‘Don’t buy a new one’: Woman reveals trick to fix ‘broken’ TV screen. But does it actually work?

If you've got a TV set with unsightly lines running through it, you may not need to replace it. In fact, simply performing a quick tap dance with your fingertips might be enough to rectify the problem.

"Hey, shoutout to that kid on TikTok who taught me that your TV is actually never broken," TikToker @leavibaughx says in a viral clip.

In the video, the creator shows off a flat-screen television that's hanging on a wall. The screen appears to be damaged: Multi-colored lines and faded white boxes appear on the TV screen.

However, @leavibaughx then places her fingernails gently on the screen and begins tapping her nails against it. As she does so, the damage lines on the set start to disappear with each tap. "You just need to tippity tap...all the lines out of it," she says.

Next, she switches the camera orientation around and looks directly into the lens. "It's not broken. Don't buy a new one," she says.

She adds in a caption for her clip: "You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl."

Damage lines

Additionally, it seems several other TV owners who've experienced these ominous lines were able to fix them by simply tapping them as well. This one Samsung customer shared how after 2 1/2 years, their set started displaying line impairment. However, the severity of their issue seemed way more extreme than @leavibaughx showed off in her clip.

A variety of initial fixes proved useless. The consumer attempted factory resetting the TV and changing the surge protector it was plugged into. After this didn't work, they contacted a local repair shop who recommended a full LCD replacement. With parts and labor, it was going to cost the patron a whopping $1,237.

As it turns out, the HDMI connector input port was loose. All they had to do was remove the back panel of the set and push these input connectors firmly into place. Upon completing this fix, their TV set has been working like a charm ever since.

Why does the tap work?

The above-mentioned issue appears to be related to the "tap fix" which has also been referenced in Lifewire. According to the outlet, if knocking or tapping a TV set deletes lines that appear, it usually indicates issues with one of two components. Either the TV set's connection ports aren't secured properly. Or the TV set's T-Con board has gone bad.

Additionally, the piece suggests that sometimes individual ports may be the issue. Cycling through different HDMI inputs using your television's remote is a good way to determine whether or not this is the case.

Moreover, the website states loose cables or circuitry inside of a TV set may be why it's displaying vertical and/or horizontal lines. External devices that are incompatible with a screen could cause a display communication error and subsequently, these unsightly lines.

And then there's the potential for LCD damage, which Lifewire says is actually not that difficult of a fix. That's because the LCD provides light to the TV set. So, if that light has burned out or dimmed, you can possibly fix it yourself by swapping out this component yourself.

@leavibaughx

You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the girl.

♬ original sound - leavibaughx

Commenters were stoked about the trick

Several users who replied to the creator's video were shocked to discover how easy it was to rid their sets of these lines.

One TikToker wrote, "Wait, now you’re the girl on TikTok that taught me."

However, another user shared that in some instances, no amount of tapping will make a difference. "Mine was definitely broken, my son threw a Pokeball at it because he saw a Pokemon on the TV," they said.

According to another, however, this fix has existed for decades. Even prior to the mass introduction of flat-screen TVs to the market. "This is the equivalent to us having to bash the back of the TV in the 90s early 2000s," they said.

Others discovered permanent, out-of-the-box rig solutions to their TV's "artifact" lines. One said, "I have a binder clip in the bottom corner of mine because it always needed a little squeeze to get rid of the lines. So permanent squeeze."

The Daily Dot has reached out to @leavibaughx via TikTok comment for further information.

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