New Lamp For Tv

I have been trying to replace the lamp on my KDF-55E2000 Sony television for some time. So far I have bought four new lamps online: the first three (bought from China) worked OK except that there were broad lines of colour across the top and bottom of the screen so I had to return them all. I then bought one from a UK business but now there is no picture at all, and the red standby light keeps flashing (twice then a pause, then twice again then a pause, and so on). The person I bought it from insists that I need to reset the lamp life, but as I cannot see the menu, I don't know how to do that. I've searched online for ways of doing it without the menu, but there seem to be as many different ways as there are forums and they all contradict each other. I've tried some of them but they don't work. In the meantime, when I take out the new lamp and put back in the old faulty one, the picture is fine (apart from the bands of colour). So my question is does all this indicate that the new lamp is just not working, or do I really need to reset the lamp hours with a blank screen that doesn't show me the menu and if so how do I do that? Many thanks for any advice you can give.