TV Trouble

All is not well in the land of the new TV.  The first week I had the set, it gave me a scare.  After a few hours of playing Burnout Paradise on the PS3, the TV picture suddenly went black.  The set would seem like it was trying to power the picture back on, going from a dark black (off) to a powered on black (light black?).  It would make a short buzzing sound, then back to off again.  A few seconds later the cycle would repeat.  I let it do this for about a half an hour but the picture never came back.  I tried to turn the set off, but it wouldn't respond to either the remote or the power button on the front of the set.  In the end, I just had to unplug it.  After it was unplugged for about ten minutes, I plugged it back in and everything was working again.


I wasn't just going to ignore this problem, so I called Samsung technical support.  I let them know what happened, and that the set was running firmware version 1006.1.  The tech support agent recommended that I downgrade the firmware to 1005.3.  I did that, and for the next week I had no issues. 

Until last night.  Again, I had been playing Burnout Paradise for around an hour when the picture went black.  The same cycle of attempted power on, then off repeated.  Again, the only way to turn off the set was to unplug it from the wall.

So this morning I called Samsung tech support again and they are going to have a service agent out to take a look at the set sometime next week.  Frankly, I'd prefer if they would just swap my set for a new one so I don't get stuck with a questionable build, but I'm fairly certain that won't be their first course of action.  I haven't heard anything negative from my father-in-law who purchased the same set, so this is likely just a flaw in this particular set and not something wrong with the set design.  

Just for completeness of information, here is the setup:

Samsung HL61A750 61" LED DLP
HDMI Port 1 - Connected to AT&T U-Verse set top box (non-DVR).
HDMI Port 2 - Connected to PS3
A/V Port 1 - Connected to Xbox
A/V Port 2 - Connected to PS2
RF Port - Connected to "rabbit ear" antennae

Unit is plugged into a APC UPS on the power conditioning side (not that battery backup side).

When the unit experienced the issue, I tried holding the front power button to get it to power off.  I tried unplugging HDMI and A/V connections.  I tried using the Source button.  I tried using the power button on the remote.  The set did not react to any of these actions.

I'll follow-up later with whatever the Samsung tech finds out.  At least the set has some working time so I'm not completely out of enjoying it, but I definitely want to get this resolved long before the 1 year parts and labor warranty expires.

2 comments:

Sam Danziger said...

You know, I remember the days when firmware upgrades were limited to things that only nerds use...

*shakes fist*

Sorry to hear about your TV.

Adam Jones said...

So two new developments:
1) A package arrived today from Samsung in regards to my first tech support call. They sent me a USB drive with the firmware installed on it. I was actually kind of impressed because they sent a nice 1GB drive. I was expecting just a CD-ROM that I would have to transfer over myself. So thumbs up to Samsung tech support. They are getting high marks from me in this situation.

2) The TV no longer powers on. If I plug the cable into the wall, it just hums and won't obey any commands (including furious fist shaking and doing the tv repair rain dance). Also, on the left side it sort of smells like burnt electronics, so I'm thinking this is a terminal case. Hopefully it is just a blown power supply, something the tech can fix when he gets here on Monday.

I'm debating on whether I should just call HH Gregg in the morning to see if I can return the set now that it is dead. I think I'll give them a call, and if I can exchange it, then do that and call of the service tech.

 
Jade Mason