Sony KDF42WE655 overheating?

Question

I bought a Sony KDF42WE655 42" LCD back in 07/2005. I've been told that life expectancy of the lamp was about 2 years. Lately, it seems the set has been a little slow in powering up, and the screen stays dim a little longer than it used to when doing so. Anticipating that the lamp may be wearing out, I went ahead and ordered a replacement lamp (XL-2100) from Crutchfield just last month.

Lo and behold, the lamp finally did fail last night - the Power/Standby indicator would just flash, and eventually the Lamp indicator came on. OK, no problem, I have a new lamp and a Service manual.

But when I removed the front cover and removed the lamp cover, I noticed the plastic surrounding the lamp was warped, obviously from heat - almost as though it had started to melt.

I can only see one fan - directly behind the lamp holder, blowing out the rear of the set - and it seems to be functioning normally, slightly dusty but easily cleaned. The Service Manual indicated that there may be as many as FOUR fans in this unit.

Should I be worried? How hard is it to disassemble this TV for a closer look?

James Sweet · Accepted Answer

Is it plastic that gets replaced when the lamp is replaced? If so, don't worry about it, the lamp runs hotter as it approaches end of life.

hexHead® · Answer

No, it was the plastic that lined the lamp cavity in the set. It wasn't much, but it was warped enough to cause concern. Fact is, I bought the replacement only a month ago - talk about good timing... and at that time, I took out my lamp replacement instructions from the manual and went ahead and removed the front cover, just to make sure I could I guess - and there was no visible warping then. So yea, you must be right - the lamp warmed up considerably right before it went. That seems to be the case because the lamp I removed actually had a small blackish "scorch" mark on one side as though it flashed before it went out....

Today, just to make sure, I went ahead and removed the rear cover as well and cleaned everything out including removing all thedust build-up in the four fans - seems to be humming along so far...

Mark D. Zacharias · Answer

Clean out or replace the fan - this is a common problem. Sometimes the door gets so warped that the door switch no longer functions.Mark Z.

AJ · Answer

Major contributor to the problem, as noted, is dust building up within the device. Fan located near the lamp, normally a smaller 'squirell cage' type of fan, normally used for cooling the lamp and housing. These get so bad that one can not see the striations which indicate the blades of the fan, removal of that specific fan, and throughly cleaning, will deter the overheating temporairly. Keep the vents in the back cover throughly cleared, vacuum them at least monthly. Many of these are placed into entertainment centres that do not allow proper air flow around them to dissipate the heat properly. SONY actually have a few service bulletins, (available to authorized service facilities), that indicate what other apropiate changes that are available to mitigate further problems.

Sony KDF42WE655 overheating?

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