How to Reset a Fujitsu Air Conditioner

This guide shows how to reset a Fujitsu air conditioner, step by step. Something is not right with the Fujitsu, and the advice everybody gives is the same. Just reset it. So you go looking for the reset button, and there is not one.

That is not you missing it. Fujitsu does not put a reset button on the indoor unit. What it does give you is four different resets, each for a different problem, and one button that does three separate jobs depending on how long you hold it down. Get the wrong one and you can put the unit into a service mode it was never meant to be in.

The four Fujitsu resets, and which one you need

Work out which problem you have before you press anything.

The manual auto button, and the mistake worth avoiding

This is the button most people mean when they say reset button, and it is the one that needs care.

You will find it by lifting the front panel of the indoor unit upward. Fujitsu describes it as on the right hand side, and a second Fujitsu page places it on the lower right behind the intake grille, so check both. The label varies by model and may read MANUAL AUTO, AUTO or OPERATION.

What it does depends entirely on how long you hold it.

The last row is the one to be careful with. Fujitsu marks forced cooling as for servicing, and