Standby light blinking

Here is the solution. This is a common problem with this player. Common DVP 642 problem (only problem with a great player): They die, and you have a blinking red power button. This is actually surprisingly easy to fix. It's really easier than I make it look, but I'm just being really clear in case anyone reading this has never seen a soldering iron before. Here are the steps I did (and note that, if you're still under warranty, this will void your warranty). The decision to try this is up to your own discretion and may be a last ditch effort before throwing the player away. Short version: Check the board to see if capacitor C316 is bulging. If so, get a 1000u capacitor >=16V and replace it. Long version: 1. Unplug everything 2. Unscrew the side and rear screws to remove the top cover. 3. On the board where the power cable goes in, look for a capacitor (looks like a little drum with a '+' on the top) that is bulging upward either a little or a lot. It may be leaking some brown fluid as well. 4. I'm betting that the writing on the board at this location says 'C316'. If you google 'dvp642' and 'c316', you'll get hundreds of hits... 5. If that's the case, you'll need to find a capacitor and a soldering iron. Visit radio shack or similar electronics place and buy an elecrolytic capacitor that says 1000u (the 'u' is actually a lower case greek 'mu') with a voltage greater than or equal to 16v (this is not calculated: it's simply what others have reported success with. I couldn't find one and used a 35V one instead). You should be able to find one that looks somewhat similar to the damaged one (it might be a little bigger or smaller, but you'll want the same basic shape). This should cost less than $2. 6. Borrow or buy a cheap soldering iron and some solder. I borrowed one from a friend at work...this is NOT my area of expertise, so don't worry about the difficulty! 7. Now the tricky part: back on your DVD player, you need to get that board out. Unplug the two cables connecting to the board we're working on, unscrew the screws holding it down, and, using some pliers, hold down the wings of the little plastic piece that is still holding the board down and slide the board up. I flipped this around to get at the bottom while leaving the power cord in place. 8. Heat up the soldering iron. Locate the spot on the bottom of the board where the C316 capacitor is attached. Remove your new capacitor from the package. There should be one shorter leg which is the negative side. It will likely be marked this way as well. 9. One side of the capacitor should have a ' -' on it. Note which side this is. You may not be able to see it until it is removed, so be aware of needing to know this as you remove it. 10. After it is warm enough to melt solder, lay the soldering iron across the joints you identified as belonging to C316. Tug gently on C316 as you do this and it should soon come free. This is a little tricky to hold the iron, the board, and the capacitor all at once, so please don't burn yourself! Again, note which side is negative and which hole it came from. This is the negative hole, and the other is positive. There will likely be some solder left over around each hole. Just try not to let it run between the two holes or you will short out the connection. 11. Grab your new capacitor and line up the longer leg with the positive hole. Lay the soldering iron against that hole on the other side and push the leg through. Line up the negative leg/hole and repeat. Lay the iron across both to heat up enough to push the capacitor legs through and the capacitor down to the board. 12. Check the connections for each leg. There should be a small mound of solder joining each leg to the metal of the board, but not running to any other point of the board. If it's run to some other points, you'll need to do some searching to see how to clean up it up a little bit as I'm not an expert at this. If you need a little more solder, lay the iron across the joint for a few seconds, then feed your solder into the hot spot until a small amount flows over the joint. Remove the iron, wait a moment, then remove the solder. Look at the other solder joints on the board for a rough idea of how it should look. 13. Use some wire cutters to trim the legs down to the solder. 14. Pop the board back over the plastic piece and reconnect the cables. 15. At this point, you're on your own. Personally, I made sure I wasn't touching any metal and plugged it in. Since I didn't blow any fuses and the player seemed to work, I unplugged it, reassembled it, and went to watch a movie.

Answers #3 and #5 were right on the money! It took me 20 minutes and $1.59 to fix a DVD player my neighbor was throwing out- the thing looks brand new!

Thanks!

This is an awesome site and great solution. Fixed her up in jiffy and my kids now think I am a GENIUS! Thanks Sharidan

I wanted to say thanks so much for posting the solution/fix for the Philips 642. Only took a few minutes to crack open the box and find exactly what you were talking about. Removed the old capacitor, made a trip to Radio Shack for a replacement, returned home and soldered it in. Powered right up and working fine. Very much appreciated!

Just got the nod, my little fiance, showed me this article, went to RS, came back got the soldering iron out, opened it up, meesaged me back and she did it. SHE DID IT. Never once have I seen her open ANY electronic; yet, she did it and me at work posting this comment of how she did it. I may have to show her how to use the dremmel now.

Worked great, took all of 15 minutes to fix, after running down the part.

