New Technology is worthless!!!!

[Nathanieltolbert]

Arrggh!!!! Could the last 4 days get any worse!?!? I understand the whole planned obsolesence, but could the be a little more covert about it? Okay let me start from last Thursday when the fit hit the shan.

Thursday morning my wife wakes me up and says, 'My computer is making a funny noise, can you take a look at it?' So I get up and before I even make it down the hall to the computer room, I smell that acrid burn smell when electronics fail. So I whip her computer off and pull the side of the case off to find the 6 month old Antec True Power 550W that I bought for her has died. 6 months old. Okay you no big deal, just fill out an RMA and wait for a return, right? Nope, they won't be able to send a replacement for 3-4 weeks said they on the phone. Just send in the defective power supply (pay for shipping yourself, thank you.) and we'll get one back to you someday. Grrr. Okay I have a spare power supply I can use, but the thing scares the living out of me as it's one of those off brand junky ones, PC power and something. So her computer works for the moment. Then I attempt to use my USB card reader. Nothing happens. Windows 7 and Xp both identify it as an unknown device. Hmm, that's strange it was working last night when I turned my computer off. So I open the case and take a look. It's plugged in right, so I unplug it and move it to another jack. Still nothing. Grr, well that was only 15 bucks, not much trouble there. I go down and buy a replacement. Come back install it. Press the power button on my case..... and nothing happens. Well that's weird. So I pull out my little ATX power supply testing unit and plug it in. Nothing. No voltage, no wattage, just plain nothing. !!!!!! I just got back from the Damn computer store and it's a 30 minute drive there!!!! So back into the car and off to the store I go.... Again. But a replacement power supply.... 120 dollars down the drain. (old power supply was 4 years old and no longer covered by the warranty, it was an OCZ) By the time I get home, my wife is back from work. I put in the new power supply and get my computer back up and running. not even 30 minutes later my wife comes in and says, 'Honey the TV won't stay on.' What?!? So I go out to the living room and take a look. Sure enough, our DLP is not working. The picture comes on for 10 minutes then goes out and the whole TV resets itself. I start looking around online to diagnose the problem. Turns out my TV model was sold with a defective DMD board (No clue what this is.) and it will have to be replaced by a tech. Okay no problem, oh but wait! When they replace the DMD they have to replace the Colorwheel because when the DMD goes out it damages the Electronics in the Colorwheel as well. What the..?!? So I call Samsung and tell their tech support what's going on. They confirm the same crap I read online. Here's the number the local repair shop. Oh, and by the way your extended warranty expired on Monday, the 3rd. !!!!!!!! I call the repair shop (the only one within 100 miles by the way.) And get a quote. Oh that job has a minimum of 7 hours of labor associated with it. Okay, how much for the parts? 900 bucks for the parts. :wooha: And the hourly labor cost? 135 an hour.. For grand total of 1845 before tax!!!! We paid 1200 for the TV when it was brand new and 150 on the extended warranty. So off we go to use the damn Nebraska Furniture mart Card to buy a new TV while they have no interest for 33 months on purchases over 500. We find a TV and buy it, they say we'll deliver it on Saturday. Okay. Call Saturday, sorry we are too booked up how about Sunday? Fine. Sunday - Sorry we overbooked Sunday how about tomorrow? F**king deliver our TV already!!!!! Oh and today we got 6 inches of snow, and it's still coming down. Guess what the Jackasses said, We need to have a clear path into your drive and to your door otherwise we cannot deliver the TV. So guess what I've been doing all morning? Yeah. And while I was out there laboring myself, I was listening to the iPod my wife got me for my birthday the year before last. Suddenly the music stops. That's strange, I just charged it last night. So I try to turn it on. The screen lights up, but nothing happens. It's been sitting here for the last 2 hours in that state with nothing. So yeah, somehow I managed to destroy my birthday present from my wife. How am I going to explain that to my wife? I f***** hate new technology. I have 20 year old computers that still work while computers 2 years old fail and stop working. I would rather pay more for something to last longer, but that isn't an option nowadays, you pay for the stupid name and it breaks down just as fast as the 5 dollar version. Okay I feel better now.

 

[r0jaws]

Now that, is one epic tale of bad luck...

Hope you catch a break soon chap.

 

[scrappysphinx]

bad week buddy.
If the TV was sold with a defective part shouldn't that give you some sort of right to have it repaired for free no matter if your warranty is out?

 

[Merlin]

Nathan mate,

Unfortunately, electronic components aren't built in shipyards like they used to be in the 80's and early '90s (did anyone say mil-spec? :shhh

I hate to say it, but stuff is built down to a price these days and margins are paper-thin at the manufacturing end, so quality of the parts suffers.

Also, decent crowbar protection and other safety devices tend to get designed out when costs are tight, hence things tend to die horribly rather than just blow a simple fuse.

They call this progress.......:roll:

 

[johnim]

really sorry mate to hear this, 1 of my corsair hx520 psus died xmaseve its only 2 year into the 5 year warrenty but ive goto send back to netherlans from uk dont know what thats gona cost yet.

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Sadly, only if there was recall on the part would they have to replace it no matter what. Kansas has no consumer protection laws to help in this matter either. I don't know what to do with the old one as Nebraska Furniture Mart doesn't dispose of older TV's. So I will still have a non-functioning 50 inch DLP TV from Samsung HL-T5076S (for slim) to be exact that I have no idea what to do with after the new TV arrives.

 

[Merlin]

Are there any of the Samsung TVs with broken screens on a certain auction site *cough*? I know a lot of TVs like this get damaged via Nintendo Wii controllers going flying at them, so it has to be worth a look at least.

