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21 September 2025
Once upon a time...that's how all legendary tales start, right? Although this is no fairy tale, this actually happened.
This one's somewhat long, so we should probably start from the very beginning. A relative of mine had this 40-inch Samsung flatscreen television (model number UE40D5004BW, "made in Slovakia" although "assembled in Slovakia" might be closer to reality, for the SMPS board and the panel are at least marked as "made in China"), and she used to watch it on a daily basis, for quite many hours a day. Until one day it suddenly died. The set was dead, suffering from an issue best described as "no power": the cord was plugged in, as it had been for years, but there wasn't even the standby light on the set. Naturally, as I investigated the issue, I ruled out both the power cord and the outlet it was plugged into, they both were working totally fine.
After I had gotten my relative a new(-to-her) TV for Christmas, the next January I dragged the old one away. Not to a recycling center or anything, but with me. I was both extremely curious and also fascinated by the idea of owning a 40" full HD TV. Yes, I'm aware they're fairly cheap these days; after all, I did buy my relative a replacement, as said before.
But as the saying goes, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions". It took me basically a year to actually start working on this thing — but once I had started, I did eventually finish it in late August 2025. The good part is that there's plenty of documentation on this TV and its SMPS (power supply) board; you'll merely need to search the Internet for the model number and you'll find download links for both the television's (frankly, fairly useless) service manual and the wiring diagram of the SMPS board. (I actually made the mistake of remembering that the last digit would've been a 3 and not a 4, which is how I found the manuals. Regardless, while I'm not sure what the digit stands for, it doesn't look like there are major differences between the sets described by the manuals and the one I have.) And ShopJimmy.com has nice high-resolution images of both the front and the back of the SMPS board.
Now, going into this project, I had literally zero clue about how switch-mode power supplies (SMPS) work. Or flatscreen televisions. Or flatscreen televisions' SMPS boards. Now? I think I have a very rudimentary idea of how they might work, at least in this particular context. The essential is this: a SMPS has two sides, primary (also called "hot") and secondary (also called "cold"). Primary is Alternating Current (AC), secondary is Direct Current (DC). The primary side converts AC mains voltage (~230 Volts in Europe, ~120 Volts in North America) to DC voltage, since internally electronic devices run on DC. The two sides are separated by a fairly thick line and little things called optocouplers. This is basically why they're not truly connected to each other per se.
Here's the real kicker, though: fixing electronics is cheap and potentially even fun if you already have the equipment needed. If not, choose your battle(s) very carefully. What do I mean by this? If you think the local electronics repair place asking for a three-digit sum is bad...you'd be right, it absolutely is bad. But you will be spending a three if not a four-digit sum of money on equipment, if you're starting from scratch — as I did. It's a matter worth a separate blog post and I'll be writing something about it in the weeks or months to follow.
However, there are some things I just can't resist. Free stuff that's useful to me is one such thing, and a good puzzle is another. This project combined both — even if my "desire" for a 40" TV could've easily been satisfied for 20-40€. But it wouldn't have brought me any closer to figuring out why this particular TV had failed, and if it can be reasonably fixed with just effort and some fairly affordable parts.
Also, unlike more "modern" TVs—which I'd actually call "regressive" because while e.g. with 4K TVs you do get more pixels for your money, but you get less features which I consider essential— this old Samsung features a SCART connector. No need for any dodgy HDMI-to-analog converters to hook up an older gaming console, just plug it in and it works, and that is how it should be!
Based on all the knowledge I had acquired from watching countless YouTube videos and even reading some actual forums and whatnot, I came up with working theory. This particular power supply board, part number BN44-00473A, has two fuses. The main AC input fuse, labeled FS802S on the board, had blown (it's a ceramic high breaking capacity fuse, rated for 6.3 Amperes at 250 Volts), but the other one by the Power Factor Correction (PFC) circuit was fine. If you can read schematics better than I can, this will likely give you some idea as to where the fault was. I can't read schematics very well (yet) so I went with what various forums etc. suggested and what seemed reasonable: that the MagnaChip MDF11N60 MOSFET, labeled QP801 on the board, is shorted.
