Monday, August 1, 2011

Fixing Samsung Television


Recently, I was asked to look at a Samsung LCD television (model code LN26A450C1DXZA) that would not turn on. The red LED was lit so the power supply board was still supplying power to the television.  Even so the television would not come on.  The red LED would blink from time to time.

Update (Feb. 2012): Samsung Electronics of America has listed a capacitor problem settlement on their web site: http://www.samsung.com/us/capacitorsettlement/


If one does research on the Internet one can find that Samsung LCD televisions have had issues with capacitors. So I decided to investigate. On the power supply board, a SAMWHA 2200 uF 10 V electrolytic capacitor was found with brown material out of the top. I did not have a spare one but found a salvaged 2200 uF 35V one and wire it in.  The television began to work so I ordered extra capacitors because we had another Samsung television having trouble powering on. See this problem in an earlier post: CLICK HERE and it was repaired (documented in this posting CLICK HERE).


Here are the pictures of the repaired television.  It now turns on almost immediately.  The new capacitor costs ($0.89).  I ordered an extra one.  A possible class action lawsuit might be filed against Samsung about this issue. I read part of the filing and the lawyers contend this is being caused by a design flaw in the board allowing the capacitors to overheat.  If this really is the reason then this capacitor could fail again.  Oddly, they also bring up faulty capacitors which means it is not the board but the components used.  In this case, I believe the new part is from Panasonic.