If Your Zune Won’t Turn On
A couple days after getting my Zune, I woke up and went to turn it on - and nothing. Nada. I went online in search for the answer, and found a lot of answers - and none that were the answer I was looking for.In my situation, it was far simpler than all of the crazy solutions I read about. So if you’re a new Zune user, and your Zune won’t turn on, you might have the same problem I had…
The battery went dead and needed charging.
Before you laugh - read on. Naturally, I thought it could be a dead battery, but wrongly assumed that when I plugged it in, the power from the USB cable would immediately wake it up. That is wrong.
If your Zune goes dead, it will take several minutes (give it 10 minutes even) of charging from the USB connection before it will turn on. I believe that’s because the power from the USB cable doesn’t directly power the Zune, so it must charge the battery enough to run first.
If that is not your problem, I did learn of other things to try when researching my “dead” Zune problem. The most common answer I saw was that you need to simply reset the Zune. How to reset your Zune? Simply hold down the back and up button on the control pad. Also, make sure the keypad isn’t locked on the top, so that if you do need to reset it the keys will actually work.
If your Zune ever seems to be acting strange, it might be wise to reset it. This is the exact same as rebooting a computer when it’s giving you problems.
Some people said to merely plug it into the USB cable and that might “wake it up” so to speak.
Other Zune battery tips
I noticed that leaving it on in wireless mode will drain the battery far faster than with wireless mode off. If you use the wireless sync, be sure to turn wireless mode back off as soon as the sync is complete. And if you’re like me and hate to pick up your Zune after a night of sleep, only to see the battery’s charge has gone down, you can also turn the Zune completely off instead of having it go into standby mode. Standby mode allows it to come up faster, but slowly drains the battery over time. Press the back button and push the control pad down and it will power off in a few seconds. Press and hold the play button to turn it on again. It takes longer to power up, but those extra few seconds are easily saved in extended battery time.
So to recap the commands…
Back + Up = Reset/Restart
Back + Down = Turn off, also known as Sleep mode
Tags: zune
April 7th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
hey, thanks for the post.. had the same problem and hopped online to see what might be going on. keep on keepin on!
April 7th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Thank YOU for the comment! Glad you found the site, and I hope I was able to help in some way. Good luck to you!
April 12th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
hey bro thanks now my zune is working again i had no clue that u could reset it like that i was so pissed it wouldnt turn on thanks for the help
April 13th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Thanks! On Holiday in Sri Lanka and my Zune died on the first day….. can you imagine how bored i would have been………
Rob
September 10th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Great tip!! I live in south america and we got no Zune tech support…it turned on after charging for 15 minutes!!!
September 14th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
hey none of that is really working for me but i just got it today, tried turning it on, didnt work, charged it for two hours and still doesnt work please tell me the problem thanks
September 18th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
thank you so much! i borrowed this zune from a friend and i thought he’ll kill me if he found out! But thanks to you, i was able to turn it back on! thank you a million times!!! =]
September 26th, 2008 at 2:33 am
Ahh you are a life saver - mine died in germany, would have been a real problem
September 27th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Thanks, my Zune stopped while I was downstairs (I have it upstairs) not long after it got in contact with a very small amount of water. :O (As in a sort of wet pack of gum, wet because you had it while walking in the rain like a half hour ago, touching the Zune quick leaving slightly visible water stains), when I came back up and it didn’t work and I didn’t get any sort of response right away I freaked out a little. Hope it works.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
And it worked. Thanks for getting me less stressed. (Got it two days ago, so you can’t help freaking out)
October 1st, 2008 at 2:28 am
OH MY GOSH! THank you!!!!! Yayayayayayayay!!!!
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Nope, same problem and this solution did not work for me.
October 6th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Thank you MAN!!!! I was sad because I didn’t pay for the warranty and my Zune just froze and shut off and wouldn’t turn back on! I was Like “Oh my God, I have a dead Zune now!” Thanks to you, I am saved! My life is saved, many peoples lives are saved!
October 8th, 2008 at 2:55 am
whew, tnx a lot.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
30g ZUNE ALMOST COMPLETELY FULL, HAD IT TWO YEARS. IT SHUT OFF DEAD. MY MOOD WAS VERY DARK, AND YOUR POST REALLY BRIGHTENED ME UP WHEN THE ZUNE CAME BACK ON,…NOW I WANT TO SYNC IT WITH ANOTHER ZUNE AS A BACKUP,…I DON’T WANT TO EVER ALMOST LOSE NEARLY 7000 SONGS, SOME VERY RARE THAT TOOK OVER 2 YEARS TO LOAD. ANY IDEAS HOW TO TRANSFER TO ANOTHER ZUNE WHILE KEEPING ALL I GOT ON THIS ONE BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD SO’S I’LL HAVE 2 COPIES?
October 20th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
oh man dude thanks alot
i had done called to get a repair request and all that shit lol but i plugged it in and let it sit and it turned on
thank you alot dude yur the shit
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
Thank-you sooooo much! All i had to do was reset it and now it is working. I am about to go on a loooonnnggg trip and i was gonna listen to it but it wouldnt turn on and it wouldnt charge. but now it is working so thank you soooo much!
November 5th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Great advice! This really helped me fix my zune, much more informative and correct than other sites I explored. Thanks!
November 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
thanks ur freakin brilliant!
November 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am
Hey thanks for the post…had a similar problem…plugged my zune to charge overnight because the battery ran out, but it would not turn on the next morning…plugged it and charging indicator came on but still will not turn on…after reading your post, decided to leave it charging for a while and its responding now… thanks.