Do HDMI cables go bad?

[prpr]

Setup is HDR1 to input 1 on TV; HDR2 to input 2 on TV.
Prior to Monday, everything working fine when turning on any device. That evening, with no changes for months, HDR1 suddenly stops talking to the TV when the latter is powered on - just outputs black - only way to get it back is to cycle HDR1 through standby which is considerably annoying.
The beauty of having a redundant system is you can do fault-finding by substitution, so I swapped the cables at the TV end and the fault followed the cable (HDR1 on input 2 not working). This rules out a problem with the TV. Then I swapped the cables at the HDR end as well and there was no change (HDR1 back on input 1 but on other cable; HDR2 now faulty). This rules out problems with the HDRs and the problem must be with the cable.
So, I swapped the cable with its identical twin (which was between my HD and computer monitor HDMI switch). This made HDR2 work again and broke the HD/computer monitor link, as you might expect.
So the cable is definitely faulty and the answer to the question is "Yes", but what can have gone wrong with it? It has just been sitting there minding its own business for months on end and hasn't been disturbed at all.
Anyone had anything like this?

 

[Trev]

No, but could it be an oxidised contact? But unplugging and re-plugging usually fixes that.
You obviously need one of these

I can't believe that Currys persuade people to buy these.

 

[Black Hole]

It is very unusual for a contact termination to fail when totally undisturbed, but it can happen (maybe the contact was under strain?). Some kind of flaw in the manufacture of the cable (fracture, poor termination) maintained contact until now, then finally let go.

I don't know how HDMI cables are constructed - are the connector contacts soldered or crimped to the cable cores? Or maybe insulation-displacement? Solder provides highest density (the smallest space occupied) and is particularly prone to fracture or faulty manufacture unless there is a mechanical restraint on each conductor prior to soldering (rather than rely on the solder to provide the mechanical as well as the electrical termination). Crimping is less space-efficient, but actually provides the best termination if done properly (solder makes a wire brittle, and a joint can easily be "dry" - especially in these days of stupid lead-free solder; crimping is more reliable long-term). IDC (insulation displacement connection/connector/contact) isn't very suitable for impedance control (I wouldn't have thought) and although quite good for density widthwise, is poor in Y and Z.

The only way to find out is to physically examine the cable for faults - an activity with little benefit for the time consumed. Even dismantling the connector to get to the contact terminations might obscure the evidence. Use inexpensive cables and regard as consumables.

 

[Black Hole]

You obviously need one of these

I can't believe that Currys persuade people to buy these.

Maybe if you have a 4K TV and a 4K capable Blu-ray you need a special cable?? Is HDMI specified for the data rate required for 4K/8K?

 

[prpr]

No, but could it be an oxidised contact? But unplugging and re-plugging usually fixes that.

I did that quite a bit in the course of investigation. I doubt it's the problem.

You obviously need one of these

I can't believe that Currys persuade people to buy these.

That's nothing compared to what scammers and rip-off merchants (IMHO of course) Russ Andrews charge for these.
Funny how they only seem to have 1 in stock though.

 

[Trev]

Plugging/unplugging: That's what I meant.
Russ Andrews: Bloody hell! I don't expect he has a high turnover of them.
@BH

Is HDMI specified for the data rate required for 4K/8K?

My 4k UHD tv manusl says

The following types of HDMI cables are recommended:
●● High-Speed HDMI Cable
●● High-Speed HDMI Cable with Ethernet

whatever that means

 

[Black Hole]

these

WHAT?????

And the result of this precise manufacture? Stunning images and crystal-clear sound. We've seen clear improvements in image quality, with less noise and finer colour detail; sound was also more detailed and has better three-dimensional resolution.

I would love to get these people into a blind test, see if they really can tell the difference between a bog-standard Poundland HDMI cable and one of their fancy gold-plated zero-oxygen (or whatever it is) £100+ cables from the picture and sound quality alone.

 

[Black Hole]

Apparently HDMI 1.4 is capable of 4K @ 24Hz, and 2.0 can do 4K @ 60Hz. I have not yet found out why 1.3 (with the same bandwidth as 1.4) isn't also specified for 4K @ 24Hz (and if 2.0 can do 60Hz, 1.4 should be able to manage 30Hz).

 

[prpr]

It is very unusual for a contact termination to fail when totally undisturbed, but it can happen (maybe the contact was under strain?).

It wasn't.

