A TV that buffers and takes forever to load dampens any mood. You shouldn’t be at the mercy of your TV in order towatch the contentyou want. It’s important to have the right equipment to get you yourshows and movies. You probably have the right equipment, but may need to give it some extra love and care to make it perform at its best.
Over the years I’ve discovered some tricks you can do toget your TV back upand running again. It’s all about finding the right balance for your TV. Here are five ways to help your TV stop freezing.
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5Ensure the connection is sound
You’ll feel foolish if it’s not
There are a lot of reasons why your TV could be acting up. But one of them that is easily preventable is that the cables aren’t plugged in properly. Typically, you have some form of cable that connects a power supply, cable connection, or extra device like a gaming console or DVD player to the TV. You first need to make sure that they are plugged in securely.
If they are just slightly loose, it can cause a ton of issues for you and your TV. What may seem frustrating because the TV is flickering or taking longer to boot up is because the cable could be loose. Maybe you plugged your laptop in to be able to cast it to your TV. Upon doing so, one of the cords got a little loose. Making sure that everything is properly plugged in is the first step towards fixing the buffering problem.
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It’s time to drive one more nail into the coffin of this idea.
4Update your TV
It could just be lagging behind on software
A lot of smart TVs are set to automatically update whenever a newer version of the software is made available by the manufacturer. But some are not, and you might have one that isn’t. It’s important to update your TV because there could be a big change in software. Not all software updates are big ones, but many of them are. If you’re days or weeks behind on updates, it could make your TV run more slowly.
Depending on the type of update, you may still be able to use your TV while it’s updating. For some larger updates, the system will likely stop to focus solely on that.
You can check whether you’re set up for automatic updates by going to the Settings menu on your TV. A few clicks on your remote will hopefully solve the problem.
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3Prioritize your TV on your router
Give it the best shot it can have
In any modern home, there are a lot of devices hooked up to Wi-Fi at any given time. A network’s bandwidth can only hold so many devices trying to use it all at once. But you can actually decide which devices get first priority for the Wi-Fi. Not many people may realize that there is a pecking order with priority devices getting first dibs.
Checking out your router’s admin page and looking for Quality of Service (QoS) is the first step to take. This is how to state which devices should be prioritized over other ones. If your smart home security system is of the utmost importance to you, something like that should be high. TVs can also be made high, so that you’re able to stream without any buffering, even if there are other devices on the network. You may have to enter the static IP address for different devices and then rank them. This tells the router to focus on that specific IP address above other ones.
2Adjust the settings on the apps
It might not be your TV as a whole
If it’s a specific app that keeps freezing, it could be that it is the problem. You can go into the app’s settings and see how they are set up. It’s possible that you don’t have the right streaming quality set up for your TV. Just because you download an app to your TV doesn’t mean it is going to automatically put it into the perfect setting for you. This means you can adjust how playback looks. Lowering resolution in an app might be better for your TV and your streaming. Just because your TV can view content at higher resolutions doesn’t mean it’s going to work perfectly at that quality.
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1Clear the apps and TV cache
There may just be too much going on
Think about all the files you have on your computer. Whether it’s in downloads, documents, or other files, your computer only has room for so many of them. The same goes for your smart TV. The more you download and add to your TV, the quicker it is to fill up. Cache stores data and makes a copy of the processes that are needed to do things on your TV. It does this so that, when you need to do it again in the future, it can find the info more easily and speed up the process.
While cache is incredibly helpful for the TV itself as well as in the apps used, it does fill up the temporary storage of your TV. If your TV is running more slowly, you should clear the cache of the TV as well as of the apps. The way you do this is usually through the Settings menu of the TV or apps. It could be under Storage or Device Care or another option along those lines. You will then need to clear the cache or, in some cases, clear data in the apps to refresh them and get them working properly.
