The red light blinking 4 times usually means that you have a T-Con or main board error, but this can vary depending on your TV’s model.

Because the blink codes for Sony TVs that you might find online are not always accurate, it’s a good plan to use the steps below to definitively diagnose the cause, and fix your TV, without you needing to call on an expensive repair technician.

Sony TV Red Light Blinking 4 Times Possible Causes

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How to Fix a Sony TV With a Red Light Flashing 4 Times

Overheating problems are the most common suspect if your red light is blinking 4 times when you try to turn your Sony TV on, which then leads to failure of the main board or T-Con.

We’ll go over detailed steps for how to fix this below, starting with the easiest fixes before moving on to hardware fixes if none of those work.

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1. Soft Reset Your Sony TV

A red light blinking 4 times with the TV not responding to your remote is a potential sign that it is updating via WiFi or Ethernet.

This should only last for a few minutes, but if the red light is still blinking after you have waited 10 minutes and tried to turn it on, then it’s possible that the software update has encountered a problem and is stuck in a loop.

In this case, it’s sensible to try to power cycle your Sony TV to reset it.

About 30% of people who contact me either through email, YouTube, or who leave comments here, fix their problem with a power cycle.

To power cycle a Sony TV:

1. Make sure your TV is switched off and unplug it.
2. Hold down the physical power button on the TV for at least 15 seconds.

3. Wait for at least 2 minutes for any residual power to drain from the TV’s capacitors (which are capable of storing charge for several minutes).
4. Plug your TV back in and try switching it on. You should see a red light if you have been successful.
5. It’s a good idea to try this a couple more times if it doesn’t work at first, as this can sometimes take a few goes to kick in.

Make sure you do wait for the full 2 minutes before plugging your TV back in – you would be surprised how long the components within your TV can hold a charge, and you want to make sure it has fully reset.

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2. Sony Bravia TV Hard Reset

You can hard reset an Android or Google Sony TV using only the buttons on the TV itself. This does not work for non-Google / Android Sony TVs and depends on the number of buttons that your TV has.

To hard reset your Sony TV if it only has a power button:

1. Unplug your TV.
2. Hold down the power button and plug your TV back in.
3. Wait for a white light to appear, then release the power button.
4. Your TV will now reset itself.

To hard reset your Sony TV if it has a power button and volume buttons:

1. Unplug your TV.
2. Hold down the power button and volume down button, and plug your TV back in.
3. A white light will appear, which will change to green within 30 seconds.
4. Release the buttons.
5. Your TV will now reset itself.

To hard reset your Sony TV if it has more than three buttons:

1. Unplug your TV.
2. Hold down the power button and volume down button, and plug your TV back in.
3. A white light will appear, which will change to green within 30 seconds.
4. Release the buttons.
5. Your TV will now restart.
6. You now need to navigate to the factory reset menu. Go to Home -> Settings -> Storage & reset -> Factory data reset -> Erase everything and choose Yes.
7. Your TV will now reset itself.

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3. Check Your Wall Sockets

In about 10% of cases, a fault within your household power supply, or more specifically within the surge protector or smart plug that your TV is plugged into is the cause of the problem.

To thoroughly test your power supply:

1. Unplug your Sony TV from your wall socket.
2. Remove any surge interrupters or smart plugs so that you have a direct line to your wall socket.
3. Plug another large device that you know works into the same socket and check that the new device works as normal. (It’s important that this device draws approximately as much power as your TV, to confirm the socket is fully working).
4. Remove the other device and plug your TV back into this socket.
5. Switch on the power and switch on your TV using the physical power button located somewhere on its case (usually beneath the Sony logo).
6. See if the red light is solid. If so, this means your TV is getting sufficient voltage.
7. If your Sony TV’s red light is blinking, then repeat these steps with another wall socket to confirm your household electricity supply isn’t a problem.

You also need to confirm that the power cord has no kinks and knots, which can damage the copper wires both mechanically and by increasing the electrical resistance, which generates heat, causing damage that may not necessarily be obvious.

Because of potential damage within the cable that you cannot see due to the protective sheath, it can be a good idea to use a new power cable, if you have one or can borrow one.

Also, be sure to carefully look at the power connector on your TV to confirm that the port is free from corrosion, dirt, and dust.

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4. Check for Internal Component Burn Out

A more serious issue, but one that is still easily fixable at home, is a failure caused by overheating of the internal components.

This is almost certainly the cause if your TV works for some time then goes off with the red light flashing 4 times.

Overheating components on the power board or main board are the most likely cause of the red light blinking 4 times on your TV.

Wait for your TV to go off, then move your hand around the back panel of your TV and see if you can find any hotspots.

If any area is nearly too hot to touch, then you have likely found your overheating chip. Mark this location and we can take a look at it in more detail.

If there are no hotspots, then there could be capacitor damage, which we will also need to take off the back panel to investigate.

To check this, you will need to remove the back panel of your TV, which will invalidate its warranty, so this is only practical for older TVs.

CAUTION
Opening up your TV is potentially dangerous due to the risk of electric shock. If you are not confident in your skills, do not proceed.

