TV connected to PC with VGA Power supply blown up twice

Hi everyone

I have had a 32inch TV for a year now and had it plugged into the PC and TV power supply blown up twice now.

I was wondering if this is coincidence or is connecting a TV to PC with VGA cable a bad idea? Is HDMI better? If so, what should i take into consideration? Graphics card?

Thank you

 

What brand/model is your TV?

Does it have any known issues?

 

Thanks for your reply. Its a Toshiba and i cant find any known faults and Toshiba haven't mentioned anything

 

Which card you choose depends on what you use it for. If you're not doing any serious gaming, a "middle of the road" card would suffice for streaming video. Very few come without an HDMI port these days.

I'm guessing you have a desktop.

 

I do have a desktop yes and there is a hdmi port in the tv. My main concern is, is the current VGA connection breaking the tv?
Thank you

 

I don't think it would, but I could be wrong. Silly question I have to ask is do you have it plugged into a good surge protector?

 

Im afraid it isn't plugged its a serge protector. I was meaning to get a really good one

I apologise, i forgot to say why i thought it may be the pc. The last time the PC was shutting down when we had the TV, that's the exact time to TV blew up

 

If you are connecting the computer to the tv, and the tv power supply is going bad. You either 1) Have a bad tv to begin with, or 2) You have some serious grounding issues on your electrical system, that needs to be attended to, or a Loose Neutral. Either way, the issues needs to be fixed, before your house catches on fire, if it is electrical system in nature.

 

What would you recommend i do?
Thanks for your reply

 

Are both the TV and computer plugged into the same wall outlet? Understand if connected to two different wall outlets, there WILL be a slight (in the best conditions) "difference in potential" in the ground (Earthing) at each outlet.

However, if not the best conditions (especially if an older home), if either outlet is damaged, loose, mis-wired, or otherwise does not provide excellent continuity back to the main circuit panel and facility ground, there may be unwanted current flow on the grounds that then is sent to the other devices when the interconnecting data cables are connected. At best, this introduces "noise" (ripple and other power anomalies) in the power for the various regulator circuits to "clean" up. However, in extreme conditions, this noise can disrupt service.

For sure, connect power to all interconnected devices to the same wall outlet to ensure all devices "see" the same resistance (path) to ground.

I agree with brownizs and you need to have your house wiring looked into. You can start yourself. Every home should have a AC Outlet Tester. I recommend one with a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupt) indicator as it can be used to test bathroom and kitchen outlets too. These testers can be found for your type and voltage outlet, foreign or domestic, at most home improvement stores, or even the electrical department at Walmart.

Finally, I am not a fan of surge and spike protectors because they are little more than fancy and expensive extension cords. They are better than no power protection, but not much. I believe all computers and expensive consumer electronics (big screen TVs and home theaters systems) should be on a "good" UPS with AVR. So I recommend you get a "good" UPS with AVR (automatic voltage regulation) instead of any surge and spike protector.

 

Bill, in my area, you have to have Surge Protectors, due to we have too many long tailed furry rat incidents. I have a whole panel surge, then have individual surge protectors at each point, that we have equipment plugged in.

Even went as far as putting in a Leviton Surge outlet, for the Power vent water heater & furnace.

As for the OP, the only way they are going to find out, is by going and looking at every outlet to check for proper grounding, but also have the power company come and check the drop to the house and Meter Pan, for possible issues with poor connections or a Loose Neutral.

Then having an electrician pull the Dead Front on the Fuse Panel or Breaker Panel, and look for loose connections for the incoming line, and tighten any loose connections at the bus bars & breakers or fuses.

People would be surprised at what can happen over time, when lines overheat, and cause the connection to come loose.

Now for the OP, if you want to know more about electronics and proper grounding, you can do a search for the Ieee Std. 1100 (Emerald Book), and that gives you a lot of good information on how to properly ground electronics.

 

All the more reason to use a "good" UPS with AVR. Here in Eastern Nebraska, in the heart of Tornado Alley, we have frequent severe weather, but we also have a "furry rat with long tails" problem where they forget to let go of one overhead wire before grabbing the other. Needless to say, we have a problem of crispy critters laying around the base of power polls too! rolleyes

The problem with (even fancy) surge and spike protectors is they do absolutely nothing for low-voltage anomalies like "dips and dropouts" (opposite of spikes) and "sags" (opposite of surges) and brown-outs (long duration sags - often intentional).

Plus, in the event of an extreme surge or spike, all a surge and spike protector can do (and hopefully will do) is kill power to the circuit - and that is never good for computers (hard drives specifically). With less severe anomalies, a surge and spike protector simply chops off ("clamps") the tops of the sinewave waveforms leaving a downright ugly waveform for the various power supplies and regulator circuits to deal with - if they can.

With a "good" UPS with AVR, the "intelligent" AVR circuits will clean up the dirty waveform BEFORE it gets distributed to your sensitive electronics.

Note it is the AVR that sets a "good" UPS apart from a surge and spike protector. Battery backup during a full power outage is only the icing on the cake.

Also note I keep saying "good" UPS with AVR. Like computer power supplies, you don't have to buy top of the line models, but you do need to avoid the budget, entry level UPS too. The better UPS will provide decent "approximation sinewave" which is no problem for our power supplies to deal with. The best UPS output "pure sinewave" waveforms, and while they are coming down in price, still tend to be a bit pricy.

The outlet checker I posted about above is a good place to start. If the checker does NOT indicate a bad ground and/or reverse polarity, you probably do not need an electrician. But if bad, and not a simple outlet wiring issue, an electrician should be called in. And yes, absolutely get a checker and check EVERY outlet in the house - especially those around water.

In any event, even with good wiring, running interconnected electronics through the same wall outlet (same path to a "common ground") is still advisable to prevent or at least minimize EMI/RFI problems.

They should NEVER, as in NEVER EVER overheat. That would indicate a serious overload of the circuit - way too much current. That said (as a huge snow plow just rumbled up my street), simple vibrations from heavy road traffic, jet noise (I live 1/2 mile from an Air Force base), even heavy footfalls (grandkids) can setup vibrations that can loosen connections over time.

 

I've taken protection one step further with a UPS battery backup on my TV, media PC and DIRECTV box.

I've seen "brownouts" where the voltage drops well below 120 for a few seconds. I'm not sure if this can damage a TV, but the battery backup compensates for the drop if/when it happens.

Even with buried power lines, I still get a one or two second blackout a few times per month (the utility's fault). If I'm recording something on the PC or DVR, it keeps them from shutting off or having to wait 15 minutes for the DIRECTV DVR to reset itself before it can continue recording.

 

Absolutely. Me too.

On a quality, well designed TV, it should not "damage" the TV. Instead, when the voltage drops below some set "threshold", the TV should simply shutoff.

Yeah, and with a computer, a one second blackout is way more than enough to cause it to crash. And that can, and often does result in a corrupt data. And when that corrupt data happens on the boot drive, it can, and often does result in an unbootable computer.

Buried power lines are great and prevent problems with falling tree limbs, ice, and cars knocking down poles, but buried cables do not prevent anomalies introduced someone else on the "grid" from being seen in your home.

Another problem where an UPS is nice is when power is restored. So often, at least here in Nebraska, when power is restored, it often does not simply come back on. Sometimes, it flickers on and off for a second or two, then becomes "stable". These fluctuations "bang" hard on power supplies and regulation circuits. The use of a "good" UPS with AVR will eliminate those worries.