Samsung LCD Bulging Capacitor Problem-Many Models

[GrumpyMan]

I thought I would let everyone know. I finally got time and a baby sitter so I could perform the surgery on my Samsung. Well it took me more time to take everything apart than to actually take off the bad and bulging old caps and replace with better new ones. In my case there were only 2 bad 10v caps, 832 and 833. Replaced them even without having a lot of soldering experience and Woo Hoo!!!!! Everything works like a charm again.
The TV was taking up to 15 minutes to turn on yesterday after hitting the power button. And when it did turn on there was the purple snow I call it, all over the screen. But replacing the bad caps fixed it right up. I'm very happy again because I do love the picture on this set. Hit the button and 2 seconds later it's on. It only cost me $9.50 for the 2 caps. They were 2200uf 35v 105C caps. I found an electronics supply place here in town that has millions of all kinds of caps, pretty cool. When I went up to the counter with them, this brainy chick that works there said, "You must be going to fix your TV with those!". I asked her how did she know and she told me that there were a lot of people coming in to buy the caps. lol.....I'm in love again. She was cute too. Don't be afraid to do it, save yourself a few hundred bucks if you can solder a little bit.

 

[PM650]

In my case there were only 2 bad 10v caps, 832 and 833.

Did you see any others that were the same brand/series near the visibly bad ones? Methinks you might be performing another surgery in the future :hmm:

 

[GrumpyMan]

No problem I've bought all the capacitors I may or may not need. I always think ahead since they are so cheap. Those two cost me $9.50, the others were much cheaper. The other capacitors were in good shape and rated for 25v. The power supply is rated for 20v capacitors I do believe. I can't imagine why Samsung would put such cheap crappy ones on those two on the power board in the first place unless it was a production error. But in so many models through 2009? I'm ready if it happens again though.....lol.

 

[Modelworks]

No problem I've bought all the capacitors I may or may not need. I always think ahead since they are so cheap. Those two cost me $9.50,

$9.50 where did you buy them ? That is about a 400% markup.
http://www.newark.com/illinois-capacitor/228kxm050m/aluminum-electrolytic-capacitor/dp/69K8230

 

[GrumpyMan]

I bought mine at a mom and pop shop in town and since a lot of people were trying to get them they marked them up accordingly of course, I went to 4 or 5 Radio Shacks but they had the wrong kind, they (mom and pop) had cheaper ones for $1.50 but they were only rated for 16v 85C. Looks like a great deal on that site, I'll bookmark and save for future use. Still at $9.50 I got them immediately since I only had one afternoon to do it in and they did save me $400.00 for someone else to do the fix. Thanks for the info though.

 

[ICXRa]

Congrats on your successful repair!

I am curious as to your description of "purple snow". My 4017F doesn't take long to come on like you are describing but does take about 15 seconds. As I posted the other day after it had been on for about 45 minutes I noticed what looked like random white pixels mostly in loose vertical arrangement, no solid rows. After doing some searching it seemed this problem was somewhat typical on Samsung DLP sets but I didn't see overwhelming evidence of widespread issues with their LCD line. I am curious if I am seeing white snow that is evidence of problems with these capacitors.

Thanks!

 

[GrumpyMan]

The purple snow was just that, it was all over the screen though. If I turned off the TV and turned it back on the snow would disappear however and would not come back until the TV cooled down again and was started from a cold start. The snow would be stationary and not move, it's not like there was any movement of it, but it did cover the whole screen.

 

[SlickSnake]

I been having several new problems with my Sammy TV lately. The tuner goes bonkers from time to time, and creates 3 displays. The tuned channel will be in the upper left quarter, the upper right quarter is white, and the lower half of the screen is blue. Changing the channel will fix this, and it's not happening a lot, but often enough now to make me worry the tuner is possibly going out.

The other problem is getting the TV to respond properly to HDMI signal inputs. Sometimes it acts like it can't find the HDMI input. And when an input is active, rather than stop on the input I select, it hops around back to the TV tuner instead, ignoring the HDMI source I am trying to select.

Obviously this might not be related to bulging caps, and might require a replacement of the entire tuner board. But if it fails completely, I'll be looking hard at the caps and testing them before I order a new board.

 

[GrumpyMan]

By all means check the HDMI cable out, try another one if you have one. And it should have more than one input for them, try changing it to another one just to rule out a bad cable or jack. There are other caps that don't pertain to the power supply so you should check those out. I have heard of the large ones going out too. Never buying another Sammy again, must be related to Toyota.