Finding a replacement wasn't exactly easy and involved looking into various MOSFETs' defining characteristics and trying to find one that's a close match. I settled for a Wayon WML53N60C2 since it's very similar, but somewhat more efficient, and above all, it was easily available. At 6€ a piece, it wasn't exactly a 10-20 cent capacitor or diode, though, but still fairly affordable.
The annoying part about replacing this MOSFET is that it's screwed (luckily with just one screw) into a heatsink, which is soldered onto the board, so desoldering that was a lot of "fun", as desoldering tends to be. Likewise, for the fuse, the board had no fuse holder and the ones I bought had legs that wouldn't go through the holes, so I had to cut off the legs of a diode and solder those onto a new fuse in order to get a fuse that could be soldered in.
Finally, let's talk about a related problem: the stand. I figured initially that even if the TV itself would turn out to be beyond repair, the stand looks fine and I can sell that for a few Euros. Well, turns out I was very much mistaken. A screw dropped out of the bottom of the stand, and I didn't think too much of that. But in early August 2025 as I picked up this project for the first time in about half a year, there was way more rattling around. I decided to open up the stand, thinking that perhaps a screw post is broken off and needs to be glued in or something. I was both right and wrong at the same time: that was the issue, only that it wasn't one or two but literally all of them. Then I noticed the crack in the "neck" that supports the actual TV and realized that the stand, unlike the TV set itself, is way beyond repair. The happy part here is that at least I caught the issue in time, before any more damage could happen to the TV set.
While third-party TV stands are very much a thing, they're not always either great or affordable. And if you had written down the original Samsung part code for the stand (assembly)—which I hadn't—you might even be able to buy a brand new one...but it's not really worth it in the long run unless you're somehow unusually fond of the original stand. Really, just save your money and buy a third-party stand that can be used with various VESA-compatible TV sets; it's what I'm going to do in the near future.
So, the conclusion. Was it worth it? Financially: hell no. If you have a single broken appliance, either get it repaired or buy a new(-to-you)/used-but-functional unit; my suggestion would be for the former, of course. But as in most things in life, there are many sides to everything, and that is also true for this TV repair adventure. Although I spent an absurd amount of money on the soldering supplies and spent countless hours watching various repair-related videos on YouTube...getting the unit fixed and up and running was satisfying. Getting to learn new things was also fascinating and in this case, objectively speaking, rewarding. And at least now I should have all the equipment I need to fix whatever comes my way next, be it an old Nintendo game console or another flatscreen television or something else.
One final note: apparently the TV tuner side of things is no longer functional, at least in my place. Technically a shame, but not much of a hindrance in practise as I don't watch actual television that often these days, and I do have a smaller TV which functions as a "normal television". I assume this is due to whatever "backend" switch-a-roo happened earlier this year to fully phase out non-High Definition TV broadcasts. Ficom's "Tested Devices" site has a brief "For Manufacturers" page in English, should you be interested, although it looks like it's lacking the most current info as of Q2/2025.
The service manual I mentioned earlier supports this theory. The specifications for this particular model are found on page 8, and the "TV System" is listed to support DVB-T/C, PAL, SECAM, NT4.43; per the "HD[TV] Glossary" (only available in Finnish; operated by a government agency), DVB-T broadcasts ended in Finland in spring 2025.
19 March 2025
Turns out that the GlobalUserPage MediaWiki extension (which I originally wrote for ShoutWiki, based on the HelpPages MediaWiki extension by legoktm), celebrated its first decade of being enabled on Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) web properties in February. Per the original deployment announcement, GlobalUserPage was deployed on WMF wikis on 18 February 2015.
It's utterly fascinating to me that this was over a decade ago. Where does time even go?!
At the same time, GlobalUserPage is a true testament to the power of free and open source software. Without legoktm's HelpPages extension, I wouldn't have written GlobalUserPage; and had we not talked about it, I wouldn't have bothered releasing the source code as it seemed like one of those features that made sense only for wiki farms. But most importantly: the cool volunteers and WMF staff developers are really the rock stars here, for they're the ones who've kept GlobalUserPage operational and usable since the initial release.
