How is it that our old TV gets fixed after I slapped it?

710 viewsOtherTechnology

I just remembered when I was a kid(Im on my 30’s now) we had this old “box style” television. As it got older, there were times that a white thing will appear on the screen. You can still watch the show but its annoying. Imagine watching your TV while having a white curtain in front of it. One day, I got extremely furious because I was watching Smackdown and slap the side of the TV. Then, it returned to normal. I kept doing the same solution I discovered every time the white thing appears on screen until one day it stopped functioning. 😂

In: Technology

28 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

As others said it could’ve been solder joints, but there’s another common thing: tube and IC sockets. The sockets that ICs and tubes plug into can heat up, and the pins can get covered in crud (especially in a smoking household) and lose connection. The heat/cool cycle can shift the component causing loss (partial or full) to that connection.

So smacking it can reset it. It’s affectionately called “Percussive Maintenance”, or a “3 inch drop test” which was often used on older PCs including the Apple 2.

You are viewing 1 out of 28 answers, click here to view all answers.