Official Sony HX820 Owner's Thread (46HX820, 55HX820) - Page 81

Originally Posted by skeetergmania

I just bought the KDL-46HX820 from TigerDirect as well and had it delivered a few days ago. I was a bit worried with their no refunds policy on this closeout model. But I felt that I was missing some picture quality with the LG LM6700 I had. In any case, the whole buying experience was actually very positive.

My TV came with the top double taped as well. I opened up the TV though and I'm 99% sure it's a brand new TV. The build date is Feb 2012. Everything looked new, but there were a couple scratches on the UNDER SIDE of the TV stand. Is that what you're talking about?

I did see some flashlighting from the bottom left and right corners and a bit of clouding to the bottom left, but these were pretty minor compared to the LG. After I turned down the backlight to 4 (and LED local dimming is set to standard), these seemed to disappear.

I haven't noticed any creases or dead pixels from my standard viewing distance (10 feet), but I haven't examined the TV under a microscope yet.

I'm not sure why you wouldn't use HDMI to hook up a Bluray player. But you should.

Overall very pleased with my purchase from TigerDirect, and the TV is amazing! Trust me, I nitpicked the LG to death and it was a very good TV as well. I'm very pleased with the HD picture quality, the looks, and features for the most part, although the LG supported more video formats over DLNA and was easier to navigate through the menus.

Originally Posted by maciekmiszkiel

Well....after reading this thread for a week or so I decided to pull the trigger and get 46hx820. Now I'm only hoping that it comes in a perfect condition and without any of those issues people here mentioned. Vendor I got it from won't accept returns so if anything is wrong with the set it's all on Sony. I hope it doesn't have those dreaded crease issues and blooming or dead pixels or flashligh

Wish me luck guys.

Originally Posted by brahby

I wish you a ton of luck especially if you have to deal with Sony. I had horizontal darkened bars on my set and they asked for pics. I sent them and they said it was within spec and basically to piss off. No further investigation into it. No sending a tech to see it. Nothing. Their word against my pics (that I told them in advance would be difficult to capture in a photo). Apparently customer satisfaction isn't in their priority anymore. In retrospect, I have owned 4 different Sony televisions and have had a problem with every single one. What always made me stay loyal was their customer service but if it's that gone then so am I as a customer.

Originally Posted by brahby

Yeah at that price I'd have to pull the trigger on it too. Is that for a 55" or 46".

Originally Posted by brahby

Did you check it out with different settings? If they offer the 30 day exchange it might be worth it to get. Mine was a floor model and was fine except the horizontal bars I found. I noticed you had to turn that reality engine or whatever it is on or the tv looks flat and dull. It's a great set and I think I found where you were getting it from and I think tiger direct had it for slightly more and they should offer you an exchange policy too.

Originally Posted by brahby


I wish you a ton of luck especially if you have to deal with Sony. I had horizontal darkened bars on my set and they asked for pics. I sent them and they said it was within spec and basically to piss off. No further investigation into it. No sending a tech to see it. Nothing. Their word against my pics (that I told them in advance would be difficult to capture in a photo). Apparently customer satisfaction isn't in their priority anymore. In retrospect, I have owned 4 different Sony televisions and have had a problem with every single one. What always made me stay loyal was their customer service but if it's that gone then so am I as a customer.

Originally Posted by DaCuse


Yeah I would definitely get a hold of Sony on Facebook. Search for my posts. When I was experiencing issues with my 55HX820 (which were actually minor oversights on my part), after dealing with Sony for a month they offered to buy back the TV for what I paid.

Originally Posted by Oh-san

Hi I'm new to this forum but I've been following this thread on and off for a little over a month now. I too have the problem with the HX820 randomly rebooting. That's why I was here in the first place.

Let me preface that I have the 46" version connected to the internet via Ethernet cable to a D-Link 825 wireless router. There is no new firmware for this router for over 2 years and I'm well aware of the D-Link 655 firmware fix. Since I don't have that router and I'm not using wireless, I was stumped.

While it may seem random, I've notice my set reboot every fourth day and within first 5 minute of powering on. Immediately after the reboot, I noticed if I go into the menu screen, the widgets and the internet contents disappear. They eventually will be reloaded but it's very annoying because widget settings are gone. It's a pain to set them back to my liking to have them reset again in four days.

I have contacted SONY about this issue and they made it sound like they never heard this issue at all. They eventually sent someone over to replace the "Mainboard" and I'm still have the same issue.

Ten days ago, on a whim I unplug my Ethernet cable from the TV and the problem seem to go away to this day. The only drawback obviously is I no longer have access to internet features unless I plug it back.

My question to everyone who is having this problem, do you guys happen to be using a D-Link 825 router? If so do you have this issue with Ethernet connection. I'm thinking of trying another router to to rule out this router as the source of the problem.

Originally Posted by Mr-Homer

I have mine wired to a Linksys/Cisco 4200 router.

Yes, I noticed that after a reboot- that the widgets and internet content disappear for quite some time too.

So To summarize, I think this issue happens:
1) About every 3-5 power ons
2) When hooked up wired to ethernet
3) Within the first 5 minutes of turning on tv.
4) -- anything else? --

All three of those criteria seem to fit my scenarios and seem to fit what others are posting.

Seems like it's probably not hw-- as one poster had the main board replased and it didn't help. WDT typically means watchdog timer and host would typically refer to some main control firmware. It seems like there is some code somewhere trying to access something via the network (wired only?) that is hanging up. Could be router related. I THINK I have my tv set up with a static IP, but as I type this, if I don't I will to see if that resolves it.

It's hard to believe Sony has never heard of this happening since it looks like there are at least a few on this fourm who it is affecting. Did you get elevated to a higher lever tech, or just get an entry support person who was reading from a script?

