i have a panasonic TH-42PX75U that is a year and 3 months old. i was just watching it about 30 minutes ago, left the room, came back and the tv was off. i thought the dish box had fucked up so i checked, it was fine. i noticed the red light on the tv was not on, so i hit the power button on the satellite remote (it's programmed for the tv) to turn it on. nothing. i picked up the tv remote, hit the power button, nothing. i pushed the power button on the front of the tv, NOTHING!!!

i unplugged it and tried another outlet on the surge protector, nothing. i plugged it directly into the wall, nothing. i unplugged everything and waited 2 mintues, plugged it back in, everything but the tv works. the satellite box is on and working fine, it's recording a show and i can hear it through my surround sound. my ps3 and wii work fine.

i've looked in the owner's manual and there were no solutions for a "no power" problem. i'm still searching the panasonic website as well as other tech sites for help. the tv is in their Viera line, which comes with concierge service...i have no clue what that means but their hotline isn't open until 9am tomorrow.

can anybody think of anything for me to try?? PLZ HALP!!!!!

[Edited on November 30, 2008 at 7:52 PM. Reason : there's a u]

11/30/2008 7:49:40 PM

Power supply goes bad on those things.

Google

11/30/2008 7:51:54 PM

well, if it's a bad power supply then i guess a tech will have to figure that out/replace it.

other then that, is there anything else that i can check/do on my own tonight??

11/30/2008 7:56:08 PM

http://www.fixya.com/support/t305469-turn

11/30/2008 8:06:13 PM

that's way not the same type of tv. mine is a plasma, that one is a tube. would those instructions about the fuse be the same regardless?

11/30/2008 8:11:15 PM

ok...well...no luck so far. I put in a service request with panasonic.

so now I've moved my mac to the tv stand & i'm watching fringe on hulu, & posting from my phone.

I hope they fix this soon. I pulled the power cord out from the tv, plugged it back & it still didn't work. found another power cord & that didn't work either. that's all I could think to do.

11/30/2008 10:08:02 PM

its not that important to catch The Hills Fringe

[Edited on November 30, 2008 at 10:11 PM. Reason : ]

Did you try a separate outlet? The other appliances work, but its worth a shot.

[Edited on November 30, 2008 at 10:13 PM. Reason : lkj]

11/30/2008 10:10:52 PM

I dunno what the hills is. I dvr everything I watch so I've seen all the new episodes of the shows I like. I've only seen fringe once & everybody at work talks abt it so I found a recent one & went w it.

what i'm missing tonight is dexter.

yeah, I tried another outlet too.

11/30/2008 10:35:11 PM

I bet you wish you had a service plan now

11/30/2008 11:22:13 PM

not really. since it was purchased w an amex card, the warranty is automatically doubled at no extra cost.

11/30/2008 11:49:57 PM

So... then just have the TV fixed. Not a big deal...

You've pretty much tried everything, so you can safely say the TV is borked.

12/1/2008 12:03:04 AM

yeah i realize i'll have to have someone come out to fix it, that's not what i was after. i was looking for other ideas on how to test it in case i could somehow getting it working myself last night. that didn't happen.

so now i'm waiting for them to call me.

12/1/2008 8:20:02 AM

leave it unplugged for a bit, press power button(s) while unplugged (on and off)

plug back in, try to turn it on. if no dice then it's probably the power supply...

12/1/2008 12:04:47 PM

i'll try that when i get home.

so now that i have no tv for several days, are there any websites that stream live tv? i want to watch heroes. i know i can watch old eps of shows or movies on hulu, and sometimes you can watch the local news live on their website. i don't have a tv tuner in my computer so attaching an antenna is not an option i guess.

?

12/1/2008 1:49:59 PM

not that anybody had any suggestions, but ignore my last reply. i borrowed my boss's tv from her office last night and i can watch all the tv i want for now.

12/2/2008 8:52:19 AM

how has your warranty service through panasonic gone so far?

12/2/2008 6:16:23 PM

the panasonic warranty went fine. i've never had to make a claim and this is the first time i've ever had any issue with the tv. that expired in august though. now i'm working with american express (who doubles the original warranty). all i had to do was fax the receipt, warranty, and the statement showing the charge. they said if i couldn't find/didn't have those things, they'd track them down for me.

then i went back to panasonic to find an authorized repair person in the area. the only difficult part of this is getting a hold of the tv repair man. i've called 3 times the past 3 days and left messages. each time the answering machine says they'll call me back that afternoon. i'm about to go down there and see if i can find an actual person. they do all repairs in-home though.

