Samsung LCD Bulging Capacitor Problem-Many Models

[GrumpyMan]

So I have Samsung LN4061 that I bought in 2007. I noticed recently that that it's taking longer and longer to turn on after I hit the power button, whether it be the remote or TV power button. Sometimes there are anomolies on the screen, pink and green snowy effect. A quick turn off and turn on usually fixes it until the next time.
So I started doing some research on this problem through Google and found that this phenomenon happens all the time to Samsung LCD TVs made from 2004 to 2008. It appears that the caps they used, there are 5 of them it seems, are under powered for the power supply. And they start to bulge and burst just like they do on motherboards. I see that most places want around $400.00 to $500.00 to replace these caps. It looks like Samsung decided to use 10 w when the power supply requires 12 at a minimum. They last around 2 years before bulging and bursting. And the TV will not turn on eventually.
It looks like if you can solder, you can fix it yourself by buying new caps for around $5.00 and a soldering gun for around $20.00. Takes about an hour and it fixes the problem.
I'm curious, how is your Samsung TV and has this happened to you? Samsung refuses to have a recall of course or even acknowledge that there is a problem......:thumbsdown:

 

[ICXRa]

I have a LNT4071F that I bought back in Nov' 07. If you don't know this is the famous TBE 120Hz LCD and I thought long and hard about purchasing it but figured a firmware fix would correct it. Well long story short it didn't but I kept it anyway because it really isn't that big of a problem on my set.

Just Saturday I was reading over at AVS Forum getting some new ideas from the calibration thread and decided why not jump over to the owners thread. Sorry I did because what a read is pages of people describing the problem you are posting about here.

I thought this was isolated to just the 71F line so I am a bit surprised. My solder jobs are the best looking but they are sufficient. My LCD see's limited usage, about 10/15 hours a week and so far I haven't noticed anything.

I guess I need to keep tabs on the thread over there for part numbers for the caps needed.

 

[allthatisman]

I bought a 52" last Sunday at BestBuy with a free BluRay player included.. got it home and fired it up and was sooo suprised at how awful it looked. I juggled the settings all night, could not get the picture/color right... and motion blur was horrid. I returned it last night for a 50" Panasonic S1 plasma and couldn't have been more impressed. Almost as cool as the LCD and clearer by a thousand miles. Virtually ZERO motion blur, and the color was nearly spot on from the factory. I honestly can't see why magazines/people think that LCD even comes close to plasma, especially given the price per size difference.

 

[ICXRa]

I think my picture looks great on my LCD but agree that if I had to do it again I would be looking at plasma all the way.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Yeah I wish I could say that it was limited to one model, but it seems that they are all susceptible to the bulging cap issue. Which is why many owners want to make Samsung have a recall on them. And just when the warranty runs out. I'll think long and hard before I buy another Samsung, although I do love the picture output though and it's been a great TV, until now of course.
Note though that when you fix it, it's fixed for good when you use the proper caps which can be bought for $5.00 at Radio Shack by the way.
I'll find that forum that I was on last night and post it here just in case anyone needs to do the fix. It has the cap numbers, where to order and some real good pics to guide you by. Like I said $30.00 and an hour will do it if you know how to solder. I'm going to learn of course, no way I'm paying some shmuck $500.00 for that.

 

[GrumpyMan]

http://www.crovean.net/samsung-lcd-tv-power-up-problem

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=17638752

Bad capacitors CM806, 811, 812 & 817 plus 1 more bad one # 807. You will need 1000uF 35v capacitors from Radio Shack.

 

[ICXRa]

I've been doing some more reading about this from your links and also some I found searching. Seems from what I read some people indicate possible issues with other capacitors too but figured they would deal with those if the need arises. I am interested in how your repair goes.

I'm glad I picked up that new Hakko about now. Perhaps my soldering will show some improvements over my old radio shack iron.

 

[JackBurton]

Yep, be sure to let us know how everything turns out for you.

 

[djnsmith7]

I've had my 58" plasma for over a year now & haven't looked back once. Samsung makes excellent displays, but I know some of their LCD's have been problematic.

 

[Dari]

Pathetic how manufacturers skimp on something as essential as a capicator. It can really fuck up people who don't know how or don't want to open up their device.

 

[redforeman]

I had been coping with the elongated power up cycle (including thin parallel lines and dots all over the screen) for several weeks until finally the set would no longer power up. I contacted Samsung, not much help, they referred me to authorized dealers. I researched and determined the repair cost could be substantial and looked for additional info online. I found several forums all with similar information and concluded it was worth taking a look. I opened the set and found that all 4 of the 1000mf 10v 105 degree Celsius (high heat) capacitors were blown (bulging and/or leaking from the top). I bought replacement parts (difficult to find: try youdoitelectronics) inclduing a soldering iron, solder and solder wick for a very good price. My only expereince with solder prior to this was sweating some pipes many years ago. I agree that the repair is not for the faint of heart, but the result is a set that is running like new for a few dollars and a few hours of labor (I work slower than an electrician or TV repairman). Thank you for having this info available!

 

[GrumpyMan]

Glad to hear you repair went well. Most everyone that has done it has had excellant results, I'm about to open mine up in a couple of days for the "surgery". It's a shame because I was always a big "Samsung" proponent.

 

[SlickSnake]

Glad I saw this post!

