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Onn tablets, like Onn TVs, are affordable options for those who just want simplicity rather than a powerhouse tablet that costs hundreds of dollars. For the most part, Onn tablets feature solid reviews in the affordable tablet market but, like most tablets, they have glitches from time to time as well.
If your Onn tablet won’t turn on, the first thing you need to do is plug it into a power source. You should also consider potential charging problems, the backlight, app issues causing problems, your battery is shot, or the tablet just needing a good reset.
You’re probably curious as to how in the world you can deal with glitches and faulty apps on a device you can’t turn on. Yeah, it sounds like quite the conundrum but, don’t worry, we’ll cover that and more in our guide below.
Table of Contents
5 Fixes To Onn Tablet Not Turning On
1. Plug Your Onn Tablet In
This seems to be the most immediate and obvious answer to power issues with an Onn tablet. You may face a situation where the tablet has been sitting, unused throughout the night and there shouldn’t be any reason for a loss of charge.
However, there are always background processes going on, even when the tablet is asleep and sitting on the countertop, untouched.
If you have a specific app or two that draw a lot of memory and power, they could drain the battery despite the fact that you aren’t actively using the tablet.
Like any tablet or phone, when you plug in an Onn tablet completely drained, you’ll have to give it a minute before it turns on. Plug it into the charger, wait about five minutes, and attempt to turn the tablet on (assuming it doesn’t turn on by itself).
2. Backlight is Out
This is rare but it does happen from time to time. What happens is the backlight fails to light up the screen and you just assume that the Onn tablet is off and won’t turn on.
The fundamental operation of the tablet is still intact. In fact, if you have the audio volume up, you may even hear noise coming from the speakers as you touch the screen.
The only solution to this is taking the Onn tablet to a screen repair service. Onn offers a one-year warranty on its tablets that covers material defects and issues with workmanship.
A faulty backlight within the first year, assuming the tablet has never been dropped or otherwise mishandled, should be repaired for free, under the device’s warranty.
Outside of a year, most screen repair services with replace the screen and backlight for anywhere between $50 and $150 bucks. Usually, the backlight and screen operations are intertwined or otherwise too difficult to repair one without the other.
3. Faulty Charging Cable or Charging Port
It may not be that the Onn tablet won’t turn on but that it’s dead. If the charging cable is shot or there is something wrong with the charging port, you might mistakenly assume your Onn tablet charged all night when it actually didn’t.
So, you have a dead Onn tablet and the first order of business is to plug it in. If five minutes go by and you still can’t turn it on, it’s time to start looking at the charging cable, the adapter portion that plugs into the outlet, and the port on the tablet itself.
Checking over these items is a pretty simple process of elimination. Start with the port. Use a bright flashlight and a magnifying glass to look down inside the Onn tablet port. Be sure there is no debris or dirt inside—anything that could interrupt the completion of the circuit when you plug in the micro-USB.
Check the male end of your micro-USB as well (amazon.com link). If you think the cable might be at fault, exchange it for another micro-USB cable and check that as well. You should always use the adapter that comes with the tablet or the one that’s recommended by Onn.
However, if the factory-supplied adapter may not be working, you can check to see if that’s the problem by switching to another adapter. One that you use to charge other devices or smartphones around your home should work just fine. All you’re doing is running through the process of elimination anyway.
4. Faulty App
This kind of situation crops up all the time, especially when the firmware of the app isn’t updated to full compatibility with the latest Android update for your tablet. The app essentially causes the tablet to freeze up. If it happens to freeze when you aren’t using it, the screen will simply remain black.
If the app is causing the problem, your Onn tablet is probably on, just frozen in its current state. Fortunately, there is a way around this and all you need to do is boot the tablet in ‘Safe Mode.’
- Press and hold the power button on your Onn tablet
- This may take quite a while, as you’re holding the power button well beyond the timeframe for shutting down the tablet
- Within a minute or so, you should get an options menu onscreen
- Don’t interact with the power options menu
- Instead, release and press (holding down again) the power button
- Once the ‘Reboot to Safe Mode’ menu pops up, release the power button
- Select ‘Ok’ to boot in Safe Mode
- Uninstall any questionable apps you have on your device
- If you can’t uninstall, clear data or cache instead
- Exit ‘Safe Mode’ by powering down and back up normally
This may not immediately solve the problem, depending on whether or not you were able to delete the app that’s causing the tablet to freeze. However, it will get your tablet out of its current state. Once you’re out of Safe Mode, you should be able to delete any apps you want to.
5. Battery Issues
Onn may replace your battery if you need them to with a warranty but you first need to decide whether or not the issue is the battery.
If your Onn tablet won’t turn on, plugging it in to charge it should be the determining factor. If the tablet turns on when you plug it in, check the current battery status.
Let it charge for 10 to 20 minutes and unplug it. If the tablet immediately turns off, you definitely have a battery problem. This generally means the battery is no longer holding any kind of charge. You may be able to get the battery up to 100% again but it will probably die quickly once it’s off the charger.
From this point forward, your options are to send the tablet in and get a new battery, attempt a DIY battery removal and installation (another article all by itself), purchase a new Onn tablet, or only use it while it’s plugged in. The latter option seriously reduces the portability factor of the tablet, for obvious reasons.
Final Thoughts
Onn tablets are terrific, affordable options for those who just need a tablet for basic web browsing and light gaming. However, they face the same problems all of the other tablets out there face, one of which is failing to turn on as expected, every time.
The good news is, for the most part, it’s a simple glitch—most likely caused by a single app. A reset or boot into safe mode will usually solve the problem. For more complicated repairs, contact Onn’s customer service and see about your warranty or other repair options and costs.