12/3/2008 3:40:54 PM

Wow...
I thought I was addicted to TV, but you were basically having a panic attack.

I'm glad you got a TV fix from your boss.

12/4/2008 12:58:34 PM

well when a relatively new $1300 piece of electronic equipment breaks, i think anybody would be concerned. would you not?

anyway, i heard back from the repair people today. they said they need to replace some power related object (can't remember the name) because of power surge damage and that it would cost $1200 parts and labor. amex is still going to cover it, but i have some questions...

yes, the tv as well all my other electronic were plugged into a surge protector. my satellite box, the tv, and my surround sound receiver were all on at the time. my ps3 and wii were in standby. the ONLY thing damaged was the tv. is this possible?? my computer was on and plugged into a different outlet w/ a surge protector and was fine. as were all other electronics in the house. do tvs have any sort of fuse or something within the power cord or within the tv at all? i don't know enough about electricity and electronics, but it sounds a little fishy to me.

12/10/2008 10:25:10 AM

If your surge protector failed, then your TV would not have been the only device to fail.

The failure may look like the aftermath of a power surge, but it would have been caused by faulty component in the TV's power supply itself. Someone else could probably explain that better than me.

12/10/2008 10:29:55 AM

Highly unlikely that only your tv was damaged.

You need to get a 2nd and 3rd opinion because that technician sounds electrically incompetent. Fuck I have 29 hours or so of college electronics, and even though those credits are 6 - 10 years old that shit still doesnt sound right.

It sounds more like what Bobby eluded to, but definitely not from a power surge.



[Edited on December 10, 2008 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .]

12/10/2008 10:30:10 AM

Also don't buy a cheap surge protector from shady online places or other shady b&m places like a flea market, some will probably be fine but just do a google search for counterfeit surge protectors. They are a lot more common than you'd think. Probably not your issue though.

Also older surge protectors without a protect light, could have already failed. But I'd agree with these guys ^, ^^

[Edited on December 10, 2008 at 10:35 AM. Reason : ]

12/10/2008 10:32:53 AM

should i call back and tell them how stupid they are or just wait for the estimate and go on w/ AMEX?

the lady is going to fax me the part that needs replacing and how much it costs to fix it. she said the guy who "signs off" on these things is out for the week and she could get it to me on monday (they're a somewhat decent sized repair service, shouldn't they have more than one person to do this?)...

in case you're wondering, this is CEI (consolidated electronics international) in raleigh. the only other authorized (by panasonic) repair person is here in rocky mount and wouldn't answer my repeated phone calls for service. so even if i go looking for a 2nd and 3rd opinion, i have no clue where to get one.

^the surge protector came from walmart. power sentry i believe. it has a light on the switch. i bought another one, a phillips i think, the day after this happened just in case it was a surge so that my other stuff wouldn't die if it happened again.

[Edited on December 10, 2008 at 10:39 AM. Reason : gah]

12/10/2008 10:35:35 AM

If you dont have to foot the bill then I would just get it fixed and move on.

However I still think someone is full of shit, and that should be concerning given that you dont know the root cause of the problem, or if it will happen again. Thus you dont know if they are simply extorting money out of you or are genuinely fixing your TV.

12/10/2008 11:05:56 AM

so you bought whatever surge protector that was cheap at wal-mart?

not too high quality over there. if you have something that you want protected, i'd suggest getting what you paid for.

a line conditioner and surge unit. panamax makes a few good ones. if you have nice electronics, you should be using one. if you own cheap crap, by all means, keep using the wal-mart extension cords.

the service guy probably saw a burnt power board and figured it was a surge. faulty parts (can happen with any manufacturer) can and will cause it to happen. it happened to an old tv of mine. some of the capacitors for the power board went bad and the tv wouldn't start, looked just like surge damage.

12/10/2008 11:09:37 AM

it wasn't an extension cord jackass and no i didn't walk in and pick up whatever was cheapest. i said surge protector and that's what i meant. it was similar to this one http://www.powersentry.com/products/100154.php and although i realize now that there maybe be better ones out there, this is what was given to me. the one i have now is a philips and i can't recall the exact model but it was like 4720 joules, 330v, and <nano second response time.

[Edited on December 10, 2008 at 11:30 AM. Reason : ]

12/10/2008 11:29:04 AM

^^

power conditioners are a gross waste of money.

unless you're one of those 'audophiles' with tens of thousands of dollars in your 'audophile' equipment.

