Yamaha amp killing stuff?
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PaulD86

Original Poster:

1,767 posts

142 months

Wednesday 7th April 2021
quotequote all
Bit of an odd one so looking to see if anyone has experienced similar.

We have a TV in the sitting room connected to a Yamaha amp (in a rack in a back room). Various sources (Sky Q etc) are connected to the AMP which is connected to the TV by long HDMI. The house uses a Control 4 system to control the AV kit, heating, lights etc.

A few weeks back the Control 4 EA5 controller died. It was replaced but for some reason I wasn't getting any pic on the TV from any source connected to the AMP. Turns out the active HDMI cable was dead. Seemed an odd coincidence that this had died at the same time as the control 4 but these thigns happen. I replaced the HDMI with another active one and all was good, but only for a week. Yesterday the new HDMI died too. (tested with different displays and sources).

So that's the Control 4 controller and 2 active HDMI cables dead in a few weeks. The only thing they have in common is that they were connected to the Yamaha amp.

I have some old passive HDMI cables run as well and have gone back to using them for now. You'll understand I'm not too keen to replace expensive active cables until I get to the bottom of what's going on here.

Has anyone ever seen anything similar? Might be nothing to do with the amp, but it is the common factor in the 3 failures.

LordLoveLength

2,164 posts

146 months

Wednesday 7th April 2021
quotequote all
HDMI carries 5V - it could be that the regulator in the Yamaha has died and is putting out >5V ?
Although if that was the case I’d be worried about connecting it directly to anything else without measuring it, which will not be easy as the pins are tiny.
Google HDMI pin out - pins 17 / 18 is 0V / 5V.

PaulD86

Original Poster:

1,767 posts

142 months

Wednesday 7th April 2021
quotequote all
Thank you. The TV that it is connected to is an old Pioneer Plasma. It's probably worth very little but still looks good and so we have decided to keep it until it dies, most likely. It was high end in its day. The thinking is that if anything else dies, we will replace the TV, AMP and HDMI. But I'd like to understand what's gone on. Even if I were able to measure the voltage on the cable, if it was only spiking sometimes then I mgiht not see that - or am I missing something?

Thanks.

LordLoveLength

2,164 posts

146 months

Wednesday 7th April 2021
quotequote all
You’re right, you’d likely not see spikes, but when those sort of things fail it’ll be more permanent than intermittent.
I don’t think spikes would bother active cables as much as constant over voltage.
You could measure it by getting a pound shop cable and cutting it to get to the 5v wires..

PaulD86

Original Poster:

1,767 posts

142 months

Wednesday 7th April 2021
quotequote all
Cheers, I'll get a multimeter and give that a go. I blew up my last meter trying to find out how much voltage a home made pest control device was putting out. Apparently quite a lot.

TorqueDirty

1,632 posts

235 months

Saturday 10th April 2021
quotequote all
PaulD86 said:
Cheers, I'll get a multimeter and give that a go. I blew up my last meter trying to find out how much voltage a home made pest control device was putting out. Apparently quite a lot.
Can't help with your amp problem but full PH marks for the pest control effort!