Sony Bravia LED KDL40W605B - Eight Red Blinks Error

[williamjrjohnson]

Hi all, 

I have a Sony Bravia LED KDL40W605B Smart TV and it has recently stopped working. The TV is only 16 months old (less than four months out of guarantee) and within those 16 months, I probably used it below-average.

I now have this error with the eight red blinks. The first thing I want to know is, what does this mean? What type of problem is it?

So far, I have tried doing the standard power reset, disconnecting the network, and doing a full factory reset - none of which is working. In fact, the TV doesn't respond to anything at all. 

The series of events are as follows: 

I switch the TV on, the picture appears as normal (sometimes slower than usual) and at the top of the screen it says "HDMI3 (Player 3 - Sky+ HD)" or no signal if unplugged and this message actually stays on at the top, it doesn't disappear like usual after a few seconds. The picture remains on screen for about ten seconds and during that time, the TV is completely unresponsive to any input from the remote control or the buttons on the side of the TV. After this, the "Sony" logo appears and the TV begins going through a rebooting cycle doing as described above at least five times over before eventually the picture goes black and the red light starts blinking eight times.

Given this TV is very young and under-used, I'm horrified I have run into a problem with it already and would rather not splash out hundreds of pounds on a repair. 

I have spoken with Sony who have told me it is "being escalated as a top priority" (been three days so far), and I have spoken to the retailer who tell me to contact Sony or it will be a flat £95 call-out fee for a repair plus parts, labour and delivery. 

Does anyone know why this is happening or if it is an easy fix, or how best to go about this? I'm incredibly disappointed. It's the only TV I have currently and it's already been a week.

I'm really not content with having to pay anything to get this sorted, as if I had used the TV more heavily it would have likely failed within the guarantee period.

I don't think it was a software update, as the last update I was aware of being installed on the TV was around 2-3 weeks ago (so a bit long for a problem to show up now?) Unfortunately, I have no idea what software it is running as the TV does not respond to any inputs but suffice to say it is probably the latest version.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

When the light blinks on the front of the TV, this generally indicates a hardware failure of some type.  The amount of blinks indicares what the issue is.  Unfortunately i do not have access to a service manual for this model, so i cannot tell you what the fault is.

Unfortunately the tv will need to be repaired by a qualified technician.  

Cheers

[Anonymous]

Hi there

I should also mention that even though the TV is out of the warranty period, you still have some rights under the Sales of Goods Act 1979 - this would be agaist the retailer you purcashed the TV from.  Have a read up on this, especially under 'satisfactory quality'.  A good place to start is:

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/sale-of-goods-act

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/mar/25/consumernews.howtocomplain

Cheers

[williamjrjohnson]

Thanks for your help - I will go back to the retailer and see if I can make any progress there.

[Anonymous]

Let us know how you get on, as im sure others may be curious and want to know as well.

[williamjrjohnson · Accepted solution]

Hi, 

Yes - I went back to the retailer and after quite a lot of escalation I was able to get a free repair - just got my TV back today and seems to work perfectly. 

They notified me the problem was with the Main Board so that has been replaced, although they didn't tell me why that component failed so quickly in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Excellent.  Im really glad you've got it fixed and at no cost to yourself.

Thanks for the update - this goes to show, if its outside warranty, it can be fixed - but you just perserveer.

Cheers

[rooobb]

Probably they didn't change anything, the 8 red blinks is the only code not really related to HW failure

https://us.en.kb.sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/32192/c/65,66/kw/led%20red%20blinking/session/L3Rp...

In any case it's good the final result for you!