We have a Samsung HLN507W DLP TV purchased in 3/2004 along with a 3 year extended service plan from a third party company. We have been very happy with the TV until recently when out of the blue the tv picture would freeze and partially disappear from the screen. Audio would continue to play but only the bottom third of the screen would show a frozen image. Changing the channel would change the audio to the new station but the picture with the frozen partial image remained. Shutting off the tv for about a minute and turning it back on would rectify the problem until the next occurrence.
We have had the cable people out checking the connection, wiring, etc but everything seems to be in order on that end.
The service people have replaced the light engine (twice) as well as something called a digital pcb in an attempt to fix the problem without success. The picture, when it displays, is everything we could ask for. Our waranty is up in another month so we are anxious to get things fixed ASAP. Any suggestions as to what could be causing this would be appreciated.
The only way to know 100% is to hook up a known good tv to the soure and see if that happens. If you have your tv on and disconnect the cable source the last picture will stay on the tv. My friend had this problem, it was the cable. They tried to blame the tv. It was a two part problem, low signal strength and the Motorola cable box. The cable company has since gone to a pace box and has less problems. Bob
Bob-Thanks for the reply. Am having the cable guy come out for the third time. Will show him your note. I'm assuming that in order to run a true test using a good tv as suggested, that tv should be a HDTV as well, correct?
Since the TV was under warranty, the TV repair people also thought it had to be the light engine and replaced the entire unit not once, but twice but the problem persisted. The digital board was also replaced with no luck. After three calls and visits from the cable guy, we finally convinced them to replace the cable box and the problem was corrected immediately.
Thanks Bob for pointing us in the right direction.