Hello, people:

to repeat earlier comments, don't look for it to be necessarily burst or oozing. it could just be a slight bulge.

a 1000uF electrolytic capacitor is *extremely* common component. make sure it's at least rated for 16V. any more than 50V will probably not fit into the footprint on the board, but you could conveivably force a 250V rated cap if you had to.

the key is 1000uF, and at least 16V.. that's it.... they're common as field mice. if Radio Shack doesnt have one, any electronics supply store will.

and ESR is not the issue. anyone who says it is, doesnt know what they're talking about, and is just parroting the same misinformation. we're talking about a power supply circuit, not a high speed microcontroller.

the root cause of the problem is that Phillips put 10V Capacitors on a 12V Power Supply. so of course its going to eventually fail, due it to being overvoltaged. the longer you leave the device on at a time, the sooner it will fail.

so if you replace it with another 10V cap, it will eventually fail again, in about the same amount of time that it took it to fail the first time.

the real question is, why is Phillips installing 10V caps in a power supply that calls for 16V? incompetence? negligence? what? i almost wonder if they did it on purpose so the device would fail shortly after warranty and require people to buy another.

Not a solution, just a comment and maybe a tip. I second PanicBoy when he noted the C306 cap doesn't have to look a gods-awful mess to have gone South. For anyone having trouble finding it, in my DVP642/37 it was identical in size, shape, colour(s) and orientation to the caps marked L303 and C318. On C316, look for a tiny bit of bulging and look again @ the other two, whose scored tops should be flat as a mousepad by comparison. BZT

I bought 2 of these players a couple of years ago and last month they both fizzled out and gave me the blinking light.  One of them had my friends dvd trapped inside.  I was pretty bummed.  I was about to smash one of them open today to get my friends dvd out but decided to do a quick search on any possible fixes.  Well, two hours later and a trip to Radio Shack and the darn things are working.  
I have NEVER soldered anything in my life and if I can fix this you can too.  
Thanks for the awesome instructions!  
Instead of replacing the players I spent 15 bucks at Radio Shack.  Here's what I bought:
1.  Cheapest solder gun ($6.99) 2.  Solder ($3.29) 3.  272-1032 Electrolytic Capacitor x 2 ($1.59 each) 4.  Desoldering bulb ($4.49)  ((The salesman talked me into this and I didn't think I needed it, turns out I didn't and I'm returning it))
I couldn't be happier right now.  
I will not, however, recommend a Phillips player to anyone after all of this.  
That's my 2 cents.

Thank you SO MUCH for this. I found the part on an old 486 I had and I'm up and running again. Long live the internet and great people like yourself.

Just want say I followed Shardian's advice, and the hardest part was finding the part. It was easy to remove and work on the board and it took me about 20 minutes from the time I plugged in my cheap soldering iron until it was working fine. I do have a solder "sucker" (manual handheld one) and it helped a lot with removing the old part.

I found a 1000u 16v cap at www,allelectronics.com - it cost less than $5 including shipping - arrived in three days.

The player works like new. Thanks everybody.

I've had this DVD for about a yr and just got this problem last night. At first it would not turn on then when I pressed the standby button and the open/close button together it worked and the dvd slot opened. However, tonight when I tried to turn it back on I found the same blinking light everyone else has posted and does not power on.

I just called Phillips (surprised that their tech support was open this time on a Saturday night) and they had me unplug the player for 20 seconds and press the standby button and plug into the wall at the same time and hold for 10 seconds. That did not work either. They suggested that I send the player to an authorized dealer to remove the dvd in there now and would replace my broken one for $37. I registered this product when I purchased it but the warranty is only valid for 90 days. I asked if I the replacement would be the same model and they said yes. I decided against getting it in case the replacement pulls the same crap in a year.

Since I am not tech savvy I am probably going to toss this one, do some research and buy another one. I am just disappointed because this is the 2nd dvd player that broke on me in the past 2 yrs.

Just wanted to post that Phillips is of no help when you call, unless it's been close to the purchase date. Also, the guy sounded surprised when I told him I was on the internet and many people have reported the same problem.

Radio shack 272-1032 Electrolytic Capacitor did the trick! Thanks for the help!

Holy crap on crap toast with crap sprinkles!
It worked!  I rarely fiddle around with guts, but this sounded simple and cheap, plus the big loss was a fifty dollar DVD player that was bricked already.  How could I make it worse?  
So I took the cover off and sure enough there it was, C316, all bulged and oozing.  I went down to the electronic thingamajig surplus shop, grabbed an iron, some solder, and the 1000MFD/16V/105C capacitor and went to work.  
It was not easy getting the burnt one out at all.  I ended up going medeival on it with a Dremel.  But I got two half-meh joints and the leads weren't moving when I wiggled the capacitor, so I figured it was a solid enough kludge job.  I ain't no artist with the solder.
I plugged it in, said a quick how-ya-been, hit Eject, and my trapped Netflix rental came out.  I'm watching it now.
Shardian, you rock hardcore with yer bad self.  Thank you so much.

Could be the controller(chips) , power supply or simlply shorted wirings if you'ved mess with the internal parts.

After a lot of researching and failed tech support calls, i unplugged the dvd player for about 30 seconds, plugged it back in, held the standby button for about ten seconds and let go. after a few seconds of what i thought was another failure, it said loading and finally opened when i pressed the eject button. its working fine now so i think you should try this. it may take a few tries for it to work for you but hopefully it will eventually work.