If you look at the repository statistics (e.g. on GitHub, you'll see that my involvement after the initial source release was minimal. In 2014 and in 2015 I merged a few patches (most, if not all, of them were submitted by legoktm) and that's pretty much it. GlobalUserPage has been maintained by people other than me, and that's what matters.
And I am truly grateful to them, and it's my belief that so are countless active Wikimedians who use this great feature. As I maintain over 100 MediaWiki extensions and skins, it would be somewhat tricky for me to focus on the special requirements of GlobalUserPage as a Wikimedia-deployed extension. Wikipedia, as the most recognized (but hardly the only one!) Wikimedia web property, is one of the most visited websites on the planet. Thus it goes without saying that there are special requirements to ensure the stability and performance of code deployed on WMF servers. Simply put: what works for a very small-scale wiki doesn't work for ShoutWiki, and what works for ShoutWiki doesn't necessarily work for the WMF wikis. But usually what works for the WMF sites works for smaller sites (except CentralAuth, but that's a whole different story).
To date, and presumably to a large extent due to the aforementioned, GlobalUserPage remains my only WMF-deployed extension. But of course I've contributed smaller bits to MediaWiki core as well as skins like MonoBook and Timeless, which are used on WMF sites. These days the Special:Interwiki special page, originally an extension, is also a part of MediaWiki core, and both me and Isarra have contributed significant parts to both the skins mentioned as well as Interwiki; in fact, it was Isarra who cleaned up the Interwiki code I wrote for ShoutWiki, and Isarra authored the Timeless skin, and made MonoBook responsive to keep it relevant and usable in an ever-changing online world. Kudos!
Here's to the next decades of great software!
7 January 2025
I am notoriously bad at blogging. Last December I wrote a fair chunk of this but failed to finish it due to various reasons, so I'm posting it now instead.
For Christmas 2024 I gifted myself with some presents that might make you think the year was 2001, or 2003, or so, instead of 2024. I want to explain the what and the why.
As far as Nintendo-related items go, I've so far bought a slightly faulty Game Boy Advance (GBA), a brand new Game Boy Advance SP, a dodgy Chinese flash cartridge for the GBA and an IPS screen for the GBA as well. Some of these are no-brainers, but I'll just assume you're unfamiliar with just about everything, so...
The Game Boy Advance was released in 2001 and it featured a screen awfully similar to its precedessor(s), the Game Boy Color as well as the non-color Game Boys that came before it, such as the Game Boy Pocket and the original (often called "DMG" after its product code; the "DMG" stands for "Dot Matrix Game") Game Boy. That's to say that it was an awful waste of a screen, as there was no backlight and it was barely viewable even under a lot of light, whether natural or artificial. Why such screens were ever made is well beyond comprehension, let alone Nintendo's decision to use those in the GBA. Well, I guess they both are attributable to greed at the end of the day.
Then, in 2003, came the Game Boy Advance SP (GBA SP). It was glorious, as it had a proper light for the screen — finally! Alas, the initial models (product code AGS-001) had a front-lit screen whereas the latter AGS-101 model, which, to my understanding, was more available in the US than in Europe, had a backlit screen. Regardless, I ended up skipping the GBA SP entirely, and after the GBA, my next Nintendo handheld was a Nintendo DS, released in 2005 in Europe (ah, Europe, always behind the rest of the world...).
The DS was good. A lot of people must've felt that way, as the DS is currently ranked the 2nd best-selling video game console on Wikipedia's list of best-selling game consoles. The DS had many great games, and the dual screen setup was a fascinating novelty, although in retrospect I'm a bit skeptical of the clamshell design: though it obviously does help keep the screens safe and avoid scratching them, it complicates the overall design and in my limited experience, the hinges are the weak point. Not only have I seen many faulty, broken DS units for sale due to hinge issues, but the right hinge on my own beloved unit broke in early December 2024 — and, sadly, mine hasn't really seen much action lately, and even when I did use it more frequently, I'd naturally treat it with care. Replacing the hinge on my DS isn't exactly a task I look forward to...
