Yesterday morning I go downstairs on my way out the door to work. Of course the boys are awake and having breakfast with Jen. She is trying to turn on the TV for the boys but it just keeps making a clicking noise and the power light in the front blinks on and off. Crap. I smell an electronic burning around the back of the TV. Crap 2. I unplug the TV and wait for a couple seconds and try to turn in back on again since some electronics require a total power down to reset itself, but to no avail as it keeps clicking and stinking. So Jen has her project for the day. Calling around to see who will service the TV and how much it would cost for a service call. We can't just load up a 55" TV in the back of a car and run it over to the repair shop. The TV is probably 6 or 7 years old and has been through a few moves and in storage so it's not a huge surprise that it is having issues. On the way to work that commercial keeps running in my mind where the wife tells her husband to get a new TV and he goes crazy at Best Buy, and yeah I get a little excited. I start looking at new TV's with all their features and stuff. I could never afford to replace the 55" screen in the front room, but I figure that I would need at least 32" to do the previous TV justice. The prices are around $500 - $600 for something in the 30+" area, which is a bit pricy, but about half as much as I paid for the 55" ( it was a floor model) TV 6 years ago. There is a chance we could fix the old TV so I don't get my hopes up for a new one just yet. I get a call from Jen that has called around to a few service places. The one place says that it would be like $100 for a service call, but if he was there for over 40 minutes it would be another $170. And that's just the trip and diagnostic service, that doesn't include parts!!! Holy Crap I am going into the TV repair business. So I am thinking $270 for a service call not including parts is half the price of a new 32" flat screen plasma, so it's looking bad for the old TV. We decided to make a few more calls before deciding what to do. Jen calls Best Buy (where we bought the TV originally). As she is talking to them and looking up numbers and all the other crap that you go through the person at best buy sees that this particular model, because of it's age, requires you to call phillips directly for service. The person at Best Buy was very helpful to Jen and I have to give them kudos. So Jen calls Phillips and starts talking to their service guy who asks what the symptoms are and Jen tells him. He asks if we have unplugged it and plugged it back in again, where she says yes. But then he asks for how long. "uh, probably 30 seconds to a minute". The TV was still unplugged from the morning because I wasn't a big fan of the electronic burning smell causing a fire. He says to plug it back in again to see if it's still doing it, and Jen does whereupon it fires right up and everything is back to normal. I was right that it needed to be unplugged to reset itself, I just didn't do it long enough. Maybe I will start doing a total power down at night every once in a while to keep from fritzing (technical term) out again. So with just a few phone calls we saved ourselves hundreds of dollars and alot of hassle. Yeah I was kinda excited about getting a new TV, but I am still glad we can get some more life out of the old one. Maybe we can retire it to the basement when I get the remodel done.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
"I want it all.... I want it all.....and I want it now...."
Yesterday morning I go downstairs on my way out the door to work. Of course the boys are awake and having breakfast with Jen. She is trying to turn on the TV for the boys but it just keeps making a clicking noise and the power light in the front blinks on and off. Crap. I smell an electronic burning around the back of the TV. Crap 2. I unplug the TV and wait for a couple seconds and try to turn in back on again since some electronics require a total power down to reset itself, but to no avail as it keeps clicking and stinking. So Jen has her project for the day. Calling around to see who will service the TV and how much it would cost for a service call. We can't just load up a 55" TV in the back of a car and run it over to the repair shop. The TV is probably 6 or 7 years old and has been through a few moves and in storage so it's not a huge surprise that it is having issues. On the way to work that commercial keeps running in my mind where the wife tells her husband to get a new TV and he goes crazy at Best Buy, and yeah I get a little excited. I start looking at new TV's with all their features and stuff. I could never afford to replace the 55" screen in the front room, but I figure that I would need at least 32" to do the previous TV justice. The prices are around $500 - $600 for something in the 30+" area, which is a bit pricy, but about half as much as I paid for the 55" ( it was a floor model) TV 6 years ago. There is a chance we could fix the old TV so I don't get my hopes up for a new one just yet. I get a call from Jen that has called around to a few service places. The one place says that it would be like $100 for a service call, but if he was there for over 40 minutes it would be another $170. And that's just the trip and diagnostic service, that doesn't include parts!!! Holy Crap I am going into the TV repair business. So I am thinking $270 for a service call not including parts is half the price of a new 32" flat screen plasma, so it's looking bad for the old TV. We decided to make a few more calls before deciding what to do. Jen calls Best Buy (where we bought the TV originally). As she is talking to them and looking up numbers and all the other crap that you go through the person at best buy sees that this particular model, because of it's age, requires you to call phillips directly for service. The person at Best Buy was very helpful to Jen and I have to give them kudos. So Jen calls Phillips and starts talking to their service guy who asks what the symptoms are and Jen tells him. He asks if we have unplugged it and plugged it back in again, where she says yes. But then he asks for how long. "uh, probably 30 seconds to a minute". The TV was still unplugged from the morning because I wasn't a big fan of the electronic burning smell causing a fire. He says to plug it back in again to see if it's still doing it, and Jen does whereupon it fires right up and everything is back to normal. I was right that it needed to be unplugged to reset itself, I just didn't do it long enough. Maybe I will start doing a total power down at night every once in a while to keep from fritzing (technical term) out again. So with just a few phone calls we saved ourselves hundreds of dollars and alot of hassle. Yeah I was kinda excited about getting a new TV, but I am still glad we can get some more life out of the old one. Maybe we can retire it to the basement when I get the remodel done.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Incidentally that was another commercial that they "softened" for political correctness after it was initially released. Initially the wife gives up on the TV, and says to the husband "you're right, we need a new TV." Then he goes and gets one (using his Chase text balance feature) and she says "it's perfect." But, I guess the wife was too subservient because later they edit it so that the wife says "you're right, we need a new TV... JUST DON'T GO CRAZY!"
The new one they've edited is the guy who gets a value meal and the announcer says "you know what you get with that fast food burger? Stretch pants, a seatbelt extender, etc." and it ends with "...and a therapist to deal with it all." But I guess that must have sounded like fat people all have mental problems, because they then added "paranoia" eeked in real quick before "and a therapist to deal with it all." Even though that doesn't make sense in the context.
I hate political correctness.
Post a Comment