​Whether it's no power or a wonky picture, televisions are prone to develop some sort of issue or another during their lifetime. The good news is, these problems are almost always a relatively simple fix. In fact, sometimes they're so simple you can do them yourself at home, and today's post will teach you a few tricks for these very situations.

Of course, before you attempt to fix a TV problem, it helps to know exactly what kind of TV you have! If your TV is about three years old or newer, it is almost certainly an LED or LCD set. Plasma TVs are a similar "flat screen" style that were sold alongside LCDs from the late 1990s until late 2014. If you have an older TV that has a large protrusion at the back, it's a CRT (cathode ray tube) model.

• "Ghost" Images

Ghosting occurs when some residue of an image continues to display for longer than it should. This was a common issue with the earlier generation of LCD TVs made in the 2000s. It's more likely to happen when a naturally dark sequence of video is played back with the brightness settings cranked up, especially on LED TVs.

The service menu should have a "picture reset" feature that should be tried first if ghosting won't stop occurring. If that doesn't work, see if the menu has a way to display a very bright white picture for a few minutes, or if you can upload a bright white image from your computer to it.

• Frozen / Broken Pixels

Pixels are the tiny little individual lights that together change colors to form the picture. Sometimes, one (or a cluster) will either go out or get stuck at a particular brightness level.

If you go into the service menu of your TV, you may find that there is a "color cycle" option designed to repair this issue. When you active it, it will rapidly display different colors and patterns around the screen, which in many cases can cause stuck pixels to start functioning properly again. You may need to let this run for up to 30 minutes for pixels to re-activate, and anyone in the household with epilepsy should stay away from the TV during this time.

If a pixel stays permanently black, it may not be stuck, but dead. That doesn't mean it's beyond hope, however. If you have an LCD TV, a very small amount of pressure applied as directly as possible to the dead pixel with a damp cloth or Q-tip may do the trick. Turn the TV off before applying pressure, then turn it back on while continuing to hold the pressure for a few seconds. This may "massage" liquid back into the dead pixel.

• Picture Distortion / Skipping / Jumping

Having the picture become "blocky" or start skipping may be an issue with reception, particularly if you are watching broadcast television on an antenna or have satellite television. It can occur with hardwired cable on LCD/LED and plasma TVs as well, however.

First check your connections for tightness, and if you have an antenna attempt to adjust it to different positions to see if the picture becomes more stable. If you are using a small antenna that attaches directly to the television, it helps greatly to have an antenna booster that can be attached to the roof. If you have satellite TV and it's particularly cloudy or windy out, you may just have to wait for the weather to improve.

If you're certain it's not the reception or picture connections, then the next main culprit is the "motion interpolation" feature. This is actually meant to reduce blur, but can end up inducing visual issues in some circumstances, especially when watching sports where the camera is prone to a lot of quick pans to follow a ball or puck. You should be able to disable it through the TV's settings menu.

• TV Won't Turn On

The most frustrating TV issue is when it just won't power on for some reason! To troubleshoot this one, first try to determine if there's a break in the flow of power to the TV.

You've probably already checked to see if it's plugged in, but if it's plugged into a power strip or similar device that adds extra outlets, make sure the master switch is on or the circuit breaker has not been tripped. Then check that the outlet itself is working, either with another device or an outlet tester. Finally, make sure the TV power cable is attached firmly to the TV itself and nothing seems wrong there. If the remote isn't working, there should be power buttons along the bottom or side of the TV -- sometimes these are recessed and hard to see on LCD/LED and plasma TVs. 

If none of these options work, try disconnecting the TV from the power for one hour. Once you reconnect the TV, it will force a reset which may be able to fix the issue. 

If the chain of power is good but the TV still won't turn on, it's likely time for professional repair. A common issue that crops up with Samsung TVs in particular is that they'll click repeatedly before turning on, sometimes a ridiculous number of times. If you have this issue, it's probably best to just bring it in to the shop as the repair involves cracking the case open and doing some soldering.