 

[Modelworks]

If you have a tv that is doing things intermittently you probably have a cold solder joint on the board. Solder like any metal expands and contracts with heat. Over time it can crack and form a connection that works sometimes and not others. One very easy way to check it is to take something plastic and start tapping around things like the tuner connections or other ports. Usually the screen will change or something will indicate that is the problem.

Then open up the set, use a magnifier to locate the bad joints and use a soldering iron and reheat the connections.

One side effect of cold joints is it can kill the entire set over time. Inside the tv there are wires for the data that all the devices from the tuner to the color information travel on. They all share these wires like a party line and if the data being transferred becomes corrupted it can corrupt the tv eeprom killing the set completely.

 

[CallMeJoe]

...Then open up the set, use a magnifier to locate the bad joints and use a soldering iron and reheat the connections...

You need to add flux when you reflow the solder joints, or you will just be creating brand new bad solder joints. I like to use Liquid Flux from a pen rather than adding new solder.

 

[PM650]

You need to add flux when you reflow the solder joints, or you will just be creating brand new bad solder joints. I like to use Liquid Flux from a pen rather than adding new solder.

A man after my own heart. () The flux pen has to be the single most useful thing I have, especially great for cleaning up smd joints with the hot-air or for making quicker work of solder-braid jobs. ^_^

 

[tortoise40]

My Samsung 46" LCD (LN46A650) crapped out with the clicking noise 18 months after purchase. I replaced the incorrect capacitors that shipped with the unit with 12 V, despite never having used a soldering iron in my life. Unfortunately it died again this morning. No clicking, just dead. Guess I'll be cracking it open again to see if I can fix what Samsung won't.

P.S.

I used this video to do the capacitor fix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm51C_RDIZE

Good luck.

 

[GrumpyMan]

You are going to want to get 2200uf 35v 105C caps.

 

[ICXRa]

Started getting the purple snow effect this past week.

Thanks to the poster who linked the class action lawsuit. Still a good steady stream of complaints coming in over at consumer affairs.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/home_electronics/samsung_tv.html

 

[GrumpyMan]

Started getting the purple snow effect this past week.

Thanks to the poster who linked the class action lawsuit. Still a good steady stream of complaints coming in over at consumer affairs.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/home_electronics/samsung_tv.html

Yeah sorry to hear that you are starting to get the "Barney" effect as I call it (Purple snow). The good news is that after fixing my tv it is still working great!
I have sent in evidence (pictures of the fix and bad original caps) and all my information at the request of the lawyer firm that is going to be filing the class action suit. Who knows maybe someday I will be receiving a $10.00 check from Samsung.
It's a shame because they are coming out with the new 3D lcds now but I will never get one from them due to this experience. I just don't trust them anymore. :\

 

[Zorba]

So my brother's company had bought 12 samsung LCD monitors that all died in about a year. So after reading this thread I pumped one open, what do you know three 10V caps, 2 of which were bulging. I bought the new caps today, so lets hope it works

 

[SlickSnake]

I'm bumping this thread.

My tuner is acting like refried electronic garbage ATM, and has all kinds of odd problems effecting it on my 46" LCD 650 series.

So far, all bizarro tuner problems are: no audio or it creates 3 displays with the tuned channel in the upper left quarter, the upper right quarter is white, and the lower half of the screen is blue or various channels magically appearing on the wrong channels. All problems seem to randomly appear after the TV heats up for a while, and can be fixed by changing the channel or turning off the set and turning it back on. The biggest pain was channels appearing in the wrong place. I had to delete all the channels and reprogram the channels and again delete the unwanted channels a second time to fix it.

These problems are all while using the HDTV tuner for over the air broadcasts. I have seen no problems with any other video source modes.

They are heat related problems, for sure, and the unit has plenty of ventilation, with nothing blocking it anywhere. If it's some other defective circuit problem, unrelated to the bulging caps, I think I'm going to have to order another tuner or main circuit board and replace it pretty darn soon. Which is utter BS on an LCD HDTV less than 2 years old.

This is what happens when companies outsource their tech and electronics to hundreds of other parts suppliers to the lowest bidders on parts.

