As the owner of a television, I know all too well the frustration of seeing a black screen with sound coming from the speakers. I recently ran into this issue myself and did some research to try and find a solution. After testing out some different methods, I am here to share what I found out and the fixes that I was able to successfully apply to my television.
These are some things to troubleshoot to try to fix your black screen, sound-only issue:
- Check to see if the TV input device is working
- Try a different HDMI cable to see if your HDMI cable is faulty.
- Check if the TV’s backlight is broken by illuminating it with a flashlight.
Just because your TV shows a black screen does not necessarily mean that it is broken and needs a massive repair job. There are things that you can try to resolve the black screen sound-only issue before sending your TV in for repairs or deciding to buy a new one.
| Troubleshooting Steps | Description |
|---|---|
| Check Your Input Device | Ensure your input device has power, is properly connected to your TV, and is switched on. |
| Check If Your HDMI Cable Is Faulty | Inspect the HDMI cable for bent or broken pins at the tips of the cable. Try connecting the input device with a different HDMI cable to see if it fixes the issue. |
| Check To See If Your TV’s Backlight Is Working | Turn off all the lights in the room, ensure your TV is switched on, and shine a flashlight on the TV display. If you can see pictures on the screen, your backlight or backlight fuse needs to be replaced. If not, the issue might be with the “T-Con” circuit board or the backlight’s power supply. |
| Try a Soft Reset | Turn off the TV, unplug it from the wall outlet, wait 60 seconds, plug it back in, and turn the TV on again. This can help clear up technical glitches. |
| Repairing Your TV Vs. Buying A New One | Consider the costs involved in repairing or replacing your TV. Repairing a TV with a display smaller than 32 inches might not be worth the cost due to labor expenses. For TVs with larger displays, the cost of repairing is usually worth it, as it is significantly cheaper than replacing the TV. |
Table of Contents
How To Fix A TV With A Black Screen And Working Audio
Before sending your TV in for repairs or deciding to get rid of it, there are things you can check to determine how serious the issue is. Your issue might be more easily solvable than you think.
Check Your Input Device
When experiencing the black screen issue with only audio working, you should first check if your input device has power and see if it is properly connected to your TV.
If the input device does not have power or the connection to your TV is faulty, it could be causing your issue.
To check that your input device is working properly, make sure it is connected to power and gives some indication that it is switched on (such as a little LED light flashing or staying solid and powered on) and check that the cable that it is connected to your TV with is properly plugged into both the TV and the input device itself (if the cable is detachable from the device itself).
Check If Your HDMI Cable Is Faulty
Having sound with a black screen is an issue that can be commonly caused by a faulty HDMI cable or a loose connection.
Unplug the HDMI cable from your TV and the input device it is connected to when attempting to check if your HDMI cable is faulty. Look at each end of the cable and see if there are any bent or broken pins at the tips of the cable.
If the pins are broken or bent, your HDMI cable is likely faulty and needs to be replaced. If you can’t see any broken or bent pins, your HDMI cable can still be faulty, causing you to have a black screen with only audio playing.
To see if this is the case, you should try connecting the input device with a different HDMI cable to see if it fixes your issue.
If the replacement HDMI cable doesn’t fix the issue, the HDMI port on the TV or possibly even the port on your input device might be faulty due to it no longer making a proper connection.
If a port is faulty, you should have your TV or device’s port checked out so that it can either be replaced or re-soldered to ensure that the port has a solid connection to the circuit board.
Check To See If Your TV’s Backlight Is Working
TVs that use LCD technology use a backlight to illuminate the picture on the TV display. Should your backlight stop working, the picture on your screen will appear black; however, you will still be able to hear the sound playing from the TV.
You can check if your backlight is the cause of your issue by switching off all the lights in a room and ensuring that your TV is switched on. You must then shine a flashlight on the TV display, and if your backlight is faulty, you will be able to see pictures on the screen.
If this is the case, either your backlight or backlight fuse needs to be replaced on your TV, so it will need to be repaired.
If you can’t see a picture appear when you shine your flashlight on the TV, it indicates that something else, such as the “T-Con” circuit board in your TV, is faulty, and the image processing is therefore no longer working properly. It is also possible that your backlight’s power supply is faulty. These issues will require you to send your TV in for repairs.
Try a soft reset
A soft reset, is where you turn off the TV and unplug it from the wall outlet. You then usually have to wait for 60 seconds then you can put the plug back in and turn the TV on again. Performing a soft reset clears a device’s internal memory of running programs, which often clears up any technical glitches.
Repairing Your TV Vs. Buying A New One
If you’ve come this far and you’re still unsure about the cause of your issue, it’s more than likely that your TV needs to be repaired or replaced. Before deciding whether to repair or replace your TV, you should consider the costs involved.
The size of the TV display you would like to repair has a massive impact on the cost of the repair job. If the TV has a display that smaller than 32 inches, it’s usually not worth the cost of repairing because of the cost of the labor which is involved, and just because the TV relatively small, it does not mean that it will take any less time to repair than much larger TVs.
If the size of the TV display that you would like to repair is more than 32 inches, however, the cost of repairing the TV is well worth it. TVs with bigger displays cost much more to replace than to repair, unlike smaller TVs where the repair cost can be almost as much as the cost to replace the TV.
Conclusion
If you have an issue with your TV where you can still hear sound coming from it, but the screen displays no picture and is black, you should consider trying a few things before deciding to repair the TV or buy a new one. The size of your TV greatly influences the cost of repair, and it is usually not worthwhile to repair a TV smaller than 32 inches.
To try to fix this black screen issue yourself, you should check to see if the TV input device is powered on and working. The next thing to check is to see whether your HDMI cable is faulty and potentially needs to be replaced by checking for bent or missing pins and then trying a different HDMI cable to see if it works. Lastly, you can check to see if the TV’s backlight is faulty.
Read more: Can’t understand TV without subtitles?
References
https://www.quora.com/What-should-I-do-if-my-TV-screen-is-black-but-there-is-sound
https://appuals.com/how-to-fix-black-screen-issue-on-smart-tv-samsung/
