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How To Reset Pioneer Radio

Pioneer is a very familiar brand when it comes to car radios. It’s so popular that you’ll rarely come across any car radio roundup list that doesn’t have any model from Pioneer.

But, no matter how good your car radio is, sometimes it can have a glitch that can make the display blank, cause an input lag, not recognize the USB drive, or give you an unbalanced sound (overpowered bass/treble).

How To Reset Pioneer Car Radio

On of the first things you should do under such circumstances is to reset the car radio back to factory settings.

Yes, it will erase the clock settings in your pioneer radio as well EQ options, but you can easily reconfigure them later.

Pioneer has different car stereo series, such as DEH, AVH, etc. In this post, we’ll discuss the reset procedure for each of them one by one.

How to Reset Pioneer DEH Radios

This method will apply to all the pioneer DEH series radios, such as DEH-X7800BHS.

  1. Find the ‘SRC’ (source) button. It’s usually located on the left side of the stereo and is used to change between different input sources such as CD, USB, Radio, etc.
  2. Press and hold this button until the head unit goes to sleep.
  3. Now, press and hold the ‘selector’ button. It’s a large, circular-shaped dial located near the SRC button. Hold this button until you get a menu on the display screen.
  4. After this, rotate the dial until it says ‘Initial’ on the display screen.
  5. Press the selector button to select this option.
  6. Now rotate the dial once again until you get the ‘System reset’ option.
  7. Press the button. It will ask for your confirmation. Press that button again to start the reset process.
  8. Once the reset process completes, your display screen will turn off and then turn on again after a few seconds.

How to Reset Pioneer AVH NEX Radios

The AVH is a high-end series by Pioneer, and these radios are famous for having touchscreens and built-in DVD players.

If you want to reset a Pioneer AVH radio, you can follow the process below:

  1. Tap the ‘gear’ icon on the top-right corner of the touchscreen.
  2. You’ll now see a bunch of different settings. On the left side of the screen, tap on the ‘screwdriver/wrench’ icon which represents the system settings.
  3. Now, you’ll see a list of different system settings such as AV source settings, Input/Output settings, Auto Mix, etc.
  4. Scroll down that list. You’ll see the ‘Restore settings’ option at the bottom.
  5. Tap on that option. Now you’ll see a new screen with a restore button. Tap on this button as well.
  6. This is it. Now the reset procedure has started and will be completed soon.

Hard Reset Pioneer Car Radios

The above two methods work fine unless your car radio is lagging or is not responsive. In such cases, a hard reset is the better option.

Single-DIN Radio Hard Reset

The following method works for all the latest single-DIN pioneer radio such as MVH-S320BT, MVH-S522BS, DEH-S4200BT, etc.

Remove the detachable face-plate of the head unit. It comes off quite easily so you don’t need any extra force.

Now you’ll see a reset hole right in front of you. This hole has the microprocessor reset button. Press that button with the help of a paperclip or pin, and the car radio will reset. After this, re-attach the face-plate again.

Double-DIN radio Hard Reset

Hard resetting a double-din pioneer radio is even easier than it is for their single-din siblings.

Why?

While both radio types require you to press the reset button, the double din units such as FH-S722BS, have this button right along with AUX and USB port (on the bottom-right corner).

It means you don’t need to remove any face-plate this time. Just press that reset button with a pin or paperclip, and you’re good to go.

Michael Brown is the founder of techyaudio.com, a website that provides car audio installation guides and tips. A self-taught car audio enthusiast, Michael has been installing and modifying car stereo systems for over 15 years.

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