THE TV IS BROKEN
Oh man, this really sucked. But actually I guess it’s for the best. I found out that when it came to properly testing the TV, after 5 minutes of being on it would just switch off.
At first I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of power saving mode, but then I remembered that this TV is probably getting on for 30+ years old now, and most likely TVs as old as that didn’t have any special features like a power saving mode built in.
This meant that, after a bit of googling, I discovered that the problem is most likely some malfunctioning capacitors within the unit. Possibly the capacitors which deal with the power and switching on the TV. This seems to be a fairly common problem with old TVs.
But honestly, even if this could be possible for me to fix, I really didn’t like the idea of possibly frying myself to a crisp by accidentally shocking myself with 10,000 Volts or so (very much lethal) trying to change these. And please don’t try this too, unless you’re a goddamn TV repair person (please give me a call if you are).
——————————————————————————————
So the bottom line is, if someone is willing to give you an old TV, test that it works first. But don’t simply switch it on and leave it at that, let it run for a good 5 minutes at least. If it powers off in that time, then it certainly isn’t usable (unless you’re really willing to restart it every few minutes, maybe that could be some kind of quirk).
In the end, I decided that the next best option was to just go for an old computer monitor. The aesthetic actually fits just as well.
And I found one that someone was giving away on Kleinanzeigen, so swiftly picked that up the next day.
I figured that, actually this setback was definitely for the best, because the computer monitor would only be a fraction of the weight (and size), which actually is a massive bonus when you’re working on a budget and have to use public transport to get around. Good to know…
—
——
———
————
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
...I feel like one day though, I’d really like to be able to fix the TV. Maybe if I happen to get to know someone who repairs old TVs (again, if it’s you, give me a shout), maybe they could help. I just figured that, at this point, it would be ridiculous for me to pay money to repair something that was quite literally given to me for nothing. Looks like for now I have another coffee table at my disposal (but not actually to put coffee on, I’d never be so careless).
