On Sunday it was cold and wet outside so I decided to hook up a new soundbar to my 10 year old LED TV in the kitchen. Unfortunately the TV does not have HDMI ARC support but it did have Optical. I noticed the sound was not Dolby Digital. So I decided to update the firmware. Keep in mind this TV is over 10 years old, before they were all smart TV’s. So I rolled up my sleeves and started researching. I found the firmware update and downloaded that to my laptop. So far so good, then I noticed it needed a USB drive. I had one handy but my MAC only has USB-C so I grabbed a dongle that supported USB-C to regular USB. I copied the firmware then ejected it and inserted into the TV. The TV then reported no file found. I completed some further research and it said the drive may be to large and the TV can’t read it. Easy enough grabbed another old USB drive and VoilĂ , it updated.
After all this it reminded me of my corp IT days and I thought of a good idea for IT admins out there. Instead of scrambling for all these parts when the turd hits the fan why not make yourself a kit and keep it handy. Here’s what I suggest in the kit:
- USB drives one with 1GB or less and one with 16 GB
- USB-C to USB adapter
- A Barts Boot Disk! CD and USB Version
- DVI to HDMI Cable
- USB-C HDMI adapter if needed for above
- USB Mouse
- A RedBull
- Aspirin
Can you think of anything else I missed? Add it to the comments below!