 

[scrappysphinx]

i'd put it on ebay as faulty and see if someone wants it, you might make a little back.

*Edit*

looks like merlin had a similar idea

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

I would try that, however the thing is damn heavy, and I don't have the box any more. I would not be willing to have this thing boxed by UPS and readied to ship it would be close to 300 just to do so. I need to find some where locally that I can take it and have them do away with it, either by repairing it and reselling it or what not.

 

[Kin Hell]

Ouch!!

Kin

 

[Zetr0]

@Nathan

in two words } house insurance


In more words - ask or beg Ed for help with the TV - once its working stick it on fleabay =)

 

[SkydivinGirl]

Ugh! Sorry about all the troubles, Nathan. It really sucks.

Heather

 

[salaxi54]

Nathan, i feel real sorry for your bad luck, we had a Samsung a few months ago, that went berserk on the second day of purchase. Vertical bars on the screen, no response from the remote, and a few other extraordinary symptoms. Luckilly the shop accepted it right away and we got ourselves an LG instead.
As they say, "they don't make them like they used to" (could it all have to do with that Rohs thing? hmmm)
P.S. Are you sure you're still in Kansas? http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/not_in_Kansas_anymore

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Yes I am still in Kansas, thank you for bringing up that phrase that everyone thinks is so damn funny when they meet someone from Kansas. I have heard that everywhere we go. I've started saying I'm from Canada eh? I have found a local repair shop that is willing to take it and dispose of it (he isn't going to charge me, but he said if he can fix it and sell it on, he will do so for me.) I don't want anything for it, I just want it gone from the house. So that's sorted. My wife went ballistic when I told her about the iPod though... I don't even know what the length of warranty is on this thing, so I guess I better call them and find out.

 

[tokyoracer]

Damn that is bad, mind you I generally have a steady stream of bad luck over a constant period, never as bad as yours though. Sorry to hear it chap.

 

[gehtjanx]

Hi,

Is that story real true? That sounds near unbelievable, also we had also bad luck with TV and similar. It runned OK, but was switching on/off with LED blinks. We had extended warrenty, they "repaired all and changed all parts" and "24 hours test, NO PROBLEM". Took home - same fault... But it was an olt Nordmende, some years ago, no flat screen either.

So anyway that's really bad luck. Sure your power is OK? How can you make all the things damaged hehe. New record, for sure Just joking.

Hope you get some luck. Maybe find a new TV on your way home or something

#gehtjanx

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

Yeah it's all true. The iPod is still covered apparently. And it's still snowing. Our new TV arrived today thankfully, although they were supposed to be here between 2-4pm and they showed up at 4:45. I can't blame them for being late, the roads in town are pretty bad, and they hadn't plowed our street yet. The new TV seems nice but there is a heavy delay between the audio and the picture, had to set the AV-sync delay up 100ms which is pretty high I think. Still a little disgruntled about the power supplies though. I found out why the price was so high for the repair. Both parts needed to repair the TV are out of stock from the manufacturer with no ETA, meaning that the repair shop has them on hand. Since they are difficult to procure and all of this model of TV failing, the law of supply and demand kicks in. So the only certified repair shop can charge whatever they want for the parts as no one else has them. Capitalism as its best. When someone is down you screw them as hard as you can and take as much from them as possible. Anyway things are slowly starting to look up. I see Amigakit has some ACA630's in stock and I now have to decide if I'm going to buy one, and if I do, what I do with my Viper, as I will no longer have a use for it. Then I need to move on to a CF to IDE adapter, and Indivision ECS, and I will be set with a neat little machine.

-Edit- The power is as good as it can be for being on the oldest electrical network in the state. That being said before we purchased the house, the previous home owner had something called a power conditioner installed which is supposed to assist with that. Now being a bit on the cautious side, I have a UPS for the TV and cable box in the living room, it's only 350VA but it should be enough for the TV which draws 210 watts and the cable box which draws 30 watts.

-Edit 2= Strike that. The new TV uses 240 Watts. I'm not certain if that UPS will have enough power.

 

[gehtjanx]

Hello,

Oh, well, thats sad to hear all is true . Hope your ACA if you buy one will run the next 50 years without any problem

gehtjanx

 

[Nathanieltolbert]

in two words } house insurance

I called our insurance company today to check on that house insurance thing. None of the plans offered here cover if a TV just dies. We cannot even blame loss of power as damaging it, because it's a known defective part. They know it's defective, but since no recall... they don't have to cover it. Just another way our wonderful corporations take care of us, eh?

Edit - Just to note, we do have insurance on our home, what I meant with my comment is that none of the plans will replace a TV unless there is identifiable causes for the failure. I could say that we had a power surge, but they know about the power conditioner and it is supposed to take care of that, and it was checked and serviced less than 3 months ago. So they would definitely deny a claim on it.

Edit 2 - I should mention I figured out the delay. it turns out that is caused by the 120Hz mode. I found out also that the TV only runs in 60Hz mode when you change the video settings to game. Otherwise it always runs in 120hz mode, which causes delay between signal and sound. I fixed that. Aside from that, it was nice also in Game mode to be able to dim the bloody back lighting. The TV was so bright it hurt to watch it in the dark, which we like to do when watching movies.

 

[gehtjanx]

stupid companies always make cheap components and no plan of what they do, but the customer who bought that, is the one with the problem. That thing shoud change for the customers', but I think it never will happen.

Hope it's not a big problem with your new TV.

gehtjanx