I don't know how HDMI cables are constructed...The only way to find out is to physically examine the cable for faults - an activity with little benefit for the time consumed. Even dismantling the connector to get to the contact terminations might obscure the evidence.

I thought about it, but haven't any spares at the moment. Just to satisfy further curiosity, I swapped the duff cable from the HD<-->switch link on to the PC<-->switch link and now both devices work fine on the switch. Perhaps this exposes further pickiness on the part of Humax's HDMI implementation.

Use inexpensive cables and regard as consumables.

They were cheap but they seemed robust and well made as far as I could tell, but any more grief from it and it's going under the knife to see if it'll give up its secret.

 

[dandnsmith]

While visiting my brother-in-law recently, I had occasion to try to find out more about HDMI and cables because he had a setup where he ought to have been able to use ARC to get sound to his soundbar - but nothing we tried worked.
In the course of searches, I found that someone alleged that manufacturers say they are not allowed to say their cables are for specific versions of HDMI (though you need to know that HDMI 1.4 is catered for), and, further, that there are lots of frustrated users who cannot get their equipment to cooperate (due, most probably, to difference in the way the manufaturers interpret the specs). One user posted how he bought 2 identical cables in order to sacrifice one to see how to disconnect pin13 to get his bits to work together. A subsequent purchase and failure showed that the manufacturer varied the colours for pin 13.
I also found that CPC does, for some of the cables it sells, say whether they support ethernet and ARC.

 

[tahrey]

Cripes, £90?!

Better made, and thus generally slightly more expensive leads do tend to perform a little better than cheap nasty ones (thicker cabling, more consistent, better made connectors that offer less inductance/resistance/capacitance and thus can transmit higher frequency signals with less attenuation and drop-out, vs absolute minimum acceptable thickness and quality), but there comes a limit, particularly with digital applications where the maximum bandwidth is relatively limited and quite well-known. If a cable is specced to a certain standard, then generally you can expect it to work. What's often more important is sources of interference, length, and if you have any good quality boosters / converters to allow longer runs.

I've had a badly made one that was only good for standard def resolutions, but that was a real bargain bucket job - cost me a pound, was a metre long, and was an emergency purchase to, thankfully, cover hooking up a console to a projector that only did XGA anyway (thus, in widescreen, was basically about the same quality as SD PAL even with a HD input, all things considered). When I tried to use it to connect a Blu-ray player to a Hi-def TV, it couldn't hack it in either 720p or 1080i (let alone 1080p). Plus the length was seriously borderline.

Since replaced it with a "v1.4+" rated (thus, allegedly good for 4k, at least at 25/30p) 2 metre one for ... what was it, 7, 8 pounds? Less than a tenner, certainly. It works absolutely perfectly at 1080/60p with deep colour, and I wouldn't be at all surprised at it being just fine for 4K as well. The other £80 would be an utter waste, you literally wouldn't be able to tell any difference at all under even the most demanding viewing conditions.

As for going bad over time ... unlikely. Cables that are in place and undisturbed tend to keep working just fine. The biggest issue is ones that run through walls and such suffering from perished and cracked insulation, and then moisture creeping in (which is why you occasionally have to have your house rewired for safety's sake). AV leads, of any kind, do eventually wear out because of metal fatigue and such, but it's almost exclusively those which are used for mobile applications or are otherwise repeatedly and frequently unplugged and reinserted (e.g. you have too many HDMIs to go in the one TV and don't have a switch box...) which suffer that. TV aerial cables, for example, can last for decades when clipped to the wall and left alone ... HDMI hasn't been around long enough for any up-to-standard ones to be even close to 10 years yet, so unless you're repeatedly swapping them around or using it for some mobile 4K projection project, it's more likely you simply got a bad one, rather than the one you had going bad. Heck, it's often more probable that the sockets go bad rather than the cables that plug into them...

 

[prpr]

Well mine was OK for months and then suddenly it wasn't, as I said. I also tried it on other equipment and it was bad there too. So that rules out the sockets.
But it's been fine on the PC-switch link since. Just the Humax boxes it no longer works on.

 

[Black Hole]

Weird! Could there be a conductor fault which the PC link happens to ignore?

 

[prpr]

What a flamin' week... Blistering heat and humidity. Lack of sleep. Power cuts. Pigeons. Failed computers. Now on second motherboard and third power supply. The iffy HDMI cable that worked between old motherboard and HDMI switch most certainly didn't with the new (different) motherboard. So now it is going to get binned.

