Is your Roku TV not working? Join our online community forum to find help with common Roku TV issues, get troubleshooting tips, and share your experiences.
Alright, I’ll write all this out then, I really hope it helps some people. (Just wanted to preface these pictures with: I would not recommend storing the items removed like I am in the pictures, I had already cracked the screen so at that point this whole thing was just for figuring out the removal and testing process. I wanted to learn for myself and also try to help others. I would recommend a flat clean surface to lay everything out on)
I also watched a YouTube guide(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGR1tTlbPXw) but there were differences that are make or break… literally.
To start out, you take the screws out of the back of the TV
When the back cover is off, this is what you will see. In the youtube video it will say to remove the speakers, you just take the one cable out and then pull upwards on it, might help to wiggle while pulling until they pop off.
Once you have the speakers off, under where they were you will see these scan cards that are held in by these white tabs. They are also held on to the TV with these grey strips, which I assume is for grounding. The problem is they are under the mounting hardware for the stands. There are screws on this hardware but even when removed, the mounting block would just not come off, they both are like glued down. Pictures of all this:
So because the mounting blocks are in the way, the best way to get those cards out is to then take the TV frame off. The first thing you’ll want to do is take the small screws out of the frame that are at the bottom side of the TV.
The trick to get the rest of the frame off is to get a small screwdriver, and find the little dots on the backside. Insert under the dots and twist the screwdriver while pushing the frame forward away from the TV (I stood the TV upright to do this).
One last step before removing the frame, there’s this cable with a plastic end that is locked into the frame. I just pushed the button and pulled it upwards to remove
Once you get the frame off the TV, it is much easier to get those scan cards out. First thing is peeling the grey strips off the pads. Then you may need to pull the white tabs up to pull the card out, they are pretty flexible but can easily break, as seen in an earlier picture 😞 When you have the cards free, flip the TV on its back with the screen facing up, make sure to not damage the cards or ribbons.
Now that the TV is on its back, use electrical tape to attach the scan cards to the front of the TV. It is now time to lift the screen. I used two of these suction cups from harbor freight
So here is where I made my first big mistake. I was afraid to really push down on the screen with the suction cups so I just lightly pressed while locking them in. As I picked the screen up, since the screen is so big, it started to bend at the edges and caused it to lose grip and it popped off the suction cups and back onto the TV base. The screen is fairly sturdy, my recommendation here is to not lift it more that maybe an inch off the base and then over away from the base (and have someone help if possible). If you are by yourself, my next recommendation is to let one side down on the ground, and then just grab it on the top and tilt it up by hand, and then carry it to where you want to store it(I would then clean any surface that you touch before reinstalling)
So if unlike me you were able to successfully move the screen away, you will just see a white board within another frame. You have to remove the frame in order to get this white board out. Here is what the frame pieces look like
In order to remove the frame pieces, you have to get the same small screwdriver as before and pull up the clips that hold it onto the TV. As you pull up the clips, push the frame piece away from the TV as you did with the first frame
After you have removed the 4 frame pieces (each side of the TV has a separate frame, unlike the first frame which is one full piece) the white board can come out. In order to get it out I had to sit the TV upright then lower it at an angle to have the board fall out. I am not 100% sure if it matters what way it goes back in, but I would suggest putting it back in the same way it came out.
But here is where another deviation from the video came in. Of course on the youtube video it says, "just take the two out, tape them together and put them to the side, it's easy!" But of course it is never that easy....
When you get the white board out, you will see a silver screen. This silver screen just so happens to be taped to the TV base on the edges, so that's fun....
After removing the tape I'm pretty sure I had to tilt the TV again to get it to fall away from the TV, as it has metal posts come through the hole seen in the image above. Now you can do as the youtube video said and tape the silver screen to the white board. (Again, in the same orientation as it came out).
Okay, now comes the REALLY fun part.... When the silver screen is out, you will see the white sheet with all the LEDs poking out through holes. The manufacturer reallllly wanted this to be stuck in place, I will explain.
Around the edge of the TV the white sheet is glued to the frame, so how you will get this off without tearing the sheet, I'm not 100% sure. My best guess/tip is to use a heat gun/hair blowdryer on a low setting(this goes for upcoming steps as well)
If you successfully get the edge off the screen, the next step is to remove some locking tabs. You cannot remove the white sheet without removing these tabs first. Use some pliers to grab and pull them off (I just noticed it looks like they could slide either left or right to get them out). My TV had 4 of them, and I would take a picture or something because I would try to put them back exactly how they are taken out(there are unused holes like in the picture below)
After you have removed all of tabs, you can now start trying to pull the white sheet away from the TV, but not so fast, because they decided to have double sided tape along the whole frame. So my recommendation is again use the heat gun on low to make it easier for the white sheet to separate from the base/tape. If not the heat gun, just be super careful while pulling it off. After you get the white sheet off, just make sure to remember the orientation to put it back the same way.
If you have come this far without tearing/breaking anything, I commend you. Now is the time to check the LEDs. I used a 9V battery with one wire taped to positive and one wire connected to the negative, I had some speaker wire laying around and just used wire strippers to strip the ends. I read that you would have to check 3 at a time because each LED is 3V, which I did for most of them but there was one it wasn't working on so I tried one at a time and it worked fine. The reason why it wasn't working with the 3 is because that is where the bad LED was.
To start the testing I put the positive wire on the positive metal test point at start of the LED strip
For the negative wire I would go three LEDs out and put the wire on the negative testpoint. It has a "-" above the point.
On each LED strip there are 5 LEDs. When I went to test the last three, I assumed the dot on the other side was a positive test point(which it could be) but it wasn't working with the wires on it. Instead I just placed the positive on the outgoing negative of the LED before the 3rd one. Once I found a group of three where the lights weren't coming on, I put the positive on the negative test point before the LED, and the negative on the negative test point after the LED(Positive wire should be on the side closer to the metal testpoints & cable that connects to the strip). Two of the LEDs were good when checked individually and one would not come on at all. Your TV may have more that have gone bad.
As others have stated on here, I would recommend changing them all out. Luckily I didn't get ahead of myself and order-pay for the strips. And if I were you I would wait until seeing if you can take it apart successfully before paying for replacements that may not be able to be returned.
It looks like there is some type of glue underneath the strip, under where every LED is. So I would try to emulate that when installing the new LED strips (with what I'm not sure, the new LED strips may come with adhesive)
This is as far as I went, so if you replace all the LEDs, just go backwards through these instructions. Hopefully these tips can help someone save their TV. Good luck!
That's really nice of you to write up such a detailed repair guide. It'll definitely improve our chances at a successful repair.
The critical step appears to be lifting the screen without cracking it. I ordered these suctions cups, maybe they'll fare better.
I will have someone help lift the screen. After reading your comments though, I'm concerned that screen may flex and separate from the the cups. I'm going to test the cups on some disposable surfaces before attempting the real thing. Thanks for the heads up.
