If your Sanyo TV won’t turn on you need to reset it. Unplug your TV and wait a full 60 seconds. While the TV is unplugged, press and hold the power button for 30 seconds. After the 60 seconds are up, plug your Sanyo TV back in and it should work.

Unplug Sanyo TV from wall

While this fix sounds obvious, unplugging your Sanyo TV from the wall socket is the most common way to get it to turn back on.

The key here is to actually wait the FULL 60 seconds. Have a little bit of patience and make sure it’s been at least a minute before plugging it back in.

While the TV is unplugged, find and hold the power button on your Sanyo TV for 30 seconds. Make sure you are holding the power button on your TV, and not your remote!

This will help to drain any residual power left in the TV and allows the TV to soft reset itself. This is different than simply switching the remote on and off!

Once you plug the TV back in after the 60 seconds, you should see it power back up no problem.

While this fix should work for about 80% of cases, the remaining 20% can be a bit trickier. If you’re still having trouble getting your Sanyo TV to turn back on try the fixes detailed below.

Remove batteries from Sanyo remote

If unplugging and re-plugging your TV in didn’t fix the problem, try taking the batteries out of your remote.

Make sure to take both batteries completely out of the remote.

With the batteries removed proceed to hold down the power button on the remote for 30 seconds. Again, do this for a full 30 seconds! Not 10 seconds, 30!

After the full 30 seconds are up, put the batteries back in the remote and try to turn on the TV. It should power back on.

You might want to consider putting in a new set of batteries during this step just to be sure!

If either of the two steps above fix your Sanyo TV power problem but then a few days or weeks later you run into the same issue, you’ll want to try factory resetting your TV for a more permanent solution.

Factory reset Sanyo TV

With the TV powered on (hopefully unplugging it or removing the remote batteries was able to temporarily power the TV) click the Home button on your remote.

Then go to Settings > System > Advance system settings > Factory reset > Factory reset everything. Then enter the four digit code provided on the screen. Your TV will turn off and on again and then display the initial setup screen.

This will essentially restore your Sanyo TV to the settings it had on the day you purchased the television.

(If you have an older Sanyo TV, the factory reset steps may differ slightly from what’s above. Go to Sanyo’s website, enter your TVs model number and find the user manual for your TV. That manual will provide the exact steps to perform a factory reset.)

Factory reset Sanyo TV without remote

If for whatever reason you do not have access to your TV’s remote, you can still factory reset your Sanyo TV.

To do this, find the small reset button on the back of your TV. Depending on the model you have this may be on the right hand side, left hand side, or very bottom of the device.

Get a ballpoint pen and press that reset button for 10-15 seconds. You should see the Sanyo logo appear on the TV. When you do, you can stop pressing the rest button.

If you’re having trouble finding this reset button on your TV, or if your TV is mounted in a tight spot, there are other options.

First, consider plugging in a USB keyboard directly into the back of your Sanyo TV.

You can then use the keyboard to navigate and reset your TV.

Another option, if you have a Sanyo Roku TV, is to download the the Roku app to your smart phone.

After connecting your TV to the app, you can use your smart phone as a remote!

A final possibility is to grab a universal remote you have lying around and enter the appropriate Sanyo code for the remote to get it working.

At this point you should have fully resolved your power issues but just in case you haven’t I’ve included some additional steps worth trying before calling it quits.

Reseat power cord in back of Sanyo TV

Another pretty easy potential fix to your power problem is to unplug the power cord from the back of the TV.

Leave this unplugged for 60 seconds or so and then plug it back in.

When you plug it back in make sure that the connection is snug! You don’t want this to be loose at all – a tight connection is important to ensure the TV is getting stable power.

With the power cord plugged back in, power on the TV using the TV power button, not the remote!

Hopefully you see the TV come back to life.

Select the Correct Input Source

Your Sanyo TV might appear to not turn on because of an incorrect input source. You have to choose the proper input source for your TV to work correctly.

So whether you’re using a streaming device, DVD player, or a cable box, double check that your TV source/input matches the number HDMI port being used. In the example below, you’d turn the TV to “HDMI 2”.

You can select the correct input source using two different methods:

Method 1 – Enable Input Source using a Remote Control

Turn on your TV
Press the Source button on your remote control
Select the desired input mode

Method 2 – Change Input Source without Remote Control

Turn on your TV
Press the MENU button on the side or bottom of the TV
Use the volume button to navigate to the source option
Press the menu button to select the desired input source

Note: Some TVs have a source button at the back or side that you can use to select your preferred input source

Try a different power outlet

While unlikely the cause, if you’re still having no luck up until this point then I would try plugging your Sanyo TV into a different power outlet in your home.

Sometimes outlets have a short or a blown fuse and we just don’t know it.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to lug your TV around, you could simply grab another smaller appliance and plug it into the outlet you’re trying to use for your TV.

If you see that device power on then you know that particular outlet is working and that’s probably not your issue.

Again, this is likely not the cause but a worthwhile troubleshooting step that should be quick to eliminate as a suspect.

Backlight is broken

If nothing has worked to this point it is very possible that the backlight of your Sanyo TV is broken.

An easy way to determine whether or not this is the case is to power on your TV and then take a flashlight and bring it very close to your TV screen.

Look very closely to see if there is any image on the screen when you flash the light.

If you see a picture appearing, but it’s extremely faint, it’s probably because the backlight of your TV failed and it needs to be replaced.

Analog power board is fried

Blow capacitors on the analog power board are a very common issue with Sanyo TVs. This IC chip often gets overheated.

Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure is to take the back panelling off of your TV. Once you do this, you should see the power board on the left hand side.

To be sure that the issue is in fact the power board, you want to plug your TV in and turn it on and then detach the cable that links the motherboard to the power board, from the power board side.

If the TV still lights up, then you know the power board is fine, and you have a bad motherboard.

Motherboards are also pretty cheap to replace, just make sure you get the exact replacement by checking the numbers on the board itself.

Or, if you’re not comfortable doing this yourself, go ahead and have a TV repairman assist you.

Watch this video on YouTube

Contact Sanyo support

If you still can’t get your Sanyo TV to turn on, you can try contacting the Sanyo support team.

You can reach their support hotline at 1-866-212-0436. (Operation hours: Monday-Friday: 10am – 7pm EST).

Conclusion

Sanyo TV’s can be finicky when it comes to power. If your Sanyo TV won’t turn on try these fixes in this order:

Unplug your TV from the wall and wait 60 seconds
Remove the batteries from your remote and hold the power button for 30 seconds
Factory reset your TV with or without your remote
Reseat the power cord in the back of your TV
Make sure your TV is on the correct input source
Try plugging your TV into a different power outlet
Send the TV in for a backlight replacement
Send the TV in for an analog power board replacement

If none of these fixes work you might want try contacting Sanyo support. Otherwise you’re stuck buying a new TV.

Let me know if this helped fix your Sanyo TV. If you found success doing something else, leave me a comment down below!

Sanyo TV won’t turn on