2 Investigators: Some Samsung TVs Won’t Turn Back On; Owners Get Repair Bills

February 9, 2012 12:00 AM " CHICAGO (CBS) — Samsung Electronics is now admitting that millions of its flat screen TV’s may have problems that cause them to just shut down.

As 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports, owners have been complaining about it for years and were unable to get help.

One of them was Brian Kowalkowski, who paid $1,500 for his new Samsung LCD television two years ago. Recently it began clicking, until it eventually turned on. Then, it would not turn on at all.

“It was just dead,” Kowalkowski says. “It was the most amount of money I’ve ever spent on a TV, so I had a hard time believing it. I had no idea what the problem was but I knew I had a serious problem.”

When Brian checked on the Internet, he found thousands of people with the exact same problem. And it turns out repair shops are quite familiar with the problem as well.

It’s caused by apparently defective capacitors that help store energy to smoothly operate the televisions. Each capacitor is relatively inexpensive, about $5 a piece. But if it’s defective it can overheat and shut down your TV.

“You can identify the bad capacitors by the swollenness of the top portion of the capacitor,” Ray Samrah, ABT Electronics Service Manager, says. "

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