Originally Posted by Oh-san

I'm using static IP on my TV also. I really don't think my network is the source of the problem. My home network has been running find for the last three years.

I'm not sure if this true for everyone, when my TV reboot, there's no blinking error light. The green power led just turn off and back on. Maybe this explain why the hard reset procedure doesn't work, perhaps this is not a hardware error. I'm starting to think it's probably the server side on SONY's end. Perhaps it timeout while the TV is polling for response. Maybe that's why when I disconnect my Ethernet cable the TV stops calling home and consequently didn't trigger the reboot.

As for the HOST_WDT error, I had 9 on the original mainboard and 2 after the mainboard replacement. Do you suppose the "HOST" is referring to the Sony server? Because it would seem logical to refer the TV as the client, right?

When I contacted Sony, it did seem like I was talking to entry support personnel, I was constantly put on hold after I described my TV's symptom and settings. And yes they sounded like they were reading from a script or a flow chart.

Mr-Homer, have you tried disconnecting Ethernet? I just downloaded their newest firmware, so my set is plugged back in for now. I'm leaving it in for the next few day to see anything is fixed. I'll report back.

Originally Posted by Mr-Homer

I have not tried disconnecting ethernet. I use netflix and hulu too much and that would be a pain.

One think I noticed, it that I just got an hx750 (a replacement for an old xbr9 that dies under best buys black tie-- I think I got screwed but that a different story). Anyway, last night.....it rebooted! I didn't check the error codes yet, but I'm beginning to think it is related to something outside the tv and in internet land. But, it seems kind of severe to reset.

Originally Posted by chicagorunner10

Just because there's another similar model that exhibits the same behavior doesn't mean that it's coming from out 'in internet land'; it just means that these very similar models have the same underlying issue. What needs to be determined is if the root cause of the 'random restarts' is a hardware or software/firmware issue.

I found in the NX720 thread people taking about the same thing. So that's at least three models now. I started going through the HX929 thread but I didn't see it mentioned in there yet, but only went through about 10 pages of the thread.

And yes, if it was a problem with the TV interacting with some service on the internet, it would be overly severe to totally reset instead of just giving an error message.

I've seen the random reboots many times while just watching TV via HDMI, however I've always had the ethernet plugged in to my router, so I can't rule that out entirely. (However I have turned off all 'auto-update' features)

Originally Posted by chicagorunner10

Just because there's another similar model that exhibits the same behavior doesn't mean that it's coming from out 'in internet land'; it just means that these very similar models have the same underlying issue. What needs to be determined is if the root cause of the 'random restarts' is a hardware or software/firmware issue.

I found in the NX720 thread people taking about the same thing. So that's at least three models now. I started going through the HX929 thread but I didn't see it mentioned in there yet, but only went through about 10 pages of the thread.

And yes, if it was a problem with the TV interacting with some service on the internet, it would be overly severe to totally reset instead of just giving an error message.

I've seen the random reboots many times while just watching TV via HDMI, however I've always had the ethernet plugged in to my router, so I can't rule that out entirely. (However I have turned off all 'auto-update' features)

Originally Posted by Oh-san

My set also reboots while watching TV via HDMI. But I have a feeling it's not the HDMI. When my mainboard got swap out I noticed all the input jacks are part of the board. I like to think it's unlikely to receive another board with the same defect, unless SONY totally screw up on all these boards.

I wonder how many people here are having this issue? Are people just not noticing it because when it happen, it's rather quick, or people tend to walk away when they turn their TV on the first five minute?

Originally Posted by isrararrafi

I am one of the first ones here who pointed out the random restarts and it happened to both the 820s I have owned so far. It does seem to happen more right after u turn on the tv and try to operate with the remote too quickly before the tv finishes all its internal process. But there are other times it happened even after the tv being on for hours. But that still might be the background software hanging due to processes.

And each restart should increase ur host_wdt counts by 1. And Sony often resets ur count to 00 with certain updates. So if u see a lower number its because Sony has resettled it to 0 with a new update. I used to have 15 but then Sony some Months ao but Sony reset it and now I am. Back to 06.

Originally Posted by chicagorunner10

I agree; I didn't mean to suggest that the random restart issue is directly related to the HDMI connection; I was just including that piece of info, pointing out that it doesn't only happen when using the internet services, as had been suggested at one point.

And yes, the random restarts can be rare enough and happen quickly enough that it might take someone a while before they see one, and even longer before they notice it's a multiple occurrence and not just a one-time fluke.

Even for me, of ALL the times I've seen the random restarts, only once was when I was actually sitting right in front of the TV actively watching it; all the other times was when I had it on in the background, and because I often have it on mute, that's when a random restart is the most noticeable, because when it restarts it's no longer on mute.

That's why early-on when seeing the issue, I turned off all the 'eco' auto-off features, to see if that might be causing the restart. I've had it turned off for longer enough that I can confirm that isn't the cause.

Originally Posted by isrararrafi

I am one of the first ones here who pointed out the random restarts and it happened to both the 820s I have owned so far. It does seem to happen more right after u turn on the tv and try to operate with the remote too quickly before the tv finishes all its internal process. But there are other times it happened even after the tv being on for hours. But that still might be the background software hanging due to processes.

And each restart should increase ur host_wdt counts by 1. And Sony often resets ur count to 00 with certain updates. So if u see a lower number its because Sony has resettled it to 0 with a new update. I used to have 15 but then Sony some Months ao but Sony reset it and now I am. Back to 06.

Originally Posted by Mr-Homer

I wonder, of everyone who has chimed in who is seeing the random resets, are you using ARC (audio return channel) for sending the audio out to a receiver? I am. I wonder if that is a common denominator?