# Did reverse outlet kill my TV?



## sm0kiE (May 7, 2012)

I just moved into a forclosure home. It was built in the 50s... I thought everything was OK, so today the DirectTV guy came to install everything... I plugged in my 

LCD TV and it worked. We watched it for 2 minutes and went to install the next room.

5 mins later we come back and the TV is off, and we can't turn it on.

The installer suspected a reversed outlet and he had a tester. He was right. Now the TV won't turn on. It's weird, because I had the cable modem plugged into this one with no problem.

Also, none of the sockets in the house have ground wire at all.

First of all, is my TV permanently screwed? It won't work on any other plug either. The directTV receiver also no longer works.

Second of all, is having no ground dangerous??

Thank you


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## kevinp22 (Sep 23, 2010)

per se reverse polarity would not fry your stuff. it is a safety feature. lack of ground should per se not fry your stuff either.

either the wiring in the house is screwed or perhaps there was a power surge. a surge suppressor wont work without a ground.

do you have a volt tester? if so, test the receptacle that fried the tv - hot to neutral and hot to ground.

not having a ground sucks but there are code compliant ways of mitigating the problem.

dont know if the tv is fried for good but if you plugged into multiple receptacles and it wont turn on that is not a good sign


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## andrew79 (Mar 25, 2010)

A lot of electronic devices require a ground. I even know cases of people getting zapped off guitar amps in houses with no grounds. A typical lcd t.v plug has three prongs so i'm assuming three prong outlets were installed and no ground tied in. Not sure about the u.s but up here in the great white north we are allowed to install a gfci receptacle which gets marked as ungrounded. This may be a cheaper alternative to rewiring your home. Some of the more residential guys around here may have a better solution for you though.


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## joecaption (Nov 30, 2011)

Visio TV? Go on line and see the hundreds of other people with one to 2 year old TV's failing. I was one of them.


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## a7ecorsair (Jun 1, 2010)

Have you checked for any blown fuses or tripped circuit breakers? If one is blown then it is very possible that many receptacles are not working.


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## kevinp22 (Sep 23, 2010)

my 2 lcd tv have 2 prongs plugs -- smokie does yours have 2 or 3


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## sm0kiE (May 7, 2012)

My TV is a LG... it has 3 prongs.

Everything else is working, just the TV isn't working, also the satellite receiver wont work either. But the guy was nice and gave me another one.

Yes the guy also gave me a tester for free. It shows good, reverse, ground.

So almost all the sockets in my house are good/no ground... two of them were reverse/no ground.

Anotehr thing, is when I was hooking up the fridge to the copper water supply I felt a minor shock.. now I know why.

Hopefully I can repair the TV... it's past warranty by 3 months 

So I just plugged it into the only socket in my house that has a ground. The red standby light actually flashed for a split second, and still the TV won't work =(


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

Reversed outlet no. Idiot Satellite installer, possible. Bootlegged ground, yes again possible. No, what you probably have is a poor ground issue. Now the good thing is, if the installer was not bonded & insured, you can bet Direct is. So, have them replace the electronics that you personally own, that their hired "contractor" helped in using to know that your electrical system has poor grounding.

Now of course, there have been instances that Satellite & catv installers have drilled into a electrical line, while drilling through a wall, and in turn have caused a short circuit issue that has either blown out everything electronic on that circuit, or burned down the house, due to the ground has failed, or quickly found out that the Neutral on the drop to the house had failed before they started to do the work.


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## kevinp22 (Sep 23, 2010)

im out of ideas, except to say that sometimes rec testers give wierd readings. for example, loose neutral can show up as ground hot reverse

good luck - greg has some good suggestions

if you decide to upgrade the wiring in your new home, the folks on this board have a wealth of knowledge to help you


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## frenchelectrican (Apr 12, 2006)

I will ask you did you actually take the receptale off from the wall and confirm if you have actual grounding conductor in there ( bare or green wire do count on this one ) and also do you have both black and red conductors if so stop right there and find a breaker to see which one you have it on.

