TCL is a Chinese multinational electronics company that specializes in consumer electronics, including Smart TVs. Generally known for high-quality products, their TVs, are the perfect combo of best prices and picture quality.
Say you’ve got a TCL smart TV, the last thing you want to start having is display problems, and not knowing how to correct them. In this article, we will be teaching you how to troubleshoot a TCL smart TV with display problems. However, before that, let’s discuss some of the possible causes of display problems; perhaps you can even avoid them before it starts.
TCL Smart TV Display Problems: Possible Causes
TCL smart TVs are generally reliable, however, like any electronic device, you’re bound to experience flaws especially if you’re not operating it properly. Here are some of the most common causes of display problems on TCL smart TVs.
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Incorrect Picture Settings
In most user cases, this is the issue that always plagues them, not anything overly technical. If your TCL Smart TV is displaying a black screen, white screen, or distorted image, the picture settings may be simply incorrect.
If you don’t want to leave it in “Standard”, you may want to adjust the brightness, contrast, and other picture settings to see if that fixes the problem.
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Loose or Damaged Cable Connections
Although this is very unlikely if you’re using the company-supplied cables, and it once worked on the first installation, you can still have the issue.
Over time, your cable might wear out if you don’t do proper cable management causing it to give the TV display problems. You’ll usually be able to spot this when you tilt the cable in a specific manner.
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Faulty LCD, T-CON Board and/or Backlight
On rare occasions, your TV’s backlight hardware can become defective such that it doesn’t illuminate as it should, causing poor screen display.
When this happens, only proper work by an experienced technician can work on, and solve the issue. If you still have your warrant valid, you may want to contact customer support.
TCL Smart TV Display Problems: How to Fix
Several things could cause a TCL smart TV to have display problems. The good thing is that most of them are solvable without the need for a technician.
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Check Connecting Cables
Problems with connecting cables are usually the cause of TV display issues on a TCL smart TV. First, you want to confirm that your HDMI or optical cable is in good condition.
Preferably, you could replace it if you have a spare, or simply use another cable type while changing the input source selection. This means if you’re using an HDMI cable, you may want to try out an optical cable and vice versa.
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Check Power Supply
Although not mentioned in the previous section, power failure is also a common cause of display problems. You start to see your TV dimming out because it’s not receiving enough power supply to illuminate the LEDs.
First, you’ll want to confirm that the room has sufficient power supply by checking the bulbs, next you’ll need to power cycle/restart the device to get things running again. To power cycle your TV, simply unplug it from the socket, leave it for about 5 minutes, and plug it back in.
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Change Backlight Settings
Sometimes, all you need do is simply adjust the backlight level to your taste, and not depend on the stock settings. To do this, on your remote, navigate through Home >> Settings >> Picture Settings >> Backlight Settings >> then use the arrow keys to adjust the backlight to your liking.
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Change the Picture Settings
This is your go-to fix if someone else has been messing with your TV picture settings. You may find that brightness, contrast and other picture settings have been set wrongly, or just not how they should fit with the current room lighting.
To change the picture settings on your TV, on your remote, you’ll want to navigate through Home >> Settings >> Picture Settings >> Picture Mode >> Now pick the one that brings out the best lighting for the environment. TCL TVs come with pre-defined picture settings like Movie, Sports, Vivid, Standard, etc. Standard and vivid are usually the best-preferred settings.
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Update Device Firmware
There are times when your device may be due for an update, and it just starts developing bothering issues; display problems are one of them. There are two ways through which you can update the firmware of a TCL smart TV; via OTA, and manual update.
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Over-the-air (OTA) Update
- Make sure that your TV is connected to the internet.
- Go to the Settings menu.
- Select System Update.
- Select Check Now. If an update is available, it will be downloaded and installed automatically.
- Once the update is installed, your TV will restart.
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Manual Update
- Download the latest firmware file for your TV from the TCL website.
- Extract the firmware file to a USB flash drive.
- Insert the USB flash drive into your TV.
- Go to the Settings menu.
- Select System Update.
- Select Local Update.
- Select the USB flash drive that contains the firmware file.
- Select OK to start the update process.
- Once the update is complete, your TV will restart.
During an update, you want to make sure that you have an uninterrupted power supply, and that the USB flash drive isn’t removed until the process is completed.