My LN46A650A is taking a lot longer to turn on now. When I first got it about 1 1/2 years ago, it started up in less than 15 seconds maybe. Now it takes well over a minute to warm up and turn on. At least now when it finally stops working, I won't panic too much and can easily fix it myself. And I can't believe they were so incredibly cheap and thoughtless enough to use 10 year old 5 cent capacitors that were also under sized and possibly defective on the power supply boards which is causing these mass failures of all their TV and monitor models.

And after less than a year, the Touch of Color bezel started to completely separate from the frame and LCD panel, mostly along the bottom and the right side with the controls embedded in it, because they were too cheap or stupid to engineer screws into the bezel. It looked like they used double sided sticky tape to hold it together, and you could see where they unevenly cut various pieces of tape off and haphazardly applied it through the red translucent bezel. The fix while under warranty was a complete replacement of the bezel assembly and sub frame, which was held on by screws. And it looked like they used some kind of thick putty adhesive on the replacement bezel. And the new ToC bezel don't fit snugly together with the sub frame on the top, leaving an uneven space/gap because they used so much glue crap to hold it together this time. I also hope this isn't the glue putty that melts with heat over time some have complained about on AVS forums.

And I certainly didn't expect these types of poor design faults on a "highly rated" $1700 dollar LCD HDTV less than 2 years old.

And my year old $1700 46" Sharp Aquos LC46D62U was also completely replaced about a year ago with a brand new model from Sharp due to numerous problems with the LCD panel and electronics that started, like dead pixels and horizontal banding issues and distorted sound. The replacement model a new Aquos LC46D65U has no banding or dead pixels, so far, and picture wise is superior to the original model, but it looks a lot cheaper construction and design wise. And it is a whole lot lighter and thinner, too.

And since prices keep dropping on large screen HDTVs and the world wide economy is in the toilet, I believe consumers are going to get screwed even harder on new expensive electronic purchases with even worse quality control and designs in the near future. So we all better learn how to repair our expensive made in Asia electronic junk and appliances, or we will be filling up a lot more landfills with it and going broke buying new ones every year or 2.

 

[SlickSnake]

And I think you should change the thread title to Samsung LCD Design Problems or something, and a lot more people who own them will look at your topic and save them the stress and headache when their HDTVs and monitors finally fail.

 

[vi edit]

You'd think that if there were enough issues caused an obvious manufacturing/design flaw buyers could get a legitimate class action lawsuit rounded up.

 

[SlickSnake]

You'd think that if there were enough issues caused an obvious manufacturing/design flaw buyers could get a legitimate class action lawsuit rounded up.

I agree.

And I have been doing more searches on Startpage.com and reading about more complaints concerning these Samsung power supply capacitor issues, because I also own 2 22" Samsung SyncMaster monitors I had for over 3 years and cost $400 each and I use a LOT, and people are also now complaining about those failing in large numbers.

While searching I also stumbled upon this seemingly daming link direct from Samsung that was posted on their Cnet Forums 2 months ago. Plus, there are a LOT of similar complaints about these failing power supply issues there in other posts as well.

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-13973_102-0.html?threadID=357687&tag=forum-w;forums06

 

[ICXRa]

"not everybody who submits may get served in this initial exploration of the issue."


Wonder if Samsung will step up and actually make good on this? As others have already mentioned I can't believe they skimped on capacitors for the power supply.

 

[slag]

Mitsubishi did that with some of its DLP series TVs. Motherboard manufacturers did it quite often back in the day.

Everyone looks to save a few pennies here and there because it adds up.

 

[Modelworks]

No engineer would put 10V caps on a 12V supply the difference in price between 10V and 16V caps is zero, 16v is often cheaper because it is more commonly used. It sounds like an assembly plant issue where someone placed 10V parts on the assembly line when 16V were spec'd. It probably was just in a single production run. The problem with 10V caps on a 12V supply is the sets would probably pass the QA checks because it will take time for the voltages being so close to make the set fail.


Replace with 16V or 35V caps and you should be good.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

...........................

Dude... Would you mind fixing your sig. Pretty obvious spam esp when combined with your posts touting the site too

 

[rdp6]

I have an LNT-5271F, used a lot since early Nov 2007. I have the 2001 firmware as I am not all that bothered by the TBE. Using KJGarrisson's settings near the end of the avsforum calibration thread. They are really, really good.

No issues with startup, I really hope it was limited to a short production run.

 

[Eideard]

You'd think that if there were enough issues caused an obvious manufacturing/design flaw buyers could get a legitimate class action lawsuit rounded up.

Registered this morning to join the class action suit:

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/contact/contact-samsung-lcd.htm

 

[ICXRa]

Is this just for the capacitor issue or does it also extend to other problems like the ones with AMP and TBE?

 

[GrumpyMan]

Registered this morning to join the class action suit:

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/contact/contact-samsung-lcd.htm

Thanks for the info, I've signed up too. I've rounded up all the capacitors I'm going to need and perform the surgery this weekend. Will let you know how it turns out or turns on or whatever.........:\

 

[ICXRa]

While working out this morning and watching the news I noticed small white dots all over my screen in vertical columns.

Did some searching and was not happy about the findings. Man I thought I did my homework and felt buying Samsung was a good move....little did I know they are among the worst! To think I avoided Vizio in hopes I wouldn't have these problems. Not because they are bad but because so much information regarding warranties and repairs after warranty.