The Samsung service man came yesterday. I helped him turn
the TV around so that the back could be removed. That revealed two printed
circuit cards, each about 8” x 10”. They were connected by four flat cables,
multi wire, each with a connector at both ends. One card was clearly the power
supply, and the other was the electronics for the picture.
He systematically unplugged each cable and reconnected it.
After he did that, he reattached the AC power cord, and it was obvious the LED
screen lit up.
So it was a power supply problem, sort of, we think.
The
connectors may not have been properly seated right at the factory, and a bit of
vibration in shipping may have loosened the connections. Or maybe not.
He put the back of the unit on, and we turned it around, so
that he could bring up the service menu. When he did that he did see an error
code. It indicated that a watchdog timer had timed out on a single occurrence.
He said he needed to do a bit of research, possibly order some parts, and if
necessary he would arrange for a second visit.
I left the TV running from about 1 o’clock in the afternoon
until about 11 o’clock at night, and there was no problem whatsoever. So maybe
it is all right. Time will tell.
Which brings me to the second topic, that of system
integration. When I bought the Samsung Smart TV, it was with the intention of
occasionally watching Netflix movies, or a similar Internet movie source. So, I
was careful to select a TV that was a smart TV and had an audio return channel,
ARC.
My router connects to the TV, the TV to an Onkyo receiver,
and the receiver to my speaker system. I can select an Internet source, such as
BBC news and I can hear the audio through the TV speakers for example. The
Onkyo receiver has the ARC set to auto, but when I select the TV/CD input the
way the manual says to, I do not seem to be able to activate the ARC function.
One thing that’s making all of this a little bit more
difficult than it ought to be is the fact that when I am looking at Internet
content on the TV, I cannot see the Onkyo on-screen display. The Onkyo receiver
is supposed to display an indicator on its front panel when it detects a signal on the ARC line. I
have never seen this indicator light up.
So which unit is faulty? Is it the Samsung Smart TV that is
not providing a signal on the ARC? Or is it the Onkyo input card which is not
recognizing a signal on the ARC?
Yes, this is the joy of system integration. And,
unfortunately in this case, Google is not much of a help. If you have ever read a TV or receiver manual, you will know they are not much help either.
It may be something quite simple, but at this point I really
don’t know what else to do.
Oh yes, I spent 20 bucks on an optical TOSLINKcable and have the TV
connected to the receiver. That should have provided the appropriate audio to
the receiver, but that doesn’t seem to be working either. And that’s really
disappointing, because the Onkyo manual seems to suggest that the optical
connection is a valid alternative to the ARC and is supposed to be used when
the TV set does not have the ARC function.
That points back to the Samsung, and I have asked the
technician to do a bit of research on this for me. We did go through the
various sound settings on the TV and he agreed that I was unable to set the
output to “receiver”, although at the time this was not a valid test perhaps,
since the receiver was not connected.
As I’m writing this, the only thing that comes to mind is
that the HDMI cable is not one of these magic HDMI 1.4 versions, and may be not
supplying the ARC signal. On the other hand, that really doesn’t explain what
the issue is with the optical connection.
If anyone it Samsung is reading this, please recognize that
your material on the web, on the TV, or in the supplied documents does not help anybody solve such problems and it’s
very frustrating.
Surely, Samsung should be able to write a page that says "Want to connect your Smart TV to your Surround Sound receiver? Do this or this or this." Same with Onkyo.
I've already had the Onkyo in for service. They said the HDMI board was frequently faulty, so much so that they repair them even after the two year warranty. Could that be the problem?
If I ever get to the bottom of this, I will let you know.
Oh, I should tell of a success. My PC feeds an HDMI cable to the receiver. Then I must set the reciver to the PC HDMI source and on the PC I can then duplicate the desktop onto TV. Then, I can select the PC audio output devices, see the HDMI output portion of the PC is ready for enabling, enable it and get PC audio playing through the receiver. So, I don't really have to use the Samsung Smart TV function at all, but this is a too clunky solution to the original problem.
It's a bit embarrassing, I'm an Electrical Engineer. This should all be easy for me and it is not. What do "regular" folks do to get this stuff working? I've helped a lot of people with their TV and sound systems and PC problems too. The manufacturers just don't seem to provide the info needed and don't have the sense to play nicely together.