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After a couple of years, your Insignia TV can develop a blue tint. It looks like the backlight is working, so what’s wrong?
Luckily, it is completely possible to fix the blue tint on your Insignia TV within minutes, just by following the listed fixes below.
Nine out of ten people can get their TV back up and running again after following these steps, and if you can’t, there’s some further information for you at the bottom.
But I’m very confident that this will work for you, so let’s get started.
Insignia TV Blue Tint
To fix an Insignia TV blue tint, reset your TV by power cycling it. Unplug your TV and wait for 30 minutes. Hold down the power button for 15 seconds to drain any residual charge, then plug it back in and the blue tint will be gone.
This works for nearly everyone to fix their TV’s blue tint, but if it hasn’t worked for you, then we can try a handful of hardware and software fixes to diagnose and treat the problem.
Let’s start with a few basic steps that you might have overlooked before we get into the more in-depth fixes.
1. Reset Your TV
With modern electronics, it’s possible that the blue tint on your Insignia TV is caused by something stuck in your TV’s flash memory, which can also be a problem if you are seeing horizontal lines on your TV.
Power cycling your TV will clear out any issues with non-permanent memory and reset your main board without losing your personal settings.
This is quick and painless and won’t cause you to lose any of your saved settings.
- Switch off and unplug your TV.
- Hold down the physical power button on the TV for at least 15 seconds.
- Wait for at least 30 minutes for any residual power to drain from the TV’s capacitors (which are capable of storing charge for several minutes).
- Plug your TV back in and try switching it on. You should see a red light if you have been successful.
Make sure you do wait for the full 30 minutes before plugging your TV back in – you would be surpised how long the components within your TV can hold charge, and you want to make sure it has fully reset.
Although this seems a very basic step, don’t overlook it because in the vast majority of cases a simple soft reset fixes most issues.
Most people will now have their TV fixed and back up and running. If this isn’t you, then we’ve got a few more basic fixes to try before getting into the hardware fixes.
2. Reseat the HDMI Cables
There’s a strong possibility that a poorly seated cable is creating signal noise which is displaying as a blue tint.
This comes down to either a:
- Faulty HDMI cable with a break in it
- Damaged HDMI port with broken pins
- Poor HDMI connection where the cable and connector are not fully making contact
To check your HDMI and other cables:
- Switch off your TV.
- Remove any HDMI or other physical cables connected to the back of your TV.
- If you have any compressed air, use that to clean the contacts both of the cable and in the connector on the TV. If you don’t have compressed air, then blow gently on them.
- Firmly push the cables back into their slots on the TV.
- Switch your TV back on again.
It that hasn’t fixed the problem, then try using a different HDMI input. Most TVs have 3 or 4 HDMI ports.
If you have one that is on a different part of the TV then that would be the best one to try, as it this should have a separate connection to the TV’s main board.
Plug you HDMI cable into the new port, note the number next to it, then choose this HDMI input on your TV, by using the Input or Source button on your TV remote or the Input or Menu button on your TV itself.
You can also try removing all external devices, including those connected by Bluetooth and any coaxial or signal cables, so that the TV only has a power cable going into it.
When you turn your TV on, this means the screen will be black as it is not receiving any picture, potentially making it tough to see a blue tint.
Pull up the on-screen menu to see if the blue tint is still there. If it is, this means that your external connections are fine and the problem is located within the hardware of your TV.
If the blue tint has gone, then try re-seating your HDMI and other cables one by one, until you find the damaged cable that needs replacing.
3. Change the Color Tint in Settings
Most Insignia TVs have an option to change the color temperature or other aspects of the picture.
Using your remote control, navigate to the Home screen, then Settings and go to the Picture menu.
You can use the Color and Tint options and hopefully you will be able to get a decent picture without any color tint.
If not, you can try the various picture modes to see if they fix the blue tint, and then go to Advanced Settings.
Try changing the Color Temperature to warm and hopefully it will let you totally remove the blue tint.
