One watt white light emitting diodes (LEDs) were made by GaN-based blue light chips. The chips were coated by YAG phosphor and transparent silica gel. Current of 900 mA as electrical stress was carried on the LED samples and the optical properties of the samples were observed by measuring the main optical parameters during the aging test. After 4 200 hours of aging, the luminous flux rate of LEDs declined by a factor between 15% and 18%. Changes in I-V curves indicated the increase in leakage current, which were caused by the increase in defect density. Radiant flux of the blue light drawn from the spectrogram didn’t decrease while the yellow light decreased obviously, which implies the degradation of conversion efficiency of YAG phosphor. Reasons for the increase in color temperature and keeping constant in color rendering index (CRI) were theoretically analyzed. The results of the experiment will provide a reference to the illumination applications of the high power white LED.