Samsung TV

We have a 55” Samsung LED TV in our family room.  We bought it in 2012 (it hardly seems like it is 5 years old) when the other TV we had started getting shadows on it (I think that may have been a Samsung as well).  A few days ago, I was sitting on the couch watching TV when the picture went off all of a sudden.  It clicked a couple of times like it was being turned off, then on, then off, then on, etc. until the picture came back about 30 seconds later.  I was alone and thought it was odd, but didn’t do anything about it.  Then it happened again when Kris was in the room with me and I looked at her and said, What the hell???!!! 

She told me that it had been doing that every now and then for her too, for as long as a month or so, at intermittent periods would the power will suddenly turn off and then try turning back on making the "clicking" sound like when the TV is normally turned on and the screen is “warming up” (for lack of a better description), cycling a couple of times, eventually coming back on.  It happens randomly, but usually only lasts 20 seconds or so.  Recently is has been happening more frequently and for longer periods of time (today it took roughly 6 hours for the power to come on).  When it is going thru this "cycling" the only way to get it to stop is to pull the power cable and let the residual power drain as it cycles another 2 or 3 times.  Usually I will let it sit unplugged for a few minutes and then plug it back in, where it may come back on, or it may continue the "cycling".  When it cycles, the red LED in the corner when the TV is off, will click and go off, then after a few seconds, it flashes a couple of times, then clicks and starts the process over again.  I have let the process continue as long as 30 minutes without the picture ever coming back on.

This lead to doing some research online to try and figure out what the problem is.  When we bought it five years ago we paid $1500.  It was on sale at the time, marked down from $2500 (yes, I know because remember, I looked it up).  I managed to find things suggesting all sorts of solutions ranging from replacing capacitors, to just scrapping the TV and getting a new one.  I have tried all the suggestions listed on these forums such as changing outlets, unplugging all other peripherals (cable box, Blu-Ray, etc.), I even left the TV unplugged for some time (as much as 4 hours), made sure all the software was updated, reset to the factory settings, etc. and yet the problem persists.  Also, when the TV is going thru this "cycling", none of the other buttons will work, neither on the remote, nor on the side/back of the TV, which is why I have to pull the plug to give it a rest if it doesn't come back on right away.

I sent a request to Samsung directly requesting assistance.  Their website says they will respond w/in 24 hours.  Well they didn’t.  They suck!  I realize that the TV is out of the warranty period, I was looking more for an “authorized” repair place to evaluate whether or not I needed to get a new TV, or if it was something as simple as resoldering a connection.  But nothing.  I am not sure what I am going to do yet, but it is looking more and more like I will need to drop more $$$ on a new TV (Insert angry face here).