The "slightly faulty" Game Boy Advance just needed a good clean and a new screen. Gotta say I quite like the Glacier color, even if Indigo is my favorite of the original, launch colors, and coincidentally it just so happens to be the color of my original GBA as well. That said, the videos on YouTube make the process seem a lot more straightforward than what it really is, and the touch sensor is just beyond irritating. Who needs a gazillion brightness levels and a black-and-white mode? This is the GBA we're talking about, we're not in 1989 anymore!
Alas, nothing is perfect and the battery life is one such thing. The modded GBA goes through AA batteries like crazy, and it won't even boot with some used batteries that I can easily use in an unmodded console without any issues. I guess that's why a lot of people also prefer to add a battery and USB-C charging for it to their Game Boy Advances. It's not something I was ever going to research, and I quite like the fully removable batteries, but perhaps there can be a reasonable middle ground, like a USB-C-capable, rechargeable battery pack that is still easy to remove. Lithium ion batteries are scary, people. At least alkaline batteries usually just make a mess (that is surprisingly easy to clean up with white vinegar, isopropyl alcohol and a little bit of elbow grease), they don't tend to spontaneously explode the way Li-ion ones...can.
The Chinese flash cartridge is a step up from the ancient GBA flash cart I bought in early 2024 or so, but it's still not great. It has no RTC support (despite sporting a battery — what's up with that?!), so playing games like the third generation Pokémon games (Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald) is possible, but you're not going to be able to experience them to their fullest extent, as Berries and other "events" which depend on the real-time clock (RTC) won't work. The Chinglish UI texts aren't great either, and for some reason, despite that the GBA hardware can natively play both Game Boy Advance and older Game Boy cartridges just fine, the flashcart supports only GBA games natively. Apparently there's some custom software that can be used to "bundle" Game Boy or Game Boy Color titles into a .gba ROM, which the cartridge does support. Not very straightforward, is it now? Honestly, at this point, Krikzz's Everdrive is probably more worth it than this garbage; such a shame that second-hand Everdrives aren't very easy or common to find, and even then, they're often older versions. But if you're willing to pay the full price for a brand new one, go for it.
Remember what I said about the hinged consoles' design? Yeah, they suck. I now have some first-hand experience on this from a repair point of view. Prior to Christmas 2024 I bought a nice Special Edition Nintendo 3DS XL that was dirt cheap as it was sold as faulty, and the seller described the fault quite well. Ever the optimist, I thought it could be a simple fault that's easy to fix...but of course I wasn't that lucky. The console has a ribbon cable issue, and to access and potentially replace the problematic component(s), you only need to literally tear the darn thing to bits, and it's legitimately hard. Not only are there hidden screws (which are well-documented these days, luckily), but there's a surprising amount of other random gotchas, like super tiny plastic parts, such as the LED diffusers; in dismantling the unit I bought, I managed to lose one (as of today, at least; here's hoping I won't lose more of them). But to think that working units like these go for over $150 USD on eBay is pretty wild, and it certainly inspires me to keep going, although I don't dare to promise to anyone, not even to myself, when I might have this ready. Summer 2025? Possible. Christmas 2025? Also possible. 2026? Still possible. 2027? See the aforementioned answers.
And finally, the Wiis. I managed to score two faulty Wii units prior to Christmas 2024, a black and a white one. Both looked to have GameCube support, which is nice; they both are missing the flaps which cover the said GameCube controller ports, which is not so nice. One has a power button issue, the other one isn't reading discs. My thinking here was that in any case, I definitely should be able to put together at least one working unit if I can't fix them both, and with software mods, there might not even be a need for discs. It's an uncharted territory for me, but I'm definitely looking forward to learning about softmodding a Wii (or two!) and allegedly bricking a Wii is hard, but it's always better to be safe than sorry, so experimenting on a spare unit instead of my main one a reasonable choice. Now if only the logistics company would deliver the package, that'd be great...the seller was super fast in shipping out the package, but logistics inside Finland are kinda awful, as witnessed by this case: the parcel in question arrived to my city in late 2024 and it's yet to be delivered.