12/10/2008 12:15:13 PM

^^look dummy, all the cheap "surge" protectors out there are just glorified extension cords until you start spending big money (any 5th grader could have gleaned that from what i wrote previously). as long as you realize that, you should be fine with whatever you pick. don't rely on the $25k guarantee.

^
i have a decent home theatre setup and i'd rather keep everything voltage regulated and UPS'ed, like my computer equipment. do you consider active voltage regulation for servers to be a waste also?

[Edited on December 10, 2008 at 12:28 PM. Reason : f]

12/10/2008 12:17:40 PM

i realize you're just trolling, but you read wrong. it's $250,000, not $25,000. extension cords don't protect against surges, any 5th grader could have gleaned that from the product descriptions.

12/10/2008 12:31:13 PM

since you are unable to comprehend what i'm saying, i'll stop here.

[Edited on December 10, 2008 at 1:55 PM. Reason : spelling]

12/10/2008 1:54:14 PM

$1,200 to fix a $1,300 TV. Given that it's 15 months old a new, similar TV probably costs less than the $1,200. Too bad there isn't a service policy that would just get you the new TV and sell the old one for parts - seems like the service contract people would come out on top. A win - win.

12/11/2008 7:33:09 AM

yeah, exactly. i can't find my exact tv in town, but you could get it for about $800-900. i can get my same tv but 1080p for $1083 (incl tax and whatnot) from circuit city, which is where my tv came from. AMEX is just going to credit the account for the amount shown on the estimate, so we're going to tell them to keep their $85 pickup & estimate fee and go buy the $1083 tv.

12/11/2008 8:34:07 AM

You don't need a 400$ panamax to clamp a surge. You knew that though, mr surge expert.

12/11/2008 8:34:55 AM

surge protectors in general are a waste of money unless you have one that also protects your cable line. chances are you could have gotten a surge just as likely from the cable line that would have bypassed the power surge protector, although i would imagine the satellite box would have died as well, so i dunno

i have one of these - http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-12-Outlet-Protector-Ethernet-Protection/dp/B000HPX46U
330V clamping voltage, 4,000 joules and filters EMI/RFI noise up to 75 dB reduction for $23

protects power, phone, ethernet, and coaxial. that's pretty much all you need.

panamax is overpriced

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 1:41 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 1:33:00 PM

yeah, the coax comes out of the floor (from the dish), and into the satellite box, then hdmi comes from the box to tv. my dish box is fine.

12/11/2008 1:47:09 PM

Quote :

"$1,200 to fix a $1,300 TV. Given that it's 15 months old a new, similar TV probably costs less than the $1,200. Too bad there isn't a service policy that would just get you the new TV and sell the old one for parts - seems like the service contract people would come out on top. A win - win."

THis is essentially what happens.

Although you couldn't really part the old one out for the $1300 because that quote is probably using new parts, not used parts.

12/11/2008 2:02:25 PM

Quote :

"You don't need a 400$ panamax to clamp a surge. You knew that though, mr surge expert."

no expert here, but you need more than cheap power line surge protection too, mr surge hater.

12/11/2008 8:13:48 PM

i guarantee you my $23 dollar surge protector will cover everything that $400 panamax will do for consumer-based needs

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 10:12 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 10:12:19 PM

^^

those salesmen got you good.

12/11/2008 11:00:06 PM

all is good now. we were refunded the full original purchase price of the tv ($1300ish vs the $1240 repair estimate). i now have the th-42pz85u, which is 1080p instead of 1080i and has a bunch more settings and connections. i'm super happy with it.

after i get my old tv back, what should i do with it? all it needs is a new power supply, which runs about $150 on ebay, but i don't feel anywhere near qualified to open the tv to install it (to sell it later). i didn't find any of my same tv broken on ebay for sale. how much could i expect to get out of it? should i attempt to put the power supply in myself, then resell, or just sell as is?

12/23/2008 10:46:02 AM

^ fix it - I had mine replaced and it was rather simple looking - the repair guys did it on my dining room table.

12/23/2008 11:22:12 AM

we ordered the replacement power supply several weeks ago. my dad finally came by and picked up the tv to take to his house to fix it today. he found a blown fuse and replaced it, but it just blew again. he put the new power supply in and it worked like a champ!

yay! $150 part from ebay ftw

2/5/2009 8:50:22 PM

yea i had to deal with panasonic customer service. blows. 2 authorized repair shops in our area and both charge about 100 bucks just to diagnose. then they want more money to fix something that i can buy a new model of for cheaper. concierge service btw is something you have to buy from panasonic when you buy the tv, when i got my 50" viera it came with a piece of paper that offered me to sign up for that crap.

2/6/2009 12:04:29 AM