A S-Video connection fried both my laptop and TV! Help neede

G

Gabriel

Guest
Hello,

Recently, I had a big power surge problem involving both my brand new
laptop and my less than two years old TV. Two total looses.

My main concern is that I don't really understand what happened and,
thereof, can't see a way to prevent it in the future.

Here's the story :

I bought a few weeks ago an HP notebook with an S-Video output. I used
my laptop (on battery and AC power) a week and a half before trying the
S-Video output and did not have a single problem.

So, someday, I decided it was time to try to connect my laptop on my TV
by using the S-Video output. I bought a S-Video-to-RCA cable at
Radioshack because I thought it would be more practical to have my
laptop connected to the front RCA jacks of my TV.

As soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off and I
could smell a light odour of burnt electronic components. The TV did
not seem to be damaged because I could turn it on almost immediately.
As for the laptop, I simply had to reinsert the battery to make it
start.

Maybe it was very stupid, but I thought that the problem could be the
cheap RadioShack cable. So I decided to buy a true S-Video cable.

For my second try, I choose to not plug the laptop into the AC outlet
and just use the battery. After connecting the laptop to the TV, all I
see is a black screen. By the way, I did not feel like there was a
power surge problem this time.

Days later, I really wanted to make my S-Video port work. So, I
downloaded the latest devices drivers for my graphic card and gave the
S-Video output a new try with the laptop connected to the AC outlet.
Not a good idea.

Again, as soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off
and I could smell a strong odour of burnt electronic components. This
time the damage was terrible. Both my laptop and TV are completely
fried. There is just no way to make'em work anymore.

So my questions are :

1) What happened ?
2) How could I prevent this kind of surge ?
3) Should I never try to connect a laptop to a TV ?

I made a diagram of my living room electrical setup. You can see it at
this URL : http://home.ca.inter.net/~gdupuis/livingroomsetup.jpg

I don't think that the problem is from my TV since it is almost new and
because it never fried my DVD player or VCR. I guess the problem comes
from my laptop, but I still don't really understand.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really need to understand
since I don't know much about electricity.

Thank you very much.

(By the way, I am very sorry for the poor English. It is not my
language.)
 
"Gabriel" <dupuis_gabriel@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:1109779819.122043.15850@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Hello,

Recently, I had a big power surge problem involving both my brand new
laptop and my less than two years old TV. Two total looses.

My main concern is that I don't really understand what happened and,
thereof, can't see a way to prevent it in the future.

Here's the story :

I bought a few weeks ago an HP notebook with an S-Video output. I used
my laptop (on battery and AC power) a week and a half before trying the
S-Video output and did not have a single problem.

So, someday, I decided it was time to try to connect my laptop on my TV
by using the S-Video output. I bought a S-Video-to-RCA cable at
Radioshack because I thought it would be more practical to have my
laptop connected to the front RCA jacks of my TV.

As soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off and I
could smell a light odour of burnt electronic components. The TV did
not seem to be damaged because I could turn it on almost immediately.
As for the laptop, I simply had to reinsert the battery to make it
start.

Maybe it was very stupid, but I thought that the problem could be the
cheap RadioShack cable. So I decided to buy a true S-Video cable.

For my second try, I choose to not plug the laptop into the AC outlet
and just use the battery. After connecting the laptop to the TV, all I
see is a black screen. By the way, I did not feel like there was a
power surge problem this time.

Days later, I really wanted to make my S-Video port work. So, I
downloaded the latest devices drivers for my graphic card and gave the
S-Video output a new try with the laptop connected to the AC outlet.
Not a good idea.

Again, as soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off
and I could smell a strong odour of burnt electronic components. This
time the damage was terrible. Both my laptop and TV are completely
fried. There is just no way to make'em work anymore.

So my questions are :

1) What happened ?
2) How could I prevent this kind of surge ?
3) Should I never try to connect a laptop to a TV ?

I made a diagram of my living room electrical setup. You can see it at
this URL : http://home.ca.inter.net/~gdupuis/livingroomsetup.jpg

I don't think that the problem is from my TV since it is almost new and
because it never fried my DVD player or VCR. I guess the problem comes
from my laptop, but I still don't really understand.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really need to understand
since I don't know much about electricity.

Thank you very much.

