this is a bizarre problem i hope somebody can help me with. ive got a 3 yr old 61 inch HD rear projection tv. currently im on the 18th cable box/dvr that time warner provides. after a week or so the boxes start to malfunction and get progressively worse until i have to replace it at which point the cycle starts all over again. i NEVER had this problem until i got this tv. time warner says the tv is causing some electrical feedback into the cable boxes destroying the buffers. the tv repair people say that is impossible and it must be the cable. ive had the cable replaced 3 times and the connections replaced several times. the electrical wiring is 5 years old as well as the electrical box. ive tried plugging into other outlets, using different surge protectors and that didnt help. time warner has used different brands of dvr's with the same result. ive had 2 dvr's hooked up at the same time and both malfunctioned. we have used older cable boxes with no cable cards and the same thing happened. i had 2 non HD replay tv dvr's that stopped working after being connected to this tv and 3 dvr extenders that also stopped working. ive heard the tv could have something called a floating ground. i had time warner check the cable for one and nothing was found. i bought a smaller tv and connected it up to a new dvr and the problem hasnt shown up and its been a week. could a floating ground in the tv be responsible for all this mess? what else could cause this problem? if the tv were to be repaired - what could be long lasting effects as a result of the reversed polarity that may not show up till later? is it possible for a technician to look and not find the floating ground? should a repair service know enough to find the problem or know enough to think it could be a floating ground? the repair people changed out the port in the back of the tv whre all the connections are made and that didnt fix it so they say it isnt the tv.
other more recent problems include the screen going black every night or day for a second or 2 up to 5 or 10 seconds - sometimes preceeded by an incredibally loud electrical popping and sometimes not and also the sound goes out for a few hours up to a full day at a time. since ive had the tv it contantly makes weird sounds when not being watched several times a day. the sounds remind me of noises a house makes when it settles. also the first 3 months there was always a smell of burning that eventually stopped but in the last month or so ive smelled a burning smell twice. ive got the extended warranty but they dont want to believe its the tv.
Your TV is indeed defective. What makes you think that a burning smell, a loud popping noise (hi voltage?) is 'normal'??
Any smell of Ozone?? ... That is the smell arcs emit and is like the 'fresh' smell after a nice thunder storm.
Now, I'm not a TV fixit guy. I was on these pages looking to help the neighbor w/a Samsung DLP problem and saw this.
If I had to guess I'd say either a ground loop to the cable box or a voltage spike from the TV to the cable box. It might have been going bad for quite a while. Is the set and cable box plugged into the same outlet or power strip?
You may want to get an electrician out to check your outlets. One of the cheapo (maybe 5 or 6$) outlet testers with 3 LEDs would diagnose outlet problems....Hot/neutral reverse? that sort of thing.
Get this fixed by a pro, even if you have to put the TV in the kids coaster wagon and drag it to the repair people.
Couldn't the 'repair' people find the source of the smell? That USUALLY means something burned / smoked and let the electrons out. nothing ever works right after that.
Post back with some results. I'd like to see how wacked I was, after you get it fixed.
Use your NOSE to find where the smell is coming from. Outlet? TV? Cable Box? Granny? This is important. I don't want to scare you....well, actually I DO, but you should unplug whatever is emitting the smell. Can you spell F I R E H A Z A R D ??