You turn the TV on, the sound comes through, but the screen stays black. On Samsung LED and QLED TVs, this is one of the most common faults we see, and it’s usually repairable.
The two-minute torch test
- Turn the TV on and bring up a menu or a bright scene.
- Shine a torch at the screen from close up, at an angle.
- If you can faintly see the picture or the menu, the TV is working but the backlight has failed.
If you can’t see anything even with the torch, the fault is more likely the power supply, the mainboard or the T-con board.
Why Samsung backlights fail
LED TVs light the picture with strips of LEDs behind the panel. They run hot, and over time individual LEDs fail. On most Samsung models the LEDs are wired in series, so when one fails, the whole strip — and often the whole backlight — goes dark. The TV’s protection circuit may also shut the backlight off.
What the repair involves
The panel has to come out of the TV to reach the strips. We replace the full set of backlight strips with new ones rather than just the one that failed, because the others are the same age and likely to follow. Then we test the TV for several hours.
A backlight repair is usually a fraction of the cost of a new TV of the same size. We diagnose it first and give you a fixed quote.
Other causes
- Power supply board: the backlight power section fails even though the rest of the board works.
- One Connect box (The Frame and some QLEDs): a faulty box or cable can leave the panel dark.
- Mainboard or T-con faults: usually no picture with the torch test either.
Bring it to our Minchinbury workshop or ask about in-home service for large TVs. More on Samsung TV repair.