could just yank the cord straight out, but I didn't realize the one I was pulling was hooked onto the side (whoops).  Luckly the port on my panel wasn't damaged, but the end of my cord was clearly finished.  I'm just hanging onto it now in case I want to save it for a project or anything (or at least a good reminder not to do that).

[leapinlew]

Yup! Turned out to be electrical damage and was covered under warrant. They replaced the board.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I opened up the tv and I didn't see anything out of order.  I checked Shop Jimmy and they don't carry the board and even if they did it's 75 bucks plus shipping, which is more or less half the cost of a 32 inch tv these days. 

So I'll probably get another one eventually and this will make a good project tv. 

[Xiaou2]

Try a different HDMI cable.

  I had a cheapie hdmi from harbor freight that didnt work.   I bent and flexed the cable in some harsh angles... and eventually it was ok.  Somehow it was internally kinked or something.

 Other than that... it may be a cold soldier joint.  Check the joints,  and re-flow a number of them, especially nearest the port itself.