sony 6.1 av receiver...no sound all of a sudden!! help!

[conqst99]

Hello All! I am brand new to this forum. I just stumbled upon this awesome forum while trying to surf google looking for some sony troubleshooting. Here's my story (dilemma to follow below):
I just bought a Sony STR-K9900P home theater receiver on ebay last week and it came with the center, mains, and surrounds and back. just didn't come with a subwoofer. These are all the correct speakers (6ohms) for the original HT-6900DP home theater in a box where this receiver was bundled. I really didn't have hopes that the receiver would work since I won it plus the five speakers for only $25 on ebay. The ad only said that it powers on but nothing else. Well, I received it and much to my surprise, the whole system worked PERFECT! I thought, man, I just got the deal of a lifetime for a 6.1 surround system with 140 watts per channel. It worked great for hours with everything hooked up except the back surround speakers sounded a bit distorted when I plugged them in. But everything was working fine, including the KLH sub that I was using from my other system that I have. I powered it down after seemed to be working perfect.
Well, the next day, I turned the receiver back on and NOTHING! I would only get sound coming from the and nothing else. I tried plugging the mains into the B outputs and selecting that channel, tried the headphone jack and nothing, only bass from the sub. I tried plugging in my ipod instead of the dvd in another input even with ALL speakers disconnected and still nothing. basically I tried everything including the hardware RESET by holding in the POWER button and hitting enter when prompted. What confuses me is that it was workng perfect the day before. I don't think its possible to rig a receiver to only work the first day and it was sold as-is so the seller would have no gain by rigging it.
Does anyone have a clue what happened to this thing? I'm COMPLETELY confused. I'm sure its out of warranty especially since I bought it on ebay. I took the cover off and cannot find anything obvious wrong with it. And the weird thing is that aside from no sound, everything else including all buttons appear to be working correctly. I would pay anyone money if they could troubleshoot this thing if it worked. Thanx for any help!!!!
DAVE

 

[Leprkon]

Dave,

there are a couple of things that might be worth checking. If you know how to do a hard reset, then I'm guessing you have the manual.. I don't, so I'm going to give you a couple of guesses..

First of all, check to see if there is a "Tape Monitor" switch. Some receivers will send all their signal to the tape deck instead of the speakers if that is on.

Second, try it with the receiver's internal radio tuner and see if there is still no signal. If you can get the tuner, but not the DVD, that may mean an input has gone bad on you.

Are there fuses on the back of the receiver ? Any chance any of those have gone bad ?

The last thing to check would be to completely pull out all the speaker wires from every channel both from the receiver end and from the speaker end, and plugging them back in one at a time. If you have a short in one, it might cause all the sound to stop.

 

[conqst99]

Hello Leprkon-
Thanx for the reply. I do have the manual and I did what they say for a reset by holding in the power button for 5 secs, then hitting enter. That didn't work.
1. I thought of the tape monitor button too but by resetting the system, that should go off and it still doesn't work.
2. I tried the fm tuner and no difference.
3. I could only see one fuse on the board in the receiver and replaced it. Still nothing. Both fuses look fine and it does power on and seem to function fine except no sound.
4. I pulled ALL wires from the speaker terminals and tried it each one by itself. I also tried with no speakers plugged in and just the headphones. Nothing.

I'm thinking that I didn't unplug it from the wall outlet from the first day I got it and that night, we may have had some damaging lightning. But it wasn't turned on and I've never lost anything to lightning as far as stereos in over 20 years, unless by some odd luck that was the night I ran out of luck.
I was reading that maybe the transistors for the amps may have been burned out or something. I don't see anything obvious but I guess the unit is shot.

Thanx anyways.
Dave

 

[hemiram]

If you haven't lost anything due to lightning in all that time, you've been very lucky. I'm 50, and have been in this hobby since the ripe old age of 12, and have lost a lot of equipment over the years.

This is what I can remember off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm missing something..

A high end Panasonic VCR got popped and was junk, the fairly expensive surge protector I had on it sacrificed itself, but it wasn't enough. Best VCR I ever had by far.
A cheap stereo receiver, I think it was a 25 WPC Kenwood, dating from about 1972 or so. Smoked! Just a nearby hit, not all that close killed it.
A CB radio, and antenna were hit directly, and the antenna blew into a million little pieces of fiberglass, and the PC board in the radio had IC's and resistors burned into powder. I was about 6 feet away when it got hit!
My C band satellite receiver was working fine, a storm went through, and that was it, junk.
And ANOTHER VCR, my $$ Sony that replaced the first one that got popped went dead after a storm went through.

And the big day, dollar wise:

I was sick with the flu, and stayed home from school, my mom was sick too, and she was in bed. I was watching TV in the family room. A pretty heavy storm went through, and just after the peak of it, the hallway leading to the bedrooms lights up really brightly, and there was a "POP", and then it went dark again. About 3 seconds later, my dog comes running out with his ears pinned back. So I go in, and the TV is smoking, and so I start to disconnect it, but the cable just falls off, and the power cord is stuck in the outlet. I pull on it and it finally comes out, and I picked up the TV (a 15" one, I think) and carried it outside and put it next to the garage. My mom says a "fireball" came out of the TV and floated around and then exploded. Well, I guess something lit the hallway up!

