[snapmarc]

Please forgive me is this is not the correct place to post this thread...


I have two 60" Samsung LED LCD TVs that were just recently zapped by a surge in my home. The surge was caused by a lightning strike that occurred close to my home the other night. After the lightning strike, my U-verse boxes and my TVs would not power on. Interestingly, it seems that surge traveled through the HDMI cable rather than the electrical cable. After a few tests, I realized that the breaker in my home never flipped and the electricity in my home never went out. The outlets which the TVs were plugged into still worked fine, but the TVs would not power on.


The only other cable going into my television sets was an HDMI cable which was connected directly to the universe set-top box. I checked the electrical outlets with lamps and radios and it worked fine. I then checked the TVs plugged into other outlets and they would not turn on. So clearly the surge did seem to occur through the HDMI cable.


So now I am left with two beautiful 60 inch television sets that will not turn on. There are no visible signs of burning or any damage at the HDMI port or anywhere else on the set. I would love to get these TVs repaired, or possibly figure out a way to repair these myself.


I sort of assumed the power supply in the TV is shot, but also I'm maybe guessing that there might be some sort of fuse or something that might've gotten broken. Does anybody have any suggestions on how I might be older resurrect these televisions? They're only 8 months old!


Has anyone heard of a lightning strike traveling to a television through an HDMI cable?


Any help or guidance would really be appreciated. I am more than willing to spend a few hundred dollars to get these TVs repaired.


HELP!

 

[mes444]

I'd guess you'd need the tvs evaluated by a repair shop to be certain how much of the inner workings were damaged. Just assuming a power supply was damaged might be short of the entire damage.


You don't say, but if you had them on surge protectors, many surge protector companies warranty against lightening damage, so you might check with them if protectors were in use.

 

[sitlet]

Yes, first check with the surge protector company and see what they offer. Second, I'm not sure if this will work, but you could try to go after the cable company for the damages, since it's pretty clear the shock came from their cable box. Since most cable boxes dont use a three prong grounding plug, that's probably where the shock came from.

 

[Hooterville]

We are in Florida and have bad lighting storms all the time. When I hear the storms coming I unplug all the surge protectors from the walls but have always worried that lighting could come through our DirecTV boxes. Guess I should start unplugging the HDMI cables also. What a pain in the butt. We also have the surge protector on our electric meter from the power company.


Good luck and hopefully you can get your sets back alive.

 

[kwarner]

For next time, check to see if you have a spark arrestor of some sort near the entrance of where the cable enters your house. It's usually a little metal thing-a-ma-jiggie in line with your cables with a big ground wire attached to it. I think most building codes require it. If ATT skipped it, you might have a case against them. You might also want to look into a better surge protector. My APCs have protection for both phone lines and cable.


For fixing your TVs, see if you can get a service manual from Samsung, hopefully with schematics. Your TVs are probably "soft on" meaning there are semiconductors switching the power, not hard switches. Those could have been damaged. Check all the ground traces on your circuit boards. As the surge tried to find its way to ground, it could have burned out a ground trace along with some circuits.


8 months old? Check your credit card to see if you have an extended warranty that might be able to fix your TVs too.