DLP's and "white dots" Stuck mirrors. Post all here

I like the idea for this thread. It may help pinpoint a specific time when the defective chips were being used. I agree that the DMD will (should) eventually fail in all DLPs, but it's strange that this problem is showing up NOT in the earlier produced DLP products. Seems only the 1080p models are suffering from this, so hopefully there was a bad batch and the life expectancy is actually much, much longer. At first I thought that the wobulation was causing it, since each mirror works twice as hard (or does it?). But my 720p wobulated model is still working fine, though it honestly doesn't get much use. I haven't seen any reports of 720p wobulated sets suffering from this problem.

The bad DMDs with stuck mirrors are of a certain generation of chipsets. While there may be some 2007 or later DMDs with stuck mirror this seems to be a 2006 and earlier model year issue.

People made huge dollar investments in those sets.. sometimes $4k or more. Manufacturer's don't want to pay any out of warranty dollars to repair these sets so that will generate a log of anger, and a lot of typing. Many of the folks who bought these sets have CRTs that ran 20 years without any service so their frustration is understandable.

I don't see how this situation is relevant to modern DLP sets, other than ill will that floats around as a result of these failures. I bought a 4 year extended warranty on my 82" DLP for about $250. I considered it part of my initial cost and it is amortized over the coarse of the TVs service life.

BTW, I own 2 2006 DLPs.. One I parked in the Mother-in Laws living room (56 Sammy_. It only gets part time use, works perfect. The second an HP 65" DLP is in my spare bedroom and gets occasional usage. I have a 2008 Samsung Lamp based 72" on permanent loan to my brother and it has never had any service and is used everyday. It is the center of a very nice home theater.

My main display is a 2009 82" Mits DLP with some 4000 hours on it, I put a $99 lamp in it.

I will likely buy a 92" and I will buy an extended warranty based on the initial cost of the device.. The only set of the bunch that was rough from a reliability perspective was the HP. HP only made DLPs for about a year. They were innovative but between poor thermal management and the not so robust DMDs of the day, it got a lot of work under warranty. It works fine now and has not had any service since early 2007. I have a lamp on the shelf which cost a small fortune back in the day. I would guess that most people who paid HP $5k for that set and had one hell of time would not ever consider DLP again. That experience is not representative of today's rear projectors but it takes forever to get a bad taste out of some people's mouth.

I have seen the big Sharps.. they are only average and they are only 70 inches. Yeah I know the Elites are coming but the pricing sounds crazy and for me 82" is still too small. I have a 14' viewing distance.

With initial costs being much lower than they were in the past on per inch of display basis and reliability being way up, DLP still represents a unique value propposition. If you don't need a screen bigger than 70", then look at LED or Plasma, if you need bigger, DLP is still really the only game in town. Despite all these legitimate gripes about pre 2007 DMDs and the sets based around them.

Well, I too have been a DLP fan from the start. Once the black levels improved, I was sold. I watch the 'defective DLP' threads with interest, as I fear my Mits WD-65736 will someday suffer from a bad DMD. I hope you're right, and it's only a problem with previous years. Enjoy!

I have a Mitsubishi WD-73833 that was purchased in September 2007 that now has about 10-12 white dots. 1st white dot began about 3 months ago.

Mitsubishi consumer relations has offered to provide a new DMD chip at its expense, a 165.50 cost per my TV repair service. I will have to pay 215 for labor. I do not have an extended warranty.

I wonder if I would be better off to ask Mitsubishi to provide me with a discount towards a new 73840 instead of a chip. I will likely need a new bulb soon as my current bulb is about two years old and probably near the end of its lifespan as this TV is on quite a bit. So I could avoid the cost of a new bulb as well with a new TV.

Does anyone know whether 73840 has significantly better PQ over the 833 series? Has anyone had any luck getting a manufacturer discount under these circumstances?

I had a 65833 that developed both white and black dots. I emailed Mitts and they called me. I had to pay for a service call, get a repair estimate and fax that estimate to Mitts. Mitts said the TV was not worth fixing they offered me a great discount on a 65838; I asked if I could apply the discount to a 73838 they said ok. The brand new in the box 73838 was delivered a week later by the local dealer with no delivery charge.

I did not have an extended warranty. This was one of the best customer service experiences I have had with any company, no yelling on my part, no asking speak to a supervisor, just customer service as it should be.

Things do not last forever and things sometimes break before they should. From my perspective I do not expect perfection; I do however expect a company to stand behind it's product make reasonable accommodation. Mitts more than lived up my expectations

4 year old Toshiba 65hm167 developed white dots right at the 4 year mark.

Toshiba no help - out of warranty.

Had extended warranty and they replaced light engine.

Dots gone and pq back to the way it was right out of the box.

Getting parts was difficult - from Toshiba.

Do you keep the bad TV? Or did the service guy take it away?

I had the white dot problem and ordered the DLP chip for my 73833 over the Internet for a few hundred bucks. Replaced it myself in about 30 minutes. Pretty easy. Installs much like a computer processor on a motherboard.

The service guy took it away; he said they were sending back to Mitts as they wanted it back.

Come on! Google isn't that hard to use...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZDbUClKtWs

I watched this video, and the company I ordered the replacement chip from sent me a PDF file with instructions. It's pretty easy.

BTW, the video shows the light engine removed from the TV.. I did mine in place, without remove the light engine.

samsung is repairing all out of warranty dlp's with this issue for free. you just need to call and speak with the ecr department. i have bought a bunch of those off craigslist for like $10, had the chip replaced for free then resold them at a nice profit for a few hours of my time

Well my WD-73835 developed a white dot in the center of the screen yesterday. Now it has two. Very distracting. I really can't live with it and the set is only 3 years old.
$1000 per year is a lot to pay for television. I certainly won't be buying another Mits.

YIKES!!!! Not what I wanted to hear! I own a 65735 and I was hoping that the defective chips were all used up by the time this model year rolled around. Looks like that may not be the case.

How did you come up with this number?

If you can find the chip number, they aren't too difficult to replace. Should be well under $200.

I have a Toshiba 65hm167 that used a Samsung DMD chip. It went bad (white dots) after 4 years of use. Repair company did chip replacements on Samsung sets that had the white dot problem, but did entire light engine replacements on my brand - with the same chip.

Reason? Samsung only paid for the chip replacement under an extended warranty on their sets. Toshiba did nothing for their customers, and the light engine was less work for the repair guy - although 4 times the cost.

I had an extended warranty on the set, so they paid.

There are videos on Youtube, showing how to replace the chip on a Mitsubishi set. No tools other than a screw driver needed.

I know the particular chip # in my set was also used by Samsung and Mitsubishi in their sets of that time period.

Price paid divided by years of life = cost per year

Gotcha. Well your set isn't DEAD. It just needs it's DLP chip replaced. It's $299 online and can be replaced in about 30-45 minutes at home. Not ideal by any means, but it works.

I've got the problem with a 61" Samsung TV which Samsung conveniently explains was not covered in a white dot settlement they made a couple of years ago. Their advice, "get it fixed and pay for it yourself". Nice!
Anyone out there getting the same treatment from Samsung interested in creating a little fuss over it perhaps in a class action lawsuit? Count me in if you want to get Samsung's attention for a blunder they've created and won't fix.