About a half hour later, I'm back watching TV in the family room, and another wave of lightning goes through. All of a sudden, the picture goes bright white on the TV, and it goes dead, and smoke is coming out the back. Just as I get out of the chair, a blue ball, about the size of a soccer ball comes out of the A/C unit just above the TV, it's "burning" with orange, red, and yellow flames, and sounded kind of like bacon frying and the popping you get when water gets into hot oil. It floated for a few seconds, and drifted towards the couch, where the dog was lying, and then it blew up. "Chunks" of it bounced off walls and furniture, then dissapeared. The dog ran into the kitchen,and stayed under the table for a long time. The TV tuner was fused, and I had to take it apart in several pieces to get it out of the house. The antenna lead was totally vaporized, and the audio amp board, something we had to have replaced regularly, was almost totally gone, just one corner remained. We were kind of happy to see it go, as it had problems from day one, with the audio board being cooked from the tubes below it.

I called my dad at work, and told him that two TV's had been hit, and we went out to dinner that night and bought two new TVs. The insurance company gave us 450 bucks, I think.

I hope you didn't pay too much for the receiver, you bought, because it's gonna probably be expensive to fix it.

 

[astrodon]

an encounter with ball lightning

If you haven't lost anything due to lightning in all that time, you've been very lucky. I'm 50, and have been in this hobby since the ripe old age of 12, and have lost a lot of equipment over the years.

This is what I can remember off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm missing something..

A high end Panasonic VCR got popped and was junk, the fairly expensive surge protector I had on it sacrificed itself, but it wasn't enough. Best VCR I ever had by far.
A cheap stereo receiver, I think it was a 25 WPC Kenwood, dating from about 1972 or so. Smoked! Just a nearby hit, not all that close killed it.
A CB radio, and antenna were hit directly, and the antenna blew into a million little pieces of fiberglass, and the PC board in the radio had IC's and resistors burned into powder. I was about 6 feet away when it got hit!
My C band satellite receiver was working fine, a storm went through, and that was it, junk.
And ANOTHER VCR, my $$ Sony that replaced the first one that got popped went dead after a storm went through.

And the big day, dollar wise:

I was sick with the flu, and stayed home from school, my mom was sick too, and she was in bed. I was watching TV in the family room. A pretty heavy storm went through, and just after the peak of it, the hallway leading to the bedrooms lights up really brightly, and there was a "POP", and then it went dark again. About 3 seconds later, my dog comes running out with his ears pinned back. So I go in, and the TV is smoking, and so I start to disconnect it, but the cable just falls off, and the power cord is stuck in the outlet. I pull on it and it finally comes out, and I picked up the TV (a 15" one, I think) and carried it outside and put it next to the garage. My mom says a "fireball" came out of the TV and floated around and then exploded. Well, I guess something lit the hallway up!

About a half hour later, I'm back watching TV in the family room, and another wave of lightning goes through. All of a sudden, the picture goes bright white on the TV, and it goes dead, and smoke is coming out the back. Just as I get out of the chair, a blue ball, about the size of a soccer ball comes out of the A/C unit just above the TV, it's "burning" with orange, red, and yellow flames, and sounded kind of like bacon frying and the popping you get when water gets into hot oil. It floated for a few seconds, and drifted towards the couch, where the dog was lying, and then it blew up. "Chunks" of it bounced off walls and furniture, then dissapeared. The dog ran into the kitchen,and stayed under the table for a long time. The TV tuner was fused, and I had to take it apart in several pieces to get it out of the house. The antenna lead was totally vaporized, and the audio amp board, something we had to have replaced regularly, was almost totally gone, just one corner remained. We were kind of happy to see it go, as it had problems from day one, with the audio board being cooked from the tubes below it.

I called my dad at work, and told him that two TV's had been hit, and we went out to dinner that night and bought two new TVs. The insurance company gave us 450 bucks, I think.

I hope you didn't pay too much for the receiver, you bought, because it's gonna probably be expensive to fix it.

Hi Hemiram,

It sounds as though you had an encounter with "ball lightning." It's relativily rare, but can be quite damaging (and a bit spooky) if they get inside your house. You're actually lucky that the damage wasn't more severe than this.

Astrodon

 

[conqst99]

Hemiram -
Holy Moses did you have bad luck with lightning strikes over the years. I've never heard stories that drastic! You must have been in a VERY BAD area prone to lightning to get hit twice in a day with that kind of damage! My electrical power cables are underground which may be better or worse than overhead. I guess the safest and best thing to do if you know a bad storm is coming your way is to simply disconnect the coaxial cable, phone, and electrical plugs from all your computers, tvs, and audio equipment...I guess that way there is no way they can hit correct? CYA.
Dave