said by howardfine:Such issues seem to be prevalent with hdtvs and Samsung in particular. My set is a year and a half old and, just two weeks ago, started showing a 1-inch or so wide vertical black stripe.
A popular video on some AV forums shows one guy using a baseball bat to whack the top/sides/front till it goes away.
From what I've read and noticed, it seems heat is causing movement in a cable connection in the back of the TV. Perhaps you have noticed the problem either shows up after the set is on for a while or, the opposite, it disappears after being on for a while. If you aren't nervous about opening up the back of your set, take off the back panel and you'll notice some ribbon cables around the point on the screen. Reseat these cables by just unplugging and replugging them back in and that should fix the problem.
Important note: that fix was my assumption that was tried by someone on an AV forum and it worked. I have not tried it myself yet because I'd rather wait till it bothers us enough to do it. Right now, my problem occurs only a few times a week for about 20 minutes and goes away. My one big fear is attempting a fix that makes the problem permanent.
A service call on this problem apparently costs $630.
generally, the issue occurs because of the "heat pressed" flex ribbon cables to the glass panel thats etched with carbon.
the cable/connections fail due to expansion from heat and cold and/or contamination and/or insufficient silicone adhesive and/or incorrect placement and alignment.
what i dont like about "avs forums", many people seem to encourage ridiculous fixes to obvious issues that require major technical knowledge and careful handling in a certain environment.
because someone links to a video showing a person with a baseball bat hitting the tv to make it work makes me wonder how many actually tried this ridiculous fix and actually had success doing it without completely damaging the display panel.
remember the old pagers that used to have a garbled display on the LCD ?
they used a similar "heat pressed" flex cable thats in use today on every LCD display panel.
some will fail and others will not, due to the very large quantity of display panels being manufactured by various companies and that samsung happens to be a major manufacturer and supplier of display panels for alot of third party companies, there will always be a certain lower end percentage of display panels that will fail.
obviously, the percentage of failure is significantly reduced when it happens to be a lower end barely known manufacturer of display panels because the quantity manufactured by them is much lower but the quality of these panels will suffer as a result which in turn will increase the failure rate.
repairing the "heat pressed" flex cables is possible with the proper equipment and area to work in, knowledge and very careful handling - most people dont have the tools, equipment, the knowledge and a large clean place to work on with plenty of light to disassemble an LCD panel into two or more parts in order to correct this type of issue.
the problem with "avs forums" that i have, if someone on there posted a fix consisting of urinating inside the tv to eliminate lines on the screen, the flock of gullible sheep shall follow the anonymous advice of the great.
as for a service call costing $630, is that to send someone there to evaluate the issue or to repair it ?
im assuming that is the cost of repair, the price of replacing the display panel and the cost of labor.
most repair shops will not attempt to try and repair the LCD display if the flex cables to the glass panel are failing, the repair is too risky, costly and could further worsen the issue, it makes more sense to replace the display panel instead.
after all, if the customer has a single black vertical line and the repair center attempts to repair it but make the issue worse with 5 black vertical lines appearing instead of 1, what do you think the customer will do and scream about now ?
the same goes for the many poor souls who actually listened to the advice of someone in car talk forum who said adding 1 quart of kerosene to your 100K mile engine will "clean the gunk out" - lol, and create a million leaks in the process too