Samsung LED-LCD, pic freeze, works when tilted

[Peter F]

I've just gotten one of those newfangled Series 8 55" with LED backlighting.

Basically, due to careless transportation it's developed some problems. I believe it was subject to 2 things: pressure on the top of the frame, and shaking back and forth while mounted on the stand. Let's pass quietly over the back story of why.

The first problem is that the pic freezes, darkens, and lines develop on screen, bleeding from the picture colours. This tends to fix itself if I push the top of the frame (while it's attached to the stand) very lightly backwards. I can flick it working/nonworking by just pushing or letting go. It also only happens after some use, which I guess is related to heat - the picture is always good if used from cold.

The other problem is backlight visible from the top of the screen - horizontally even, extending down a couple of inches. It seems related to the previous problem - if it starts off cold, there's never any. After a while, I can get one and not the other. On the top, the back panel also sticks out marginally more from the hard frame in the middle than on the edges.

Some things can trigger it as well - when it's been on a short while, inserting a USB stick caused the pic freeze, and taking it out fixed the picture. Pushing the menu button does the same. Even more funnily, when the pic is frozen and full of lines and I push the 'off' button on the TV itself (not on the remote), the picture has cleared totally in the seconds as it goes off. I really suspect this is due to some problem with an "overlay display" technology, as putting in a USB stick should cause a menu to appear overlaid on the picture similar to pushing the menu button.

So questions are,

1. What might be the cost of getting this fixed at a TV repair shop? Does it need to go in to Samsung (at a hefty price)? I guess it should be salvageable as there's nothing wrong with the pixels or glass.

2. If I open it up and attempt to fix it by.. uh.. straightening any obviously bent pieces and taking out everything and sticking it back together , is that likely to make things any worse? Or any specific component which is clearly at fault?


Help greatly appreciated, cheap transport might have become very expensive.

[jts1957]

If you recently obtained set, set should still be under warranty.
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