4. Factory Reset Your Insignia TV
Returning your TV back to its factory settings is a more extreme step, as it will delete any personalization features, downloaded apps or connected devices, but it’s always worth a shot when other methods haven’t worked.
To factory reset an Insignia TV:
- Press the Home button on your remote and go to Settings.
- Then Device & Software.
- And Reset to Factory Defaults.
- Enter your PIN, which by default is 0000 (four zeroes) for Insignia.
- Then select one final Reset in the popup.
If your remote isn’t working, then to reset an Insignia Fire TV:
- Unplug your TV.
- Hold down the TV’s Power Button, which will probably be underneath the screen.
- Plug your TV back in.
- Once it comes back on, let go of the Power Button.
- It will boot into the Android Recovery Menu.
- Scroll down to Wipe data/factory reset by clicking the Power Button.
- Then press and hold the Power Button until the line turns green.
- Let go of the Power Button, then select Yes to confirm a factory reset by clicking the Power Button to select it, then holding it down until the line turns green.
- You’ll see the recovery menu again, where you should select reboot system now by holding down the Power Button.
- To re-pair your remote, hold down the Home button on the remote for ten seconds once your TV has restarted.
That should solve most blue tint issues without you having to delve into hardware problems, but just in case you still have a problem then this will be caused by the backlights, which will need replacing.
5. Replace Your Insignia’s Backlights
Blue tints are very common on TVs older than two or three years. This is because of the design of the LEDs used in the backlight and the fact that they can easily burn out.
Insignia TV backlight panels use blue-light LEDs as their base, with a phosphor yellow coating over the LED.
The blue light shining through the yellow phosphor creates white light, which is what you see on a correctly functioning TV.
But after a couple of years, the phosphor can burn off, meaning that blue light shines through unfiltered, giving your screen a blue tint.
These LEDs must be replaced, but luckily this is not a terribly expensive job, although it does require some work on your part.
If you’re not comfortable totally disassembling your TV, then now is the time to get a professional in, or to get a new TV.
Backlights on modern Insignia TVs come in LED strips of varying lengths. Older models used lengths that spanned the entire frame of the TV, but due to cost savings, more recent TVs use a set 16″ or smaller LED strip which is connected in series for each row to span your TV.
You can get replacement LED strips quite easily from eBay – just put in your TV model number to be sure you are buying the correct type.
If you have a TV backlight tester to hand, then you could get away with testing every backlight strip in your TV individually and only replacing the broken strips, but it’s a lot less work to just replace every backlight and skip the testing, particularly given the relatively low price of LED backlights.
See the full process for replacing backlights below. This isn’t for the faint-hearted, but it will save you a considerable amount of money from either professionally repairing or replacing your TV.
To prevent LEDs burning off their phosphor layer in future, make sure you do not set your backlight to 100% brightness. The phosphor layer is destroyed by thermal degradation of the LEDs, caused by a too bright backlight setting. Reduce this to the lowest level you are comfortable with to prolong your backlight’s life.
Insignia TV Support and Warranty
Unfortunately, warranties typically only last a year unless you have already paid to extend it.
Although you are unlikely to see a blue tint on an Insignia TV under one year old, this can happen. If so, return your TV under warranty and get it fixed.
You can also try to contact Insignia support directly to see if they can offer any help.
You can use the Insignia support site to help diagnose your problem, but if you are at this stage, then you are better off calling them direct on:
- 1-877-467-4289 (8am – 9am CT, 7 days a week)
You can also contact them any time via email.
Even if Insignia won’t fix your TV, they might still offer you a discount off a future model if you pester them hard enough! Always worth a try!
So, How Do You Fix a Insignia TV Blue Tint?
If you’re seeing a blue tint on your Insignia TV, then you can fix it by:
- Resetting your TV.
- Reseating the HDMI cables.
- Factory resetting your TV.
- Changing your picture settings.
- Replacing your TV’s backlights.
Hopefully you’ve fixed your TV, but if not, give me a shout in the comments and I’ll see what I can do to help.
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