Samsung TV remote oddity

[Harry Bloomfield]

Its the bedroom TV, about 4 years old and the remote is giving issues. The symptoms seem to suggest it seems to go into a sleep mode, from which it is reluctant to wake fully from.

Press the power button and its transmit warning light gives a brief flicker, press its light button (it has a button to light up the remote's main buttons) and it will light up and stay on until it times out, press the TV button (it can operate other Samsung equipment) and it will give a brief flicker. Persist with button pressing and it will appear to fully wake up and work normally and continue to work normally for the rest of the viewing session. Next evening, I have to go through a similar process. I've replaced the batteries and the TV /remote is little used. Normal is pressing the power button, the remote flashes its LED continuously until the button is released and the TV's own LED flashes to indicate it is receiving the command.

Not something I have come across before, is there something I'm missing please?

[Lee]

Check the reservoir cap? Probably not since it still does it fresh batteries, but my general rule is Samsung -> check caps whatever the issue is :) :)

Lee

[DerbyBorn]

If you are over 70 then press the buttons really hard whilst waving the remote aggressively at the TV.

Sorry - no real suggestions,

[GMM]

Sadly can't help, only sympathise.

I have a Samsung smart pvr and the remote seems to have a mind of its own. Generally works in the end but the most common issue is that sometimes it turns on the pvr and the TV on the main power button then, after a while, stops doing that. It doesn't lose its 'tune' to the TV, as a separate button will turn it on/off, but I can't see that anything systematic causes its changes in behaviour and I certainly can't simulate the changes. Fortuantely, I bought the pvr from Richer Sounds, along with their 5yr guarantee, and I've already swapped the remote once under this. I'm hoping it will conk out properly within the next 3-odd years, as the manager (discussed with him since buying) reckons they can't be arsed to try repairing under the guarantee and just give an 'equivalent' replacement. By now, the 'equivalent' should be significantly better....

[Harry Bloomfield]

Not just mine behaving strangely then - thanks!

[Bob H]

If it's in the bedroom, no wonder its going into sleep mode, I know I would, lol

[Brian Gaff]

Grotty contacts under the buttons affected by temperature or moisture. I once too a remote apart after it failed and was rather bemused to see that the connection between the bits of the switch under the buttons seemed to be either a bit of conductive foam pressed into grooves in a pcb, or some kind of graphite stuff on the bottom of the buttons shorting out pads on the pcb. The two methods seemed to be uses one on rockers and the other on the little ones. Its no wonder these go wrong so often. I proved it was the remote by using a light detector from the RNBIB which could p bleep when a remote was aimed at it int eh dark. The good buttons produced a stream of pulsed clusters, and the dodgy ones just a blip or nothing at all. sometimes rocking the buttons made them work.

Crap. Brian

[Harry Bloomfield]

I had not thought of that lol

[Harry Bloomfield]

I've not pulled it apart, but I have had that problem before with other handsets and this is not the similar.

Once it seems to 'wake up', it works perfectly. It have an indication when it is transmitting on the remote and TV, they just show a brief glimmer then nothing. Point it at an IR sensitive camera and it shows nothing until it 'wakes up'.

[Lee]

If you do pull it apart, 'scope the voltage at the main IC in both states - I'm going to hazard a guess that there is a voltage drop causing a reset issue.

I'd still suggest changing the cap, cleaning the battery contacts and trying fresh alkalines.

Lee

[Harry Bloomfield]

Harry Bloomfield explained on 12/4/2013 :

The other evening, rather than struggle to turn it on using the remote, I decided to save a bit of time by turning it on by the touch button at the TV. The remote then seemed to work absolutely fine. How or why it should suddenly start to work just because I manually switched it on, I don't quite understand - unless this TV provides some feedback to the remote - no silly idea(?)/.

For the past three evenings, before pressing the power button on the remote, I have pressed one of the lower rows of buttons. The remote has then seemed to work perfectly normally, but it may have worked normaly anyway just pressing the power button.

Test for the next few evenings is just to press the power button first and see what happens.

[Andy Burns]

Could the button on the TV have been left wedged on, and you pressing it cleared that?

[Harry Bloomfield]

No, on the TV the are not actual buttons - just a mark on the plastic of the case where you touch it with a finger tip.

The remote normally flashes the keypad, while ever and for as long as you keep a button pressed. The TV also has a red LED which flashes when it receives a valid signal.

When it didn't work, the keypad on the remote would just give one brief flash then nothing.

For several evenings, I found that if I just pressed various buttons on the remote, it would come back to life and then work perfectly normally for the rest of the evening.

On Monday evening, rather than messing about with the remote, I would use the on touch 'button' on the TV. After which the remote worked fine straight away - which is what is puzzling me so much, because it suggests some feedback from the TV to the remote, unless it was just coincidence.

As said, I will just try pressing the remote to turn it on this evening, as I normally would and see what the result is.

[dennis]

have you changed the batteries?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yes and tested the batteries. As said, it just seems to go into some sort of sleep mode and proves difficult to wake up. Once awake, it works perfectly.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Harry Bloomfield formulated the question :

After weeks of experimenting with this remote control, I seem to have found a work around, which has worked 6 times in succession...

If I press the button which illuminates the buttons and whilst still pressing that button, breifly press the on button, then release both and again press the on button - the remote then works perfectly.

How terribly weird!