The reason why some of the older home it very common to wired in MWBC ( MultiWire Branch Circuit ) format so to save little more conductors but it can be pain in butt in long run due if you have loose netural ( white conductor ) connection if once you get loosen up the voltage can go either up or down depending what is on the other circuit.

Bootleg ground ? sure I know it can happend to fool the simple recpectale tester that why I always feel something is showed reverse connection the first thing is get the receptale out of the wall and look at the connection to make sure they are in proper place.

With Foreclosured homes this one of few most common service call I get from time to time when someone will screw up the wiring up and when the next owner move in and get a nasty suprise with them.

So I know you say about fridge and water supply and if you feel shock that will tell you that the bonding is allready comprised so it will be more than just a basic troubleshooting you may want to get electrician to come in and do more details on this.

Merci,
Marc


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## sm0kiE (May 7, 2012)

Hi everyone,

I did pull out the socket plates and looked behind them all. There is no color at all, it is all black wires. The house was built 1946. No ground connection at all, just the neutral and hot ones. I switched them and now the testing plug says it's correct, but still no ground. 

Also, I know it must be that multi branch thing. There is a special plug in the bathroom and I press test, and half the living room and several other plugs shut down  I'm going to call a local licensed electrician tomorrow. I do have a grounding rod outside, but it's only hooked up to a few things in the kitchen for some reason. Also wish me luck, gonna complain to LG first, then DirecTV


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## dmxtothemax (Oct 26, 2010)

sm0kiE said:


> I just moved into a forclosure home. It was built in the 50s... I thought everything was OK, so today the DirectTV guy came to install everything... I plugged in my
> 
> LCD TV and it worked. We watched it for 2 minutes and went to install the next room.
> 
> ...


 
I doubt that wrong polarity would damage your equipment.
What probably killed it was "NO GROUND".
Sensitive electronics need a proper ground to protect
them from surges and spikes !
No ground means death to sensitive electronics !


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## av-geek (Jan 15, 2012)

A lack of ground COULD have caused this! If the satellite TV guy installed the dish properly, it will be grounded, but the TV is not, you may end up with a ground loop. This could cause a voltage potiental on the AV connections on the back of your TV that yes, could fry the delicate electronics in it. 

With this being said, Earlier LG televisions were not known for their reliability, especially their plasmas. I am not sure if the newer LCD by them ones are any better, but LG got out of the plasma business, an I think they are one of the reasons plasmas got a bad reputation as being problematic. 

Another thing to keep in mind is what I call "chinese capacitor syndrome". This is been affecting many electronics in the 3-7 year old range, and mainly in power supplies. Poor quality capacitors are being made in China that are finding their way into many devices. The capacitors fail in the power supplies and the equipment stops working. Being in the AV field, I have seen MANY bulging or leaking capacitors that have failed on power supply circuits.


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## k_buz (Mar 22, 2012)

sm0kiE said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I did pull out the socket plates and looked behind them all. There is no color at all, it is all black wires. The house was built 1946. No ground connection at all, just the neutral and hot ones. I switched them and now the testing plug says it's correct, but still no ground.
> 
> Also, I know it must be that multi branch thing. There is a special plug in the bathroom and I press test, and half the living room and several other plugs shut down * I'm going to call a local licensed electrician tomorrow.* I do have a grounding rod outside, but it's only hooked up to a few things in the kitchen for some reason. Also wish me luck, gonna complain to LG first, then DirecTV


That is your best bet. I wouldn't rule out an open neutral or even 240V at the receptacle.


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## AllanJ (Nov 24, 2007)

Most likely reasons:

1. Wrong voltage, from multiwire branch circuit neutral problems.
2. Voltage on the antenna line, from problems in cable TV feed.

Check voltage at various times when different things are turned on, to see if you have neutral problems.


