Rep: 347
2
2
1
I purchased my Vizio E60 series tv 2 years ago. A week ago, the left side began to get dark. Now it is so dark, I can't open the menu and see the information well. Is there anything I can do to fix it? Vizio's response was buy a new one. Really? I just bought this one.
Is this a good question?
Rep: 5.4k
20
11
14
Hi. It looks like the backlight on your LED TV has failed. LED TVs feature long thin circuit boards with surface-mount LEDs packaged every few inches. Direct backlit TVs have quite a few strips with the LEDS spaced out over the area of the LCD panel. Edge lit LED Tvs have the majority of the LEDs on the sides of the LCD panel. It looks like your TV is direct LED backlight.
While LEDs can be more efficient and durable than other forms of lighting, it is up to the manufacturer to produce and implement a well designed power system where LEDs are driven within their specification, and create an environment where the LEDs can properly dissipate heat. Unfortunately, it seems that many TV manufacturers are intentionally creating poorly designed LED backlights and overdrive the LED dies to the point of thermal failure. It is not uncommon to have 4 or 5 LEDs randomly die on a 12 LED strip backlight because the TV manufacturer decided to integrate a power supply that provides too much current to the LEDs. I would not be surprised if a class action lawsuit is near for a few manufacturers.
In terms of the repair, there are a few things you can do:
Here are 2 related videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA1JCxn1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSCf1xxL...
The reason why Vizio told you to buy a new TV is because the LEDs which have failed are the hardest part to get to inside the TV. It requires you to disassemble the lcd display assembly, which is very fragile. In order to disassembly the display assembly, you need a lot of space and a lot of patience.
Also, even if you replace the LEDs or LED strips, it is extremely likely that your backlight will fail again within 2 years. A lot of the folks who repair LED TVs mention to go into the settings of your tv and manually turn the backlight of the LCD at least half way down. Lowering the backlight brightness will increase the lifespan of your backlight.
11/2020 Update:
There is a growing trend of using a large array of shorter PCBs to construct an LED TV backlight instead of just connecting a few long PCBs together.
This is largely a cost cutting measure due to shorter length PCBs having lower cost of overall production than longer boards. Instead of a TV vendor having to pay additional PCB manufacturing fees for a custom long-length (~24-36in) PCB order, the TV vendor will opt to produce smaller length (~16in) PCBs instead. While this cost cutting measure does make a lot of sense, a certain care has to be placed when relying on inexpensive board-to-board interconnects.
Unfortunately, these connectors are not always designed and implemented correctly. One example is if a TV manufacturer has backlight PCB strips produced at a new PCB production contractor and that PCB is 1.5mm thick instead of 1.6mm thick. Sure, this is only a 0.1mm difference, but that is enough for the spring loaded contacts in the board-to-board connector to not apply enough pressure on the PCB contacts and not conduct properly.
This Hackaday article goes into how these interconnects sometimes fail and can be easily repaired by just removing the connector and hard wiring the LED strips together with a soldering iron:
https://hackaday.com/2020/10/27/low-tech...
Good on you Tweepy [author] for finding out this excellent solution!
Good luck!
Was this answer helpful?
same problem on 70 inch year and half old.
I have the same problem the brightness doesn't seem to work my vizios screen is still too dim and it went dim randomly and wont go back to bright
Same happened on my 2 ýr. old Vizio, at least half is dark.....was told it was cost prohibitive to fix that it's very expensive
I'm having the same issues with my 65 inch vizio, will never buy another...
Having same problem with a 2 yrs old 55 in. Make sure to write your reviews on websites. And yes we need a class action lawsuit.
Rep: 97
2
1
I just submitted an inquiry to an attorney about a class action suit against Vizio. Waiting to hear back…
Spoke with an attorney and he didn’t seem all that interested.
On a positive note, I found out replacing the LED backlights DOES NOT cost more than a new TV. It costs about $100, plus your time.
Was this answer helpful?
I'm also having the same issue.
I had posted about my year and a half old 50" 4K HDR Chromecast TV, how from the middle of the screen down had dimmed, and called VIZIO, which was a worthless call, well I decided, I'm never buying a VIZIO again, cause the whole screen quit working, so I bought a LG REAL 4K IPS, QUAD CORE PROCESSOR 4K web IS TV, and it blows the VIZIO away in every category, the quality of the picture is flat out what I wanted my 4K HDR TV to look like, it makes everything better, the characters and cars, whatever is on, it pops out at you, it had made my older games on PS3, look new, and the PS4 PRO games, look like so real and made them even better, old movies, since I grew up in the 80's , I like movies like LOCK UP with Sylvester Stallone, The Rambo movies, Cobra, Rocky, ECT. They're like remastered in HDR, the looks.and and much higher quality with the LG TV, and the power of the PS4 PRO, Get an LG, and see what we were missing paying all this money for and inferior TV like VIZIO,
Have had our Vizio TV for about 3 years, just started having the dark screen on one side the the TV. I've tried doing what was recommended; unplug power, hold the power button down for 15 seconds, turn it on. Nothing worked. Will definitely go with another TV.
Let me know please! 2 years old top right tope left and bottom left all dark on my stupid expensive t.v. this is ridiculous
Same issue here. Dark on left 1/4 of screen. 2 year old Vizio 75”. Will never buy again! Waiting for sales right before Super Bowl and will get an LG. Good luck all.
Rep: 37
1
I contacted Vizio. They suggested unplugging TV. Hold power button on TV for 3-5 sec. Plug in TV and repower it up. It seemed to solve my issue!!
Was this answer helpful?
Did you have the dark areas on your screen?
The right side of my screen went dark did this and it seemed to have worked I will be monitoring it to see if it recurs my model is Vizio M-Series M556-G4 tv isn’t 1 year yet.
Didn't do anything at all.. I have two areas that are now going black on my Vizio TV. Seems this is a common issue. Tells me one thing... don't purchase another Vizio TV. this is not even 2 yrs old.
model e60-c3 maybe 8 years old, shadow on 1/6th of screen (center top to bottom left side), didn't help
The left side was starting to get dark, so I went through the sequence above about a year ago and haven’t had an issue since.
I did a soft reset (hold the power button for about 20 seconds while the TV is plugged in) and the dark screen issue is gone. good as new.
Was this answer helpful?
Past 24 Hours: 50
Past 7 Days: 408
Past 30 Days: 1,638
All Time: 327,746
176 Comments
Same happened to my moms Tv and is just 3 years old... my sharp is 5 years old and still strong guess never get a Vizio ever again
by rod2614
Same problem and I bought mine 6 months ago
by sampatelperformgroup
Same TV same problem here… hope I find out about class action lawsuits.
by turk288
has there been any search for which models or which parts failed this may be a manufactures defective parts.
Model # XVT 3d554SV
by bruce
I have a 70 in smartcast and the left side is just dark enough to notice it and drives me nutz!
by Tony Blatt
Show 171 more comments