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TV nightmare

O

OBIO

Retired SOH Admin
In July, my sister-in-law handed me $2000 in cash and told me to go out and buy her a big 3D Plasma TV, 3D Blue Ray player and 3D starter kit. Now it's normal for her to hand me her credit card and driver's license or some cash and have me buy things for her. Heck, I have even bought her "feminine hygiene products" with no discomfort on my part. No big deal. But having 2 grand of her hard earned cash in my pocket, going out to make a BIG TICKET purchase...that I was not really comfortable with...but she insisted she trusted my judgement on gadgets and trusted me with her money.

So, out I go with her money. Spent nearly $1400 of it. 51 inch Samsung 1080p 3D Plasma TV with built in wireless internet connection and tons of apps. 3D Blue Ray player with built in wireless internet. And a 3D starter kit with 2 pair of 3D glasses and 5 3D Blue Ray movies.

She was happy as a clam in freshly made mud. At least for 4 months. Then the TV began acting weird. Not weird as is pretending to be Wonder Woman and running around the school playground like a boy I went to school with used to do.....no not nearly that weird. But going in and out of focus, getting brighter and dimmer, sometimes shutting off and taking nearly 10 minutes to get it to come back on....that kind of weird.

Got a service call put in. Service man comes, replaces a couple parts. The TV worked fine for a month or so. Then the blinking to black started again. Really bad. So bad that she had a hard time selecting anything in the Smart Hub window.

On the 7th of this month, I put in a second service request for her. Today the service guy comes, replaces the main board, turns the TV on, watches a few minutes of Despicable Me on Blue Ray, announces that the TV is fixed and leaves.

After my sis-in-law gets home from her second shift job at one of the local prisons, I go over and get her TV reconnected to her wireless network, update the software in the TV. Guess what? The blink is still there. In fact, it is EVERYWHERE but when playing a Blue Ray or when using the TV as a PC monitor. Smart Hub, Input Source selection screen, Menu screen, Tools screen. The TV is basically useless.

After we called it a night, I made the long walk from her living room to my computer room...a distance of maybe 100 feet....and fired off an e-mail to the repair company who performed both "repairs" and attached the video that my sis-in-law took tonight of the TV blinking some message in Morse Code. I advised them that they should train their repair techs to actually read the service orders they carry...and if a service order states that the TV blinks when on Smart Hub, it would probably be a good idea if the tech actually put the TV on Smart Hub to make sure the blink is gone.

Tomorrow (actually later this morning) I will be calling Samsung and the store where I purchased the TV and between one of those companies, my sis-in-law will get either a new TV to replace the lemon that is now sitting in her living room or she will get a refund of the $1000 plus dollars paid for that TV less than 7 months ago.

OBIO
 
I hate to bring this to your attention but as far as I am concerned ALL companies have stopped training on anything to save money. Yes the homeowner suffers. Samsung,Sony,L&G,Whirlpool, GE, ect..ect. Change all boards and electronics so much you can't even keep track of it any more. Sometimes I have had to call the manufacturer to diagnose what was wrong only to find out the board they told me to order didn't fix it...lol This stuff is getting so advance as far as I am concerned there is no such thing as a trained service tech. The stuff that is being made in this day and time is nothing more than pure junk. Things that use to last twenty to twenty five years is a thing of the past. Life expectancy of big ticket stuff is more like four to seven years and that is pushing it. BTW, you remember the old saying the stores use to post " Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back"???? Next time ya out shopping see if you can see that posted anywhere. If you happen to find one see if they practice that policy.
 
Re: same

You just can't find good help these days! most things you buy today You're lucky if they last 3 yrs.
 
Well..talk about an eye opening day. I got a call around 10 this morning from a different Samsung certified repair company...this is the one that Samsung set up the service visit with...not sure how the other company got involved for yesterday's visit. The repair guy would be at my sis-in-law's house between 12:30 and 2:30. So, I camped out at her place (which is the other side of the duplex Deb and I live in) until the guy showed up. He came in, I showed him what the TV was doing. He was very puzzled as he had never encountered that problem before and said that there was nothing in the Samsung repair documentation about this problem. We began going through the TV, seeing where and when the blinking occurred. Turns out that the TV only blacked out when it was on the input source for TV (meaning antenna, cable, dish, satellite). When on the other input sources (PC, HDMI, Blue Ray), the unit did not blink out to black. The repair guy looked behind the TV and saw that there was only a HDMI and PC connection in use, no cable or antenna hook up. And then he had a light bulb moment....when the TV was on the TV Input source, the system was searching for input from an antenna or cable and since it was not detecting any input, it was resetting itself in an effort to find the input source...thus the TV would blink out to black...it was resetting it self.

As far as the original problem of the TV going in and out of focus and the screen going darker than lightening back up...that was because it was set on the energy saver mode....and in that mode the TV would reduce power for a bit, then go back to full power...resulting in the focus and intensity changes.

So, this repairman, because he took time to investigate the reported problem, was able to conclude that the TV is just fine, nothing wrong with it. The TV was simply doing what it was programmed to do...save energy and look for a input source that was not there.

As far as the blinking/searching for a TV input source, the guy suggested that my sis-in-law go out and buy a $10 set of rabbit ears to hook to the TV....she most likely won't pick up any TV stations, but the TV would stop searching for an input that is not there...either that or stop putting the TV on the TV input source.

