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 Voilà, 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!