(By the way, I am very sorry for the poor English. It is not my
language.)
Click to expand...
I would *guess* (it's hard to tell without seeing the setup live) that your
cheap un-earthed extension cable is the problem. I'm betting it also
transposes Live and Neutral. I'm not sure where you are, but if your AC
mains includes the earth, it is there for a reason, so throw out that
extension cable anyway.

Ken
 
What you had was not a power surge, but a bad short circuit.

It would be very difficult to tell what happened, without actually doing
some tests with a DVM, and determine what the voltage is between the TV and
the laptop.

I can tell you that once you smell something burning from any electronic
device, there is some damage of some kind. It looks like both the TV and
laptop will be in need of service. In your laptop, the display card is part
of the mother board, so I can see what is going to have to be changed in it.

As for the TV set, the video input circuits, especially for the S-Video must
be damaged. There are going to be components that will have to be changed.

It is very possible that there is something defective on the power supply of
one or both of the units, that prevented proper isolation between them. If
the ground, and or the neutral for the AC mains outlets are not wired
correctly, this type of damage can also occur.

I am wondering if you didn't accidentally use the PS2 port as an S-Video
connection! This is something that I have see done by accident. I have seen
some low quality adaptors be able to be forced in. The S-Video connector is
supposed to have a blocking pin to prevent this, but there are some cheap
ones that do not. If there is no blocking pin, the 4 pin connector will fit
in to the 6 pin one, because the rest of the connector can align.

The PS2 port on your computer has some supply voltages on it. These will
certainly damage the input circuits of the TV set, and at the same time will
damage the components on the mother board for the PS2 port.

Your PS2 port should have 6 pins, while the S-Video connector should have 4
pins.

Normally you should be able to connect your computer to the TV set. I have
done this many times. The TV will look crappie with the computer, unless it
is the type of TV that has full VGA compatibility. The HDTV sets will do
this type of thing.

If you are reducing the S-Video output back to combined baseband, then the
quality will be even worse. So, I would not see the point of all of this.

As for the TV set, it can be serviced. Find out who in your area is
authorized to service your set. The computer will probably have to go back
to the factory service outlet for its repair as well. Since it is a laptop,
it will be expensive to service, but probably cheaper than buying a new one.


--

Jerry G.
=====

"Gabriel" <dupuis_gabriel@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:1109779819.122043.15850@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Hello,

Recently, I had a big power surge problem involving both my brand new
laptop and my less than two years old TV. Two total looses.

My main concern is that I don't really understand what happened and,
thereof, can't see a way to prevent it in the future.

Here's the story :

I bought a few weeks ago an HP notebook with an S-Video output. I used
my laptop (on battery and AC power) a week and a half before trying the
S-Video output and did not have a single problem.

So, someday, I decided it was time to try to connect my laptop on my TV
by using the S-Video output. I bought a S-Video-to-RCA cable at
Radioshack because I thought it would be more practical to have my
laptop connected to the front RCA jacks of my TV.

As soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off and I
could smell a light odour of burnt electronic components. The TV did
not seem to be damaged because I could turn it on almost immediately.
As for the laptop, I simply had to reinsert the battery to make it
start.

Maybe it was very stupid, but I thought that the problem could be the
cheap RadioShack cable. So I decided to buy a true S-Video cable.

For my second try, I choose to not plug the laptop into the AC outlet
and just use the battery. After connecting the laptop to the TV, all I
see is a black screen. By the way, I did not feel like there was a
power surge problem this time.

Days later, I really wanted to make my S-Video port work. So, I
downloaded the latest devices drivers for my graphic card and gave the
S-Video output a new try with the laptop connected to the AC outlet.
Not a good idea.

Again, as soon as the contact was made, both my laptop and TV went off
and I could smell a strong odour of burnt electronic components. This
time the damage was terrible. Both my laptop and TV are completely
fried. There is just no way to make'em work anymore.

So my questions are :

1) What happened ?
2) How could I prevent this kind of surge ?
3) Should I never try to connect a laptop to a TV ?

I made a diagram of my living room electrical setup. You can see it at
this URL : http://home.ca.inter.net/~gdupuis/livingroomsetup.jpg

I don't think that the problem is from my TV since it is almost new and
because it never fried my DVD player or VCR. I guess the problem comes
from my laptop, but I still don't really understand.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I really need to understand
since I don't know much about electricity.

Thank you very much.

(By the way, I am very sorry for the poor English. It is not my
language.)
 
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