 

[inspiredron]

I have a recent problem with HDMI. I have 2 HDMI inputs on my TV and hummy is wired to HDMI1. Recently it works for a minute or two and then loses sound. I czn then switch to pick up the signalis from the Humax via the DVD recorder and all is well. If I switch TV back to HDMI I still have no sound. However, if I watch via DVD recorder for half an hour and then switch back to HDMI sound is back. This occurs whether I use TV's HDMI1 or 2.
This behaviour has followed the need to do a factory reset afte the unit was refusing to come on reliably. Factory reset has resulted in relisble operation apart from this HDMI glitch. I have tried swapping the two ends of the HDMI cable neither of which seems a really snug fit. I don't have another cable to try - yet.
Any thoughts? Perhaps a second factofy reset or is it more likely to be the cable?
Help appreciated.

 

[Black Hole]

pick up the signalis from the Humax via the DVD recorder and all is well

That will be by SCART or RCA from the Humax to the DVD recorder ?

Any thoughts? Perhaps a second factofy reset or is it more likely to be the cable?

There's no difficulty getting an inexpensive HDMI lead to try, but I doubt that's the problem. Just go to your nearest pound store.

As things stand, you have no idea whether the problem is with the Humax or the TV.

 

[inspiredron]

Thanks for quick response.
Without pulling Humax out to check - Scart from Humax to DVD recorder and Scart from DVD recorder to TV. As it will be several days before I can get to the pound shop I have tried another factory reset. Have not tested yet because it worked fine on HDMI but that proves nothing because I had watched the News @ 10 via Scart before the reset. Scart was needed because I had lost sound on HDMI after a couple of minutes at the start of the News.

 

[Black Hole]

Scart from Humax to DVD recorder and Scart from DVD recorder to TV.

In other words, analogue (regardless of whether SCART or RCA) - which was the point.

I recall an interaction situation - have you tried the HDMI without the SCART connected at all?

 

[inspiredron]

No - not tried. Late last night I did another factory reset, retune and chsnnel edit. I am not holding my breath but tonight I did not get loss of sound.
I am now wondering whether a mains spike occurred while we were away for a couple of weeks in July causing a software glitch that was only partially rectified by my first factory reset.
Only time will tell if the problem is resolved.
Thanks for your help, Black Hole.

 

[jack616]

Hi - I've been lurking for about a year (boxes ok so no need to post - appart from having to replace more PSU caps)
but this thread is of interest so I thought I'd make a few FYI comments -

In the last 2 weeks I suddenly had extreme problems with my boxes giving black outputs.
As a consequence I've done a lot of swapping and replacing things. The fact that it has
taken me 2 weeks and I am still unsure is disturbing considering I have 35 years
of electronics fault finding to draw on.

I have replaced cables, hdmi switch boxes, monitor, Humax boxes and still had the same
black screen issue randomly popping up with all configurations.
I dont really know what seems to have cured it even now.

This has caused me to look around then net (places such as Toms hardware etc) and I have discovered
an increasing number of black screen issues - far more than random failures I suspect.

So far for the last 4 days everything is working fine - with all the original cables/boxes etc.
i.e. nothing has actually changed. Nor was it cured previously by re-plugging things.

The type of issues I experienced might traditionally have been caused by electrical noise
or interference of some sort but I discovered nothing - and the fault was clear and "hard"

All very odd - But I'm keeping my eye on other reports - I'm becoming suspicious that maybe
there is something happening with the HDMI chips used in monitors. Perhaps a large batch with a short lifespan
or something.

It's all a bit vague though.


On the HDMI cable comments - When I first bought a bluray player and LCD big screen I paid
about £90 for the cable - not because I wanted to but because you just couldnt get them then.
Out of interest last year I tried a cheap £3 cable from CPC - it seemd to work just fine on a short test.

The thing about HDMI is it is digital. It either works or doesn't. A very poor cable may be an issue
but such a cable wouldnt work reliably from new.

The plugs and sockets are rubbish. Like scart before I'd say not fit for purpose if you need to cycle
them more than about 10 times in their lifetime. Dont know their actual insertion specs because
they are probably made in sweatshops -

Long and short of it - I am suspicious of chips in monitors/TV's and of HDMI sockets/plugs but
have no hard answer because swapping the leads or equipment didnt cure my fault.

But a digital cable by rights should either work or not work regardless of gold or oxygen or kryptonite.