Can my dead soundbar be repaired?

November 6, 2024 12:39 PM

The other night, my 7 year old Samsung soundbar up and stopped working. It died while in use, and it will no longer power up at all. I spent $20 on the gamble that it was the power brick, but still no power. Is there any realistic hope that it could be repaired, or do I have to consign it to e-waste?

Maybe some faqs:

- I have been through all the troubleshooting on the vendor site and other places. No joy.
- There were no smells or anything at the time of expiration

posted by jimfl to Technology (2 answers total)

Electronics technician here, I say E-waste. These are generally serviced at a board level rather than a component level, by the time you pay someone to replace a board, parts and labor you've spent more than a new bar would cost. If you can find a hobbyist or some really resourceful shop that undervalues their labor, a component level repair MIGHT just about make sense but servicing something of that age is usually throwing good money after bad. I'd suggest googling the model to see if there are any known common failure points (say, electrolytic capacitors) that could be swapped out cheaply. If so, that'd tip the scale a little in the repair direction.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 1:21 PM on November 6

Another option is to take it a repair cafe type gathering. Check repaireconomywa.org
posted by Glomar response at 2:26 PM on November 6