9 ways to Save Money on Home Theater Repairs

We have all experienced the moment when we push the remote ‘on’ button and… nothing happens. Perhaps the TV turns on, but there is no picture, or sound, or the cable box isn’t sending a signal, or…. Whatever the issue, it’s annoying at best and panic-inducing at worst. You have visions of hundred dollar bills flying merrily out of your bank account to fix it – whatever ‘it’ might be.

Hold on a minute. The money doesn’t have to come out of the bank account just yet. There are a lot of things that you can do yourself before you make the dreaded phone call that will see your hard earned Benjamins flying away.

Oh, the POWER!

1. If you pushed the button on the remote and nothing at all happened, check to see if the remote has good batteries. This is easy to check and easy for you to fix. Besides, those batteries have been in there for a while now, haven’t they? This step also applies to anything that has a re-chargeable battery in it. Check to make sure your Bluetooth speaker, headphones, remote control, etc. is charged.

2. If the batteries are good, does the TV, AV receiver, cable box, etc., have power? By this, I mean are they plugged in and is the power strip / surge protector on? I have had calls out to customers where all I did was to plug the power strip back in or hit the re-set button. There are all kinds of reasons this check should be done. The power strip could have been bumped while cleaning and that knocked the plug out of the wall, the cat / dog could have stepped on the button, the kids were trying to get their toy out from behind the cabinet, the reasons go on and on.

While we are on the power strip, when you checked that it was plugged in, did you check to see if you had power at the outlet? Did the little LED light on the power strip light up when you re-set it? If not, you might have a circuit that tripped. In all fairness, this usually shows in other areas of the home. But, believe it or not, I have experienced just this issue before. I re-set the breaker, and everything magically came to life!

3. Finally, check and see if the power re-set fixed your issue. Most of today’s electronics have a little tiny computer inside them. This computer needs to be shut down and re-set from time to time. This applies to your router / wireless access point, your cable system DVR, your AVR, etc. if you didn’t already flip the power off-and-on when checking the power strip, do it now. Unplug your device or shut the power strip down, wait a ten count and plug it back in / flip the switch on the power strip. About half the time, this simple step will get your components up and running again.

Update your software

4. When you flipped the power strip off and on, did you get a pop-up on any of your screens saying that there was a new software version? If so, now is the time to click OK and update it. Some of those electronics will stop working if the software gets too far out of date. Yea, I know, it’s annoying and time consuming. You should do it anyway. You’ll be glad you did!

Can you hear me now?

5. The next step we will typically take is to make sure that the correct input is selected. Today’s systems have all kinds of things connected to your main hub. That hub is commonly either the AV Receiver, or the TV. A simple slip of the finger on a remote control could change the HDMI input to a slot that doesn’t have anything plugged into it. Check to make sure the correct input is selected for the device you want to use.

6. Along the same line of thinking, check the connecting cables. By this I mean unplug and re-plug back in each of the HDMI cables. Check both ends of the cable, at the component and whatever it is connected to. While doing this, make sure they are all connected to the correct slots. I have had seemingly good cable ends come off when making this check. When that happened, I simply replaced the cable and everything came back to life!

7. If you have a universal remote control, make sure that it is in sync with the electronics it is supposed to be controlling. For example; if the remote control ‘thinks’ your AVR is off, it may power cycle it. If, in fact, that AVR was already on, the power cycle will turn it off. Now when the remote tells the AVR to turn your sound up, it is talking to a sleeping device. Get it? The way to trouble shoot this situation is to hit the ‘all off’ button on the remote, then manually turn everything off. This will let everything start fresh on a known state of readiness. Now push the ‘Watch TV’ button and see if the system starts up the way it’s supposed to.

While we are on the universal remote control; if the universal remote control is not controlling something the way it should, dig through the drawer that has all of the original remotes. Find the remote that came with the TV, cable box, etc. Note you may have to replace the batteries because it’s been hiding in that drawer for a while. Does the component work with the original remote? If it does, the universal remote control may be the issue.

8. Do you have an IR repeater in your system? If you do, now is the time to check to see if all of the IR emitters are still sending the signal to the components. It is a relatively common occurrence for the emitter to fall off of the front of a device. The double-side sticky tape that comes on some of these emitters can un-stick from time to time. Re-attaching the emitter, using a piece of scotch tape over the top of it, will often fix the communication issue.

9. Is your wireless network broadcasting? Remember that flip on and off trick we told you about above? This also works with your wireless network. If you haven’t done so already, un-plug and power cycle your wireless router. When it comes back up, did this fix your problem? Sometimes, you also need to power cycle the device that is receiving the wireless signal. This is because the router will re-assign an address that the component needs to sync with. Power cycling the wireless device – after the router re-sets – usually fixes this sync issue.

When all else fails

If you have gone through all of the above steps and your system / device is still not working, you may have a device failure. Even with today’s high quality control standards, electronic devices still sometimes fail. It is rare, but it happens. If you are unsure, this is when you may want to call the cavalry. Your AV integration professional or the cable company can usually narrow the issue down and recommend a course of action.

Conclusion

Hopefully we have helped you solve your issue and saved you an expensive call to a service professional. I’m sure you have better places to spend your money than on entertainment system repairs! If you need a suggestion, take your significant-other out to dinner. They deserve a reward for listening to you cuss at your TV for the last hour!

Happy viewing!