To remove your TV’s back panel:

1. Unplug your TV, hold down the power button, and wait for at least 30 minutes. There are large capacitors in the power board for the backlight and these can hold charge for an extended period of time.
2. Place your TV face down on a large table or workbench. Make sure there is nothing that can scratch the screen on your work surface.
3. Ground yourself.
4. Open your TV by unscrewing the screws in the back panel. It should come apart in two pieces: front and back.
5. Put the back panel somewhere out of the way and take a look at the circuit boards that have been revealed.
6. You will see a T-Con panel for translating the signal into a TV picture, a power board, and a main board.

The Timing Control (T-Con) board is a small PCB board that drives your TV’s panel, sending the signal to each pixel row of your screen using internal clocks to keep each row in sync.

The Main Board is a larger PCB where you plug your HDMI and other connectors into. This does a lot of the work of translating the input into signal, which then goes to the T-Con board.

The Power Board is where you plug in your power cable, and it converts your home electricity supply into a voltage and current that your TV can use.

There may also be a number of additional boards, such as a backlight inverter.

If you found a hotspot earlier, find the chip that corresponds with the hotspot’s location. These can be replaced with a soldering iron, but given the difficulty of finding an identical logic chip, you might want to replace the entire board that it is connected to.

Both Power and Main Boards can be replaced for around $30 – 50 from eBay.

To get the correct board, note the Power / Main Board model number written on the label on the board, and put this into eBay. You can also search for the specific chip if you are confident you have identified it.

See how to replace the board in the video below.

If you don’t want to replace the board, you can instead try directing a small fan through the grill of your TV, or even cutting a small hole over the chip and pointing the fan in there.

You can also reduce the brightness of the backlight, as powering this requires a large drain on some of the TV’s chips and so causes a lot of heat.

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If you did not find a hotspot earlier, then look at the capacitors on the power and main boards for signs of bulging or damage. Capacitors are particularly prone to damage if subjected to power surges.

If you see any damaged capacitors, they can be easily replaced with a soldering iron and new components costing a few cents each, or by entirely replacing the board.

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If the T-Con and main boards seem OK, then there is a possibility that your problem is caused by either a failure in your backlight or backlight voltage inverter.

The inverter powers the backlight of your TV by uprating the standard voltage and current of your home supply to the higher levels required by the backlight.

It’s a very small board in most TV models (although in some is integrated into the power board). Check this board with your voltmeter, and don’t forget to also look at the cable. These boards are only around $10-15 on eBay, so they are very cheap to replace if they have failed.

The final thing to check is if your backlight itself has failed.

If the inverter and cable are working normally, with normal voltages shown on your voltmeter, then it’s possible that your backlights themselves need replacing.

Many models of Sony TVs will fail to come on with the red light blinking four times if there is a failed individual backlight or backlight strip.

Backlights on modern Sony TVs come in LED strips of varying lengths. Older models used lengths that spanned the entire frame of the TV, but due to cost savings, more recent TVs use a set 16″ LED strip which is connected in series for each row to span your TV.

These cold-soldered connectors are a notorious failure point on Sony TVs but can be easily fixed if you are willing to re-solder a joint yourself.

Equally commonly, the LED backlights themselves can fail. This is due to repeated current overpowering, which over time causes thermal degradation of the LEDs leading to burnout.

You can replace any failed LEDs by just removing the entire strip and replacing it.

The problem with fixing the LEDs is that they are located in the most difficult-to-access part of your TV. So if you are not comfortable with a larger repair job, then now is a good time to seek help from a professional.

You need to remove the back panel, remove all of the circuit boards and connectors, then another layer of screws for the front panel, and only when you have fully removed the LCD panel can you get to the backlights.

You will also need a multimeter or TV backlight tester to test the backlight strips to find out where the problem lies.

Assuming you have followed the steps to check the Power and Main Boards:

1. Any wires or ribbons that are near the edge of the TV should be disconnected.
2. Then remove the screws around the edge that hold the bezel of the TV.
3. With some care, you should be able to remove the bezel, and panel and reveal the TV backlight underneath, which will be in strips of LED lights.
4. Use a multimeter or TV backlight tester to check whether they are working, and replace any failures.

If you have a Sony Bravia plasma TV, you cannot change the backlights.

In this case, your only option is to ground the BL_ERR cable which is causing your red light to blink 4 times, although this will only ever be a temporary fix. Follow the steps in the below video to do this.

Sony TV Support and Warranty

It goes without saying that if your TV is under one year old, then you should contact Sony customer support to get it replaced under warranty.

You can call Sony directly at:

• 239-245-6354 (Mon – Fri, 9am – 9pm ET, Sat – Sun, 10am – 8pm ET)

Or text them at 239-245-6354, or ask for a callback.

Even if Sony won’t fix your TV, they might still offer you a discount on a future model if you pester them hard enough! This is always worth a try in my experience.

Sony TV Red Light Blinking 4 Times: Quick Troubleshooting

• The most common cause of a red light blinking 4 times on your Sony TV is a component failure on the main board or T-Con.
• Use a multimeter to check the components if there is no obvious sign of burning or damage.
• Before opening up your TV, run through a power cycle, and check the HDMI connections and your household power supply, to ensure one of these simpler-to-fix causes is not the root of the problem.

I’m confident that these steps will fix your TV, although the later steps do require a bit more effort than the earlier ones.

Don’t forget that opening up your TV will void its warranty, but this can’t be helped in most cases.

If you need any further help, then I suggest contacting Sony support directly or checking on YouTube where it’s much easier to see how to open up your TV, for example.

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