Amazon Kindle Fire Won’t Turn On – Here’s What to Do

Are you facing the nightmare when your Amazon Kindle Fire won’t turn on no matter what you do? Here’s a complete guide to troubleshoot the problem and hopefully bring your beloved tablet back to life.

Back in the day when Apple unveiled the mighty iPad to be the ultimate portable home entertainment device, the competitors in the Android arena rushed to compete with it. Over the years, the tablet market share has dwindled significantly, but one space where it keeps going strong is the kid’s department, where parents are looking for cheaper and user-friendly solution to keeping their children entertained. This is where the Amazon Kindle and Amazon Fire tablets have filled in the gap with an affordable lineup of devices that cater to the family crowd of consumers.

Whether you’re an avid reader who enjoys their fair share of books and novels, for a multi-talented mom who needs a tablet around the home which doubles up as an entertainment portal for the kids, Amazon Kindle and Amazon Fire tablets are just the right fit. But what do you do when the Amazon Kindle Fire won’t turn on and you’re stuck with just a blank screen that stares back at you? Gadgets can shoot up trouble without any warnings, and if you’ve got one that’s acting up, we can help you troubleshoot it.

Solution No. 1 – Soft Reset

Just like any other piece of technology out there, the Amazon Fire tablet can falter sometimes and cause unwanted crashes and hang-ups. There may have been instances when you were using the tablet and the screen just froze on you, without you being able to get things back up again. A blank screen can sometimes be the issue when the device stops responding and the screen freezes, and the easiest way to fix an Amazon Kindle Fire won’t turn on is by performing a soft reset.

1. On your Amazon Fire tablet, press and hold the Power and Volume Down
2. Keep pressing and holding down the two buttons until the screen boots back up.
3. Try plugging in the charger cable into the device during the process in case the battery is too low for it to turn on.

On some of the older models of the Amazon Fire tablets, you may only need to press and hold down the Power button (1^st to 4^th Generation models)

Solution No. 2 – Check the Charging Connection

This may seem like a no-brainer, but if the battery on your Amazon Fire tablet is not receiving the appropriate or any amount of power supply from the wall charger or through the cable, it could be the direct issue behind the device not turning on. In some cases, even when the USB cable and the wall charger adapter seem to be in perfect cosmetic condition, the internals may be all screwed up, affecting the performance. Before you pull your hair out worrying about why the Amazon Kindle Fire won’t turn on check the following:

1. Make sure that the wall adapter is properly plugged in, and the USB-A end of the cable is firmly plugged into the wall adapter as well.
2. Check to see if the MicroUSB port on the USB cable is in pristine condition. If the port seems to be bent out of shape or twisted, the charging pins inside may have been damaged.
3. Try replacing the charging cable or the wall adapter or both of them to see if it fixes the issue.
4. Inspect the charging port on the Amazon Fire tablet to see if the connector port is not damaged or blocked by any dirt, lint, or debris.

By assuring that the connection between the charging cable and adapter, and the Amazon Fire tablet is correctly in place, you can rest assured that a proper power supply is being provided to the battery. However, if this does not seem to change the condition of the tablet that just won’t turn on, move on to the next solution.

Solution No. 3 – Check the Screen

There is a strong chance that the battery on your Amazon Fire tablet works just fine, and so does the charging system. However, you may not be able to know any of these facts because you’re unable to see anything pop up on the screen. A broken display can sometimes go pitch dark, giving you the impression that the device is turned off, whereas it is only the display that has stopped working.

1. Make sure that you leave the tablet plugged into a charger for an hour before trying anything out.
2. Press and hold the Power button to see if you feel any vibration that would indicate that the tablet is turning on.
3. Press the Volume Up button to see if any sound or notification can be heard.
4. Plug the Amazon Fire tablet into a laptop or a computer and wait to see if the device is detected by the system.

If any of the above actions indicate that the Amazon Fire TV is in working condition, then you have the confirmation that the screen is the issue here. You will need to take the device to a service center for repair to find out if the display connection is faulty or whether it needs to be replaced entirely.

Solution No. 4 – Check for Water Damage

If you’ve got kids around the house who use the Amazon Fire tablet wherever they go, it wouldn’t be surprising if the device ended up taking a dip in the bath tub or in the kitchen sink. Under such circumstances, water damage is the biggest fear to the life of your Amazon Fire or Kindle tablet, and immediate steps need to be taken if your Amazon Kindle Fire won’t turn on under any circumstances.

1. Rinse out the device and shake out any remaining water droplets from the outlets such as the USB charging port, the speakers, and the microphone slot.
2. Take a large Ziploc bag and fill it up with uncooked rice almost 3/4 way up.
3. Insert the Amazon Fire tablet into the Ziploc bag and seal it all up.
4. Leave the Amazon Fire tablet in the rice bag for up to 2 days to ensure that all of the moisture has been removed.
5. Take out the tablet, leave it to charge for an hour and then press and hold the Power button to see if it turns on.

These steps of reclaiming the lost life of your Amazon Fire tablet after a fatal drop in water is useful only up to a stage. The sooner you act on it and follow the steps highlighted above, the better are your chances of making the device turn on successfully.

Final Words

All of the methods highlighted above to bring your unresponsive Amazon Fire tablet or Kindle tablet back to life have been tried and tested by thousands of users. Since the issue with each and every device varies on the condition of the tablet, environment and circumstances during which it stopped working, there is just not a one-shot fix to resolving the problem of the Amazon Fire tablet not working. If you’ve faced similar issues with your device and found a way to fix it that we haven’t mentioned here, be sure to highlight it in the comments section and we’ll be sure to verify it.