I bought a Samsung 55" Smart TV second-hand in February. The model is UN55HU8550FXZA. It was 6 months old and still under warranty. I use an HD broadcast antenna and can receive 14 local channels. Three of these channels are the local PBS station. The numbers are 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3.
I pretty much only watch the three PBS stations exclusively. On rare occasions I watch the news on one of the other channels, but only for about an hour per week. I am a PBS addict.
In April, when I had owned it for just over 2 months, I turned the TV on one evening to watch a PBS program and the TV told me it could not find any signal for channel 6.1. Same error on 6.2 and 6.3. However, all the other broadcast channels were fine.
I checked the 21" Panasonic TV in my bedroom. It was getting 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 just fine.
I checked the DVR in the living room, which had an independent coax connection, and it was receiving 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 fine. I changed the coax connection on the Samsung TV to be a "pass-through" from the DVR, and the three PBS channels were still missing on the TV.
I swopped out the short coax cable I was using for the pass-through to a different one just in case the cable might be bad, but it did not fix the problem.
I then tried to re-scan all the channels. The TV could find only 11 channels - the 3 PBS stations were still unavailable. I rescanned a second time and got the same results.
I then unplugged the TV, waited 1 minute, and plugged it back in, and VOILA! the three PBS stations were back immediately.
I called Samsung, and after a short debate they agreed to replace the motherboard. They did so, and the TV worked perfectly - for almost exactly two months. Then it happened again last week. Samsung agreed to replace the motherboard again.
I have been administering and troubleshooting computer networks and hardware and software for 25 years, so I know how to think these things through carefully, but this is mystifying me, as well as the local TV repairman who has been repairing TVs for 35 years and who keeps replacing the motherboard.
It seems to me that the problem may be due to the fact that I constantly leave the TV set to Channel 6. Even if I briefly watch another channel, the TV is always set back to Channel 6 before being turned off. Even when I watch movies on Netflix, the TV is set to Channel 6.
I have seen reports online that other users of Samsung Smart TVs have had a similar problem, but on a different channel number. So the problem is not that the TV's tuner doesn't like Channel #6.
The problem must be that I leave it on the same channel all the time. Does this somehow burn out that part of the tuner? Is this possible? I find nothing about this in any forum.
Or perhaps when the tuner decides to misbehave, it just picks the last channel it was tuned to. That's another theoretical possibility.
The only way to test my theory would be to leave the TV tuned to another channel for 2 months, but this would be hugely inconvenient and I would probably forget to do it.
The first owner of the TV used a cable signal exclusively, which means he never actually used the TV's tuner, but always set the channel on the cable box. This may be why he never had any problem with lost channels. Or perhaps he did, but did not tell me.
I would very much appreciate feedback on my theory.
If the problem happens again 2 months from now, which is beginning to seem inevitable, I think even Samsung will have to admit there is a technical problem with the tuner in this model (and other models???). These motherboards are expensive. Thank goodness I bought an extended warranty.
I pretty much only watch the three PBS stations exclusively. On rare occasions I watch the news on one of the other channels, but only for about an hour per week. I am a PBS addict.
In April, when I had owned it for just over 2 months, I turned the TV on one evening to watch a PBS program and the TV told me it could not find any signal for channel 6.1. Same error on 6.2 and 6.3. However, all the other broadcast channels were fine.
I checked the 21" Panasonic TV in my bedroom. It was getting 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 just fine.
I checked the DVR in the living room, which had an independent coax connection, and it was receiving 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 fine. I changed the coax connection on the Samsung TV to be a "pass-through" from the DVR, and the three PBS channels were still missing on the TV.
I swopped out the short coax cable I was using for the pass-through to a different one just in case the cable might be bad, but it did not fix the problem.
I then tried to re-scan all the channels. The TV could find only 11 channels - the 3 PBS stations were still unavailable. I rescanned a second time and got the same results.
I then unplugged the TV, waited 1 minute, and plugged it back in, and VOILA! the three PBS stations were back immediately.
I called Samsung, and after a short debate they agreed to replace the motherboard. They did so, and the TV worked perfectly - for almost exactly two months. Then it happened again last week. Samsung agreed to replace the motherboard again.
I have been administering and troubleshooting computer networks and hardware and software for 25 years, so I know how to think these things through carefully, but this is mystifying me, as well as the local TV repairman who has been repairing TVs for 35 years and who keeps replacing the motherboard.
It seems to me that the problem may be due to the fact that I constantly leave the TV set to Channel 6. Even if I briefly watch another channel, the TV is always set back to Channel 6 before being turned off. Even when I watch movies on Netflix, the TV is set to Channel 6.
I have seen reports online that other users of Samsung Smart TVs have had a similar problem, but on a different channel number. So the problem is not that the TV's tuner doesn't like Channel #6.
The problem must be that I leave it on the same channel all the time. Does this somehow burn out that part of the tuner? Is this possible? I find nothing about this in any forum.
Or perhaps when the tuner decides to misbehave, it just picks the last channel it was tuned to. That's another theoretical possibility.
The only way to test my theory would be to leave the TV tuned to another channel for 2 months, but this would be hugely inconvenient and I would probably forget to do it.
The first owner of the TV used a cable signal exclusively, which means he never actually used the TV's tuner, but always set the channel on the cable box. This may be why he never had any problem with lost channels. Or perhaps he did, but did not tell me.
I would very much appreciate feedback on my theory.
If the problem happens again 2 months from now, which is beginning to seem inevitable, I think even Samsung will have to admit there is a technical problem with the tuner in this model (and other models???). These motherboards are expensive. Thank goodness I bought an extended warranty.
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