OBIO

Oh...now I feel really bad about that scathing e-mail I fired off to the company who sent their tech to her house yesterday...you know the one who failed to fix the TV.
 
why is it being put on the TV source input setting? and how is it even "seeing" anything at all in the first place on that setting? both of my new flatscreens wont work at all unless on the avi input..dont really know what that means...avi...im assuming audio video input...but i had a directv man here oneday and he messed around and changed the bedroom tv to "tv mode" and the screen just went black right away....he paniced...thought he ruined my tv...lol
 
Daveroo

My sis-in-law is obsessive compulsive and she does things that make no rational sense. In her mind, since the TV always powers up on the TV input source, that is where is should be unless she is using the TV to watch a DVD/Blue Ray or using the TV as a computer monitor. Now that she knows why her TV does the blinky blink, she will be using it on the HDMI input source and simply turning off the Blue Ray player once she goes to Netflix.

OBIO
 
Good find OBIO!!! Glad you shared what the trouble (or non-trouble) was. As I was scrolling through the posts, I was doing good until I came to KILO DELTA's post.:isadizzy: Freaked me out!!! LOL Sounds exactly like the tV was doing what it is supposed to do. I noticed my 32" LCD Samsung does the same thing, but it will stop on the cable input in it's search as we have satellite (Dish network) hooked to the TV. I do remember it search like you stated though...
 
Isn't that a hoot. $10 rabbit ears to fix an ultra modern system. 50s technology at best, but it does bring back memories of black and white TV and four stations to choose from.
 
Fortunately we have all these wonderful capabilities available to us.

Unfortunately they can get quite complex.


Glad to hear that it was something so simple and that you had a tech show up who was patient enough to work through the issue.
 
Having on several occasions in my long life having found myself working as a tv repairman, I can state with some degree of expertise that most of today's "tv techs" are for the most part totally clueless when it comes to actual troubleshooting...

...they are -almost without exception- what I refer to scathingly as "module jockeys."

The toughest case I can remember encountering took me nearly three hours to track down, since the actual cause of the problem was apparently totally unrelated to the symptom!

Symptom - no power at all
Probable cause - power supply problem

When modern technology first introduced the switching power supply, for a "CRT" television that meant that all voltages were now derived from the flyback transformer, which itself would not work unless the exciter circuit was driving it. A small transformer delivered 5vdc to provide the startup voltage.

Long story cut short, a diode in the tuner circuit had failed (shorted), which suppressed the exciter circuit, which caused the flyback transformer not to work, which of course meant no supply voltages were produced. A dead set was the result.

Ironically, a "module jockey" would never have found the problem, because the diode in question wasn't part of any module, being soldered in-line with the wire supplying the 5vdc line to the tuner! Which is why it wound up in my shop to begin with, since I was the only "real" technician in the entire Motorola service area of Western North Carolina... :wiggle:
 
My wife and I have one of those 32" Samsung flat screen TVs in the upstairs bedroom that seems to work OK except for one small irritation - after being turned on via the remote control or by hand, doesn't matter, it waits about 5 or 6 minutes then shuts off for about 15 or 20 seconds, then comes right back on and continues to run normally. The identical TV downstairs doesn't do this.:mixedsmi:
 
This is not a TV story, but it is a story about "techs" Some months back our DSL quit working and suspecting that it was the modem I called the phone company and told them that I thought the modem had failed. They tested the modem from their location and said it was fine, sent out three techs to see what the problem was.. They tried two different modems, but each was the same as the one I had.. Finally, they informed me that my computer had a virus, I have 3PC's in my house and a laptop and none were infected with a virus.. After a month of arguing with them I marched on in to Staples and bought my own modem, went home and hooked it up and guess what everything worked. Come to find out, they had done an upgrade to their system which made the modems they were supplying to their customers obsolete.
 
I have a 55" Samsung LCD TV that started acting weird a few months ago. You would turn it on and it would sound like it was turning on but then it would shut off, then turn back on, etc, etc. It would eventually turn on but then progressed to the point that it just repeated this cycle until you unplugged the set. Did a Google search about the problem and found a treasure trove of information. Seems Samsung undersized some capacitors on the main board and go bad. Of coarse they would mostly burn out after the warranty expired as mine did. People reported having techs come out for $300-500 to replace the capacitors but as always there are people that are in the know that fix it themselves then post the fix online. This was no exception. After reading forums and finding multiple Youtube videos on the repair I took my set off the wall and proceeded to take it apart to get to the main board. Not hard at all. Once I got down to the board, sure enough, there were 2 swollen capacitors. After de-soldering the old and installing the new capacitors (from Radio Shack), the TV worked like new again. The final cost was about $5 for 2 new capacitors. Unfortunately I didn't change all four and the problem reared it's ugly head again a few weeks ago. Off the wall it came again....
 
I'm surprised that you weren’t told to replace them all at once. It was the first thing I read for the Sega Game Gear. Had to replace 11 little capacitors on a Sega Game Gear for the video alone. The audio board I replaced 4 out of 5. I would have replaced them all but for I ran out of room since I had to use larger capacitors.
 
Allen said:
I'm surprised that you weren’t told to replace them all at once. It was the first thing I read for the Sega Game Gear. Had to replace 11 little capacitors on a Sega Game Gear for the video alone. The audio board I replaced 4 out of 5. I would have replaced them all but for I ran out of room since I had to use larger capacitors.
Click to expand...
You are right. I should have replaced them all. Brain fart on my part!
 
Trying the old these 2 will fix it and the other will work just fine?
 
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