Answered

Is my Sonos Beam frying my HDMI ARC port

  • 18 February 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 158 views
B

About 2 years ago I bought a LG model CXAUA TV and a Sonos Beam.  It worked fine for less than two months then the TV wouldn’t produce sound on the Beam.  You just got a circle with a line through it when you tried to adjust the volume.  I placed a warranty call on the TV and they replaced the motherboard and it all worked for a couple of years.  Then it happened again the other week.  Placed an extended warranty call and they replaced the motherboard yesterday at about 4:00.  It worked fine but then this morning, turn the TV on and no sound from the Beam.  Before I get another motherboard replacement I wanted to see if anyone else has any other ideas.  I’ve reset the TV to factory defaults.  Done the unplug everything and plug it back in movement.   Other steps I’ve taken:

  1. Replaced the HDMI cable.
  2. Verified SIMPLink is On.
  3. eARC was already on.  Turned it off and back on.

Nothing.  Unplugged the Beam power cord for 10 seconds and plugged it back in to reboot it and still nothing.  Is the Beam frying the ARC port?

icon

Best answer by Airgetlam 18 February 2022, 23:03

View original
This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

4 replies

Chris
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

I have never heard of Beam issue with that.   Have you tried the Beam on other TVs.

 

Respect the Queue (1)Move (2)Beam (1)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1)Connect:Amp (3)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings
B

I have another LG TV that I can plug it into when the main one stops working.  Every time this has happened they’ve had to replace the motherboard in the TV.  Since they just replaced it yesterday it will be hard to argue that the board is failing that quickly.  

Airgetlam

There’s no real power being sent by the Beam back to the TV set across HDMI, so it’s hard to conceive of it being the responsibility of the Beam. It does send a standard electrical low power signal to indicate it’s there, and alive, but certainly nothing of the level to “fry” a port. Any device connected to that port would be sending the same type of signal, speaker, or otherwise. 

Bruce
B

I did some further troubleshooting.  Assuming that the ARC port was non-operational I decided to purchase a sound system from another vendor that supported an optical connection.  I connected it via the optical cable.  To setup the sound system I needed to connect the soundbar to the TV with an HDMI cable so that the setup screens appeared on the TV.  It did support ARC but assumed that the ARC port wasn’t working and the connection would only work as a video input, not for ARC output.  Anyway, I go through the setup and when I get ready to switch the TV from internal speaker to optical, I notice that it has automatically detected the soundbar on the ARC port and is using it.  I remove the optical cable and it continues to work.  The current theory is that the LG and the Beam weren’t playing well together.  Both were at the latest software level so any attempt to update just reported both were at the current version.  We moved the Sonos equipment to another LG TV and it’s working fine for now.

Terms & ConditionsCookie settings