If you've tried the above suggestions for your issues and have still experienced no luck, then it's time to bring the TV on in for service. Our Tucson-area shop can repair your LCD, LED or plasma television no matter what model it might be or how old it is. Drop-ins are welcome, and we're always happy to provide you with a free up-front estimate!

Old televisions have a number of series problems with them, of course, but chief among these is often the fact that they suck energy like nobody’s business. This is bad both for you and the environment. Here’s some information on why this is the case as well as how you can correct the problem with a newer television.

Old Tube TVs
If you have one of those big and blocky TVs that ways a million pounds, it’s probably a tube TV or a type called a “CRT.” It’s called this because it's short for “Cathode-ray television.” This technology uses huge tubes in order to perform. It also happens to be tremendously inefficient. Many televisions of all types use energy even when they’re off, and CRTs are no exception.

In fact, they use as much as 30 watts per hour even while they’re off. When they’re on, the consumption can be as much as 150 watts per hour for a large enough TV.

Flat Screen LCD and LED Screens
These screens use a thin transistor liquid crystal display tech in order to put images on-screen instead of the old way of doing it through tubes.  One of the reasons why these are more energy efficient Is because they use backlighting instead of trying to do as much as CRT devices do. Many of these screens can use just a few watts while off and as few as 30 or 40 watts while on. At the very least, the entire technology tends to be 20 or 30% more efficient because of how it operates.

LCD TVs That Are Older
Even if you don’t have a CRT and have an LCD flat screen instead, the efficiency of these televisions goes way down over time. This is going to cost you over a long enough time period and with enough devices. This is because a lot of the shortcuts that lead to more energy efficiency tend to degrade over time.
Sometimes, they can be refurbished and this ability can be restored, but if you have a TV that’s been around long enough, you should at least bring it in to see what kind of efficiency it has left if you want to maximize this phenomenon, if not think about replacing it altogether with a different one.

The Importance of Base Efficiency
Most televisions that were made anytime within the last decade or so will have a yellow tag somewhere on the back or the bottom which tells you exactly how much money it’s likely to cost you within a specific time frame such as a year. It will also have kilowatt-hours on it and other information.
It’s important to point out that this isn’t the end all and be all of what the TVs current rate is, however. The age of even modern televisions is going to matter too. Just as the picture quality can degrade over time, so can the efficiency. These two things may even go hand and hand.

Why Efficiency Matters
Well, the most obvious reason why this all matters is because electricity costs money and you’re going to be the one paying for it. Over a great enough time period, you could be paying quite a lot for it, especially if it’s an older TV or if it’s a kind that’s particular inefficient, such as a CRT or an older model LCD or another type. Plasma screen televisions can also be highly inefficient when it comes to energy, for example, especially if they aren’t the kind that has efficiency built into it.

But even beyond that, this is important for the environment. Sustainability is essential to the world. It’s a simple zero sum game. If we continually use more energy than we can produce over the long run, then eventually the system will collapse. The way this has been compensated for this far is by burning fossil fuels, coal, and other problematic energy sources. At some point, it’s true that we’re going to be switching over to more sustainable energy sources, but until technologies like wind, solar, thermal, hydro and others take off and become themselves both efficient and popular, it’s important for everyone to do their part to make for a greener planet.

This might not seem much on an individual basis when you go from a TV that’s older and so average to poor in efficiency to a newer one that uses all the latest technologies at the highest level, and maybe it isn’t.

But, the point is that it matters collectively. If everyone focused their efforts on one TV, one gadget, one solar panel at a time, and slowly added sustainability than it would have a colossal effect on the whole planet. It would be easier to wean off of fossil fuels that cause environmental damage globally, for example. It would also ensure that we can keep using energy the way we want to even when fossil fuels run out entirely.

What You Can Do About It
If you want to get a new television that will start to pay for itself right away with energy savings, please contact us as soon as possible Refurbished televisions of the newer variety can still have this effect on your energy bill, while at the same time not breaking the bank.

​The key, after all, is to go with a company that knows what they’re doing in terms of facilitating efficiency. This is how you really maximize sustainability.

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