Philips 42" Plasma TV Problems - Blue Dots Randomly Appear

[Alathald]

Glad to hear we all could help

[Apoptosis]

I compiled the knowledge here on this forum. AMAZING! I took the base off of my TV....took out all of the many screws on the back panel...adjusted my voltages..........and BAM!!!! It's not as difficult as it seems. Use some common sense and it's as easy as pie. Blue virus is eradicated. e-mail me if you have trouble

Glad my rant thread turned into something productive and that it helped you out! My TV is still working fine that the tech lowered the voltages and haven't seen a blue dot yet.

[explorer3]

I also have a Philips Plasma TV. Mine is a 42PF5621D/37. I just sold it to my son before Christmas and bought a 50" Samsung Plasma. Anyway, a week after he got it it got inconsistant blue smudges and a blue thin vertical line on right side of screen. I called numerous "authorized dealers" in my area, and all said they had to bring it in to repair it. Would cost $100 and then it could be tested and I could find out how much to repair. One insisted it was probably the very expensive flat panel needed replacing.... Being a copier tech, I took off the back panel, found my voltages were the same as what Apoptosis had listed for his model then proceeded to adjust all three voltages according to his post. And sure enough, the problem has not come back since, and the adjustments took me 10 minutes at most to do. (Back panel was already off) When I get a chance, I'm checking my new plasma as my model Philips was also a Samsung inside!!! Thank you Apoptosis, you probably saved me hundreds of dollars!!!


Jim

[Apoptosis]

my pleasure! I still have my Philips Plasma and still have not had one problem since the voltage adjustment.

[vicaphit]

We need to google-bomb this thread! Very glad to hear that another person saved a bunch of money on this!

[martini161]

*snip*hmm maybe we should google bomb this to get it out in the public

[vicaphit]

Um... Re-iteration to prove importance?

[DMB2000uk]

He's just insecure, and if it takes off, worried people will think that you thought of it first

Dan

[higgy]

You guys rock!!!

I have had my Philips 42 in plasma for about 2.5 years and have been living with this blue haze for about 2 years of that time! I became so frustrated that I had called in for warranty work like 3 times and each time a repair man came out and replaced both side circuit boards but that never worked.

I realized that the tv would only get that blueish haze after about an hour of being on so I just figured it was overheating. I thought removing the backing plate would help with air flow and fix the problem. Well that worked for a little bit but after about 2 hours of being on the blueish haze would return ( So I realized I was moving in the right direction) So I then placed a small fan behind the tv and would run it anytime I watched and that worked great the haze would not reappear unless I had the tv on for a considerable amount of time (and usually on an HD channel) It just sucked watching tv and hearing a fan on in the background.

I ended up buying a new Sony tv (which I love!!!) and putting this Philips in a spare bedroom that hardly gets used. I just found this thread and adjusted the voltage and so far so good

Its almost like I have a new tv!!

Higgy

[Tech_Greek]

Girlfriends LG TV was doing the samething, I'm going to try it sooner or later.

They bought six of these, about 42", and one of them just stopped working the rest have red pixels moving.

[georgedeuce]

I did it today, my factory setting for the vset is 195 as listed on the sticker when you remove the cover, I tested the voltage and it was set to 197, so I decreased it to 188 and, as my wife was watching the blue dots were gone. Dont know if this will screw something up long term, but who cares. Thanks for all your posts guys

[moon111]

If this is an easy fix, maybe I'll try to find a really cheap Philips suffering from HDMI herpes and give this a try!

[FMSoldier]

Hello there Everyone,
I hope everyone is well, well I was googling about the blue dots on my Philips Plasma and i found this thread and found out I wasn't the only one having this problem also. Thanks to Apoptis and others how tried this fix, i guess I know what the problem is. Well my TV is a 42" Phillips plasma also, Model # 42PF9631D, and i was wondering if anyone had a video on how to do this fix so probably we can try to do this ourselves and fix our problem that weve had for 2 years now! We bought our tv in February 2007, so its out of warranty. Thanks in advance!

PS: I know this thread is old, but it is really helpful.