This thread should enlighten consumers a bit about this very large electronic problem Asian manufacturers are having with sub standard electronic parts and also inferior designs on electronics and poor quality control. When they run out of the proper parts the design specs call for, they just substitute other substandard electronic parts not properly matched to the circuit boards just to keep their assembly lines and workers working, rather than stop assembly on some items and wait for the proper parts to arrive.

Then the result is high failure rates of various electronic components and conveniently occuring JUST OUTSIDE THE WARRANTY PERIODS.

 

[SlickSnake]

So my brother's company had bought 12 samsung LCD monitors that all died in about a year. So after reading this thread I pumped one open, what do you know three 10V caps, 2 of which were bulging. I bought the new caps today, so lets hope it works

So did you get any working for the cost of replacing the caps?

 

[dwell]

I have a Samsung LN-T4655F that this just starting happening to right on the three-year mark. I get slow startup and purple snow.

Has anyone been successful in complaining to Samsung and getting a response? I dealt with them with another set and they were real bastards about the whole thing. This just screams class action suit though. So many people seem to have the problem.

I'd rather not hack the set myself as I am not the best at soldering at the same time I can't really see paying $500 to fix a $2000 set. I'd rather throw it out and get a $1000 Panasonic plasma.

 

[KGB]

A note to everyone reading this thread:

This issue is not isolated to just Samsung products. Do some searching and you will find many brands are troublesome (Philips comes to mind).

Many of these issues are directly traceable to marginally spec'ed electrolytic caps which fail RIGHT AFTER your warranty expires. Your $1500-$3000 TV's can usually be repaired for less than $15 in parts. ALL electrolytic caps on the power supply and driver boards should be replaced with quality parts at the NEXT HIGHEST voltage rating. If you only replace the 'bulging' parts, you will eventually be opening the unit back up to do the others.

 

[dwell]

Update on my situation. I called back support and really made a point to mention the key phrases:

"Takes a long time to turn on"
"Clicks when turning on"

I didn't mention the purple snow this time because it's not on their script and it confuses them. They offered a one-time out-of-warranty repair and mentioned the capacitor problem directly. If it didn't turn out to be caps I would have to pay out of pocket. The guy came last week, swapped the caps, and I am done.

Kudos to Sammy for doing the right thing.

 

[JackBurton]

Well, I just got through fixing my parent’s Samsung LN-T5271F. It had the same problem everyone was describing, long power on time with several clicks before it would finally turn on. After the fix though, one click and it now comes right up.

I’d like to share a couple of tips though. First, make sure you use a 30W soldering iron. A 15W iron ain’t going to cut it. Secondly, make sure the capacitors you buy are 16mm or smaller in diameter. Anything bigger isn’t going to fit. And even at 16mm it’s VERY tight. Much tighter than I’d like it to be. Where the heck Samsung got these 25v caps at the size they are using, I have no idea (There are some 25v caps on the board).

Overall, it would have been a VERY easy fix for someone with good soldering experience. Unfortunately my soldering skills SUCK. But apparently they are good enough to get the job done. My biggest problem was desoldering the original caps. But after I finally removed the original caps, it was pretty easy.

I’m glad I did the repair myself. If I asked for a replacement board from Samsung, or let them replace the board, I’m pretty sure I’d get the same type of board with under speced caps. So it would only be a matter of time before the TV failed again. I’m now confident that if the TV develops a problem in the future, it sure isn’t going to be related to the capacitors on the power supply.

Anyway, the TV is up and running and it is better than new.

 

[thegimp03]

I have a Samsung 4071F and only once had a problem with a solid, vertical purple bar running horizontally across about half of my screen. I turned the tv off and then back on again and the bar disappeared. I haven't had any of the snow other people have described.

<knock on wood>

My only complaint with this tv is that infamous triple ball effect but it's not a huge deal to me. The tv has maybe been used about 10-15 hours a week max through about half the year every year until football season because it was my bedroom tv in my old apartment. Now that it's being used more out in a family room of my new place I hope that it doesn't start having problems...figure if it does, it will give me a good reason with the wife to get one of the new 55" uncx0000 series tv's.

 

[Aikouka]

I've been wary of Samsung devices since my 201BW LCD monitor started showing symptoms of the DVI power problems. When I looked it up, apparently, I wasn't alone. Given that and my mom's Samsung's plasma's green bleed problem... I'm really not too interested in Samsung products, or more wary that they might have problems :\.