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## zappa (Nov 25, 2011)

av-geek said:


> A lack of ground COULD have caused this! If the satellite TV guy installed the dish properly, it will be grounded, but the TV is not, you may end up with a ground loop. This could cause a voltage potiental on the AV connections on the back of your TV that yes, could fry the delicate electronics in it.


This would be my vote.


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## itsnotrequired (Apr 30, 2010)

crazy question but this outlet isn't on a dimmer switch, is it?


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## curiousB (Jan 16, 2012)

Not having a ground won't fry the TV as in the typical case the ground does nothing and conducts no current. So just plugging in a TV with 3 prong to ungrounded plug won't "fry" anything in the TV. 

The issue is in the atypical case. What happens if an induced surge comes in on the satellite lines. Are the RG6 cables from the dish terminated to a grounding block outside the house where the wires enter the building? Does your problem correlate to a recent electrical storm? Well grounded in this case means a short bonding wires from the ground block to the same rod rod point as the electrical utility near the meter. Does your home have a good ground for the utility (clean tight connections to the rod, the rod sufficiently buried and in somewhat moist soil). Of they are terminated to different ground points, or no ground at all that can be a problem. Does the set top have a three prong plug? If so it needs a good ground as well.

Anyway grounding the TV at the third prong can never hurt and only help. If you have a suspect ground line then fix it.


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## sm0kiE (May 7, 2012)

Thanks for the help everyone. LG was very nice and will fix the TV for free, even though my warranty expired 3 mo. ago.

Should I wire a grounding for my entire house? Or should I put the special plug?


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## k_buz (Mar 22, 2012)

You bought a foreclosed home. You plugged in two different pieces of equipment and both went bad within minutes. Get an electrician in there to figure out what is going on before you do anything.


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## jb64 (May 6, 2012)

k buz,
Wires on Fire, I'm try to be humorous


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## M3 Pete (May 10, 2011)

k_buz said:


> You bought a foreclosed home. You plugged in two different pieces of equipment and both went bad within minutes. Get an electrician in there to figure out what is going on before you do anything.


Plus he has reversed polarity on some plugs, no ground on many others, and a GCFI that controls "half the living room and several other plugs" (which probably don't need GCFI protection)

Sounds like a half-baked wiring retrofit that could use professional assessment.


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

itsnotrequired said:


> crazy question but this outlet isn't on a dimmer switch, is it?


That would have nothing with the electronics immediately going bad, due to over voltage.


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## itsnotrequired (Apr 30, 2010)

gregzoll said:


> That would have nothing with the electronics immediately going bad, due to over voltage.


i was thinking undervoltage


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

itsnotrequired said:


> i was thinking undervoltage


With modern switching power supplies, they would shut the electronic item off if there was under voltage, and along with the fact that they are built for a range of +/- 20 volts for most. Plus it would have to take a long time to burn out the power supply before you would even notice that there was something wrong, in the case of under voltage.


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## sm0kiE (May 7, 2012)

So we had an electrician look at our house. He said there's no problem, it was probably the directv guy. We just need to put the 2 prong socket plates on. He will run a new grounded socket to each room to connect electronics. The old sockets are good for lamps n stuff still.


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## McSweny1103 (Jun 14, 2010)

I work in IT for a Credit Union and we have flat panels in all our branches that stay on up 12-18 hours a day. They go through power supply and main boards like a baby goes through diapers. It doesn't matter the brand, plasma or LCD. The older units lasted longer (oldest was 6 years), the newer and "better" the tv is, the more prone to blowout. The wiring probably didn't help, but the TV is also to blame.


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## McSteve (Dec 8, 2009)

Were the TV and Sat. receiver plugged into the same outlet, or two different outlets? I've seen a dvd player and TV smoked simultaneously when they were plugged into separate outlets, and one outlet had reversed polarity and a bootleg ground. 120V flowed across the video cable, destroying both devices.


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