Stuntman Mike,
I'm not sure where the tech was coming from, nor was I privy to the conversation. Unfortunately, I just can't comment on that experience.
We make the updates available as an ongoing effort to support the products we sell. NONE of them should crash the television. That's always been my stand on the board. Service technicians can disagree with me, but I've personally done easily over 400 firmware upgrades with 1 or 2 problems associated as a result. One was because I yanked the USB drive out prematurely, and the other one didn't turn on again.
That said, a rule of thumb is that if you don't know the benefit of updating a television, it's probably best not to do that. If your television is running perfectly, you don't need a firmware update.
Some of the early firmware updates, on the A650 series, for instance, added the ability to do wireless InfoLink and upgraded the WiseLink features which initially weren't features we were going to offer. Others fix HDMI handshake issues that are present on some, but not necessarily all of the units.
When people have a problem, I encourage them to check to make sure they have the latest firmware update. That's something I do because more times than not, it fixes many issues.
That said, I don't think you should have necessarily been confronted with "you shouldn't have". They contain fixes for certain issues, and shouldn't hurt the integrity of the television.
However, firmware updates to the best of my knowledge do not, and will not void the warranty. If you hear that they do, please let me know because I have yet to hear someone tell me that. However, some updates can (that is, have the ability to possibly) cause issues that will then require service.
Service Pack 2 for XP is supposed to be a flawless upgrade on computers too. For most people, the update worked great. For others, there were some issues. This kind of situation is no different.
That's my take on it. Technicians or Service people have their opinions; this coupled with my experience is mine.
--HDTech
When I called 800-SAMSUNG I was told by the tech that since I was experiencing no problems with the TV at the time I updated the TV's firmware that I should not have done so. He said that upgrading a TV's firmware that is not experiencing problems can "crash" the TV. This sounded like utter non-sense to me. I told the Samsung tech that I updated the TV's firware when I originally got it over a month ago and the TV has worked flawlessly until just a few days ago.
When my TV broke, I told the service technician that picked up the TV what the Samsung tech told me regarding the firmware update and he agreed.
I have read elsewhere that Samsung recommends updating your firmware whether you are experiencing problems or not.
SO WHICH IS IT???!!!
Firmware updates are supposed to fix problems, not introduce others.
Why would Samsung make their TVs user upgradable if they don't want people to update their TV's firmware?
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