[Apoptosis]

Hello there Everyone,
I hope everyone is well, well I was googling about the blue dots on my Philips Plasma and i found this thread and found out I wasn't the only one having this problem also. Thanks to Apoptis and others how tried this fix, i guess I know what the problem is. Well my TV is a 42" Phillips plasma also, Model # 42PF9631D, and i was wondering if anyone had a video on how to do this fix so probably we can try to do this ourselves and fix our problem that weve had for 2 years now! We bought our tv in February 2007, so its out of warranty. Thanks in advance!

PS: I know this thread is old, but it is really helpful.

Glad it helped you... I'm amazed that this thread has been read nearly 12,000 times... Goes to show something wasn't right with the voltage settings when these left the factory. I have since sold this TV and can't do a video on the fix for you, but it's as easy as removing the back panel and turning some 'pots' or voltage adjustment screws until the dots go away.

[jklillibridge]

Hi everyone...so I am back, unfortunately. Now with a different, most likely unrelated problem.

My TV is almost 4 years old. I went to watch Jay Leno the other night because I was having trouble falling asleep. About 3 or 4 minutes into watching. The green power light seemed to fade to orange real quick and then the picture went away. The power light also dissapeared. I tried turning it back on and that did not work. I tried unplugging the power supply from the TV for a long time (over and hour) and that did not work. I tried plugging into a different outlet and that did not work. I have a pretty good surge protector, so if it was a surge, that should not have done any damage. Plus, both my stereo and cable box did not lose power. The TV will just not power on nor will any of the power lights come on either. It is completely dead it seems.

I'm wondering where to start. Off the top of my head, I am thinking to possibly replace the power supply, but not sure if I should be checking some other things first.

Please, help me!

[kellynm]

Just wanted to say THANK YOU to Apoptosis!!!

I have been suffering with my blue dots on my 2006 Philips 42" for 4 years now. They have been slowly getting worse, as in expanding across the screen. Lastnight, the wife and I "fixed" the problem by adjusting the voltages mentioned below. Plugged the TV in and bam! Blue spots gone!!! Thank you very much!!!

I just wanted to give everyone an update on the Blue Dots problem... I found out that since I bought the TV on my MasterCard that they will double the warranty from one year to two years and told me to get an estimate as they will pay for up to the cost of the TV for the repairs, but no more. I found a local television repair guy that would come out to my house and he charged me $100 to come out for an in-house estimate. He shows up says yup I see the dots and pulls off the back panel. He then turns the unit back on and checks all the voltages and all are good he says. There is a sticker on the upper right hand side of the back panel that tell you what the VE, Vset and VS settings should be. So he used a voltmeter to take the various voltages off the label on the inside of the computer... No brainer so far... When looking inside the Philips TV I started seeing Samsung labels every where, so all the PCB boards and the plasma panel itself are all Samsung:

philips_inside.jpg

I usually think that Samsung makes pretty good panels, so no worries so far... About 30-45 minutes later the blue dots don't appear again, but the internal components aren't getting as hot as the back panel is installed. He then calls a Philips service support hotline and gives them a numeric password. He then gives them my model number and tells them it has blue dots. I hear him say that he checked the voltages and confirmed the voltages with them. He then said that isn't what the inside of the TV shows... It turns out Philips/Samsung has lowered the voltages on the Television in a service bulletin.

The label inside my TV set shows

VE- 110v
VS- 198v
Vset- 195v

The new factory voltages should be

VE- 100v
VS- 190v
Vset- 188v

He used a voltmeter to set/check them and adjusted the pots on panels... He put the cover back on and that was it... I got charged $100 for a service call and $100 for the adjustment, so $200 to re-adjust my TV because it wasn't properly set from the factory... what a bunch of crap. I wonder how many people are having this issue as I'd love to see a class action lawsuit on this. You call the consumer support line and they make no mention of the voltage change. When the repair guy called the repair service line they were well aware of the problem and knew the fix right away. I hope me peaking over his shoulder and copying down the correct settings helps out someone else with this problem and will save them the $200 service fee that I just paid. Remember these settings are for a 42PF7321D/37 model Philips TV, so if you have a different version you will need to get a service tech to call and get the right voltages from Philips.

If you were helped by this thread be sure to join the forums and post, I know it was tough to find information about the problem when I was suffering the blue dot virus! All is fixed now!

[livo74]

I just wanted to give everyone an update on the Blue Dots problem... I found out that since I bought the TV on my MasterCard that they will double the warranty from one year to two years and told me to get an estimate as they will pay for up to the cost of the TV for the repairs, but no more. I found a local television repair guy that would come out to my house and he charged me $100 to come out for an in-house estimate. He shows up says yup I see the dots and pulls off the back panel. He then turns the unit back on and checks all the voltages and all are good he says. There is a sticker on the upper right hand side of the back panel that tell you what the VE, Vset and VS settings should be. So he used a voltmeter to take the various voltages off the label on the inside of the computer... No brainer so far... When looking inside the Philips TV I started seeing Samsung labels every where, so all the PCB boards and the plasma panel itself are all Samsung:



I usually think that Samsung makes pretty good panels, so no worries so far... About 30-45 minutes later the blue dots don't appear again, but the internal components aren't getting as hot as the back panel is installed. He then calls a Philips service support hotline and gives them a numeric password. He then gives them my model number and tells them it has blue dots. I hear him say that he checked the voltages and confirmed the voltages with them. He then said that isn't what the inside of the TV shows... It turns out Philips/Samsung has lowered the voltages on the Television in a service bulletin.

The label inside my TV set shows

VE- 110v
VS- 198v
Vset- 195v

The new factory voltages should be

VE- 100v
VS- 190v
Vset- 188v

He used a voltmeter to set/check them and adjusted the pots on panels... He put the cover back on and that was it... I got charged $100 for a service call and $100 for the adjustment, so $200 to re-adjust my TV because it wasn't properly set from the factory... what a bunch of crap. I wonder how many people are having this issue as I'd love to see a class action lawsuit on this. You call the consumer support line and they make no mention of the voltage change. When the repair guy called the repair service line they were well aware of the problem and knew the fix right away. I hope me peaking over his shoulder and copying down the correct settings helps out someone else with this problem and will save them the $200 service fee that I just paid. Remember these settings are for a 42PF7321D/37 model Philips TV, so if you have a different version you will need to get a service tech to call and get the right voltages from Philips.

If you were helped by this thread be sure to join the forums and post, I know it was tough to find information about the problem when I was suffering the blue dot virus! All is fixed now!

wonderful information shared, tips hat. (to all involved, offering thoughts)

as for me, i have the same problem?? does anyone think it's valid for an lg?
anyone know the voltages for LG Plasma RT-42PX12X ???


sadly, my pic has been pixellated, but it looks exactly the same as Apoptosis' example.

am thinking of asking my brother, he is a sparky(not tech) and am going to ask him to use voltmeter to gently lower voltage to see if dots disappear..
wise.. i know not?

ps: mine are there when i turn it on... but go away after a while,
..not soon enough though;)

[buzz3d]

THANK YOU Apoptosis!!! I'm currently kicking back with a Sam Adams watching the MLS Game of the Week Portland Timbers vs Chicago Fire after having picked up a multimeter(voltagemeter) at Homedepot today and making the necessary voltage adjustments per Apoptosis' discovery! Was not too difficult, pics posted throughout this thread helped to illustrate the process. Hats off to Apoptosis and everyone else... The HD grass in this soccer match is green, green, green, not a spec of BLUE!!!

42" Phillips Plasma Model # 42PF9631D37

[Apoptosis]

congrats and thanks for sharing that it worked with your model number!

can't beat an easy free fix!

[DiscoDalek]

I realize this thread is incredibly old. However I just recently found this TV on the side of the road after the holidays and decided to pick it up. When I returned home with it and plugged it in I heard one click then a second click the green light came on but the screen displayed nothing. Figuring it for the type that doesn't display anything when there is no signal I plugged in the cable line and I had wonderful audio but still no visual. I don't know if it's a related problem or not but I was wondering if anyone likely knew the solution to that without replacing the display.

Make: Phillips 42" Plasma
Model: 42PF7321D/37