A few weeks ago my Samsung 46″ LCD TV starting acting up. It’s just over two years old (Model Number LN-T4665F), but that’s long enough to be out of the warranty period. Every once in a while purple dots would cover the picture, but if you turned the TV off and then back on, the dots would go away.
Right around the same time the TV had another issue where it would power on a couple times before the picture would actually appear on the screen. The Samsung plays a start up sound when you first press power on your remote. Normally the picture appears shortly after the start up sound, but my TV would play the sound two or three times before the picture would appear.
A Google search turned up a number of people with the same symptoms. AVS Forum has a huge thread on this series of Samsung LCD’s, and includes a bunch of advice on how to fix the problem. Long story short, you need to replace some bad capacitors on the power supply board.
Step one is opening up the TV. There are a bunch of screws to remove on the back, don’t forget the big wall mount bolts. Here’s a picture with the back cover removed.
And here is a close up of the bad capacitors.
I replaced three of these (total cost was < $6 at Fry’s). The bad ones are the medium sized black capacitors with a bulge on top. I put everything back together and the TV is working great!
Wow! That is a pretty gutsy move!
Mike,
I trying finding the capacitors on Fry, but could not locate them by the TV model number. How did you know which capacitor worked for your TV? My model is LN-T4066F.
Thanks.
Amy
You’ll need to take your TV apart and see which capacitors are bad. You can look at the numbers on the bad part to find the ones you need.
Thanks. You’re so smart!!!
How do you know which ones are bad?
@Jeff – The tops of the bad ones bulge up, the good ones have flat tops. You should be able to see it in the last picture.
I have the TV and model 4665F with the same problem . It started after the TV was 2 years old. Customer Service told me Samsung will only fix this model if it was purchased after Oct. 2007. I bought mine in June. I still think Samsung should fix it but it looks as if it can be fixed by a local repair person. I have all your information.
Thanks
@Janet – Hopefully it won’t cost that much – the parts (for my repair) were only a few dollars. Labor shouldn’t be more than 1 hour if it’s the same problem.
Mike,
I have a 52″ that is doing the same thing. What capacitors did you buy? Do you have a p/n or link for the ones you bought at Fry’s.
Best,
Alex
@Alex – I don’t, but it’s not always the same ones that go bad. You’ll need to open up your TV and check it out.
Are the capacitors plug and pull, or do they need to be soldered?
Thanks
How easy was it to take off the back of your TV, too?
@Dave – The caps need to be soldered. The back was easy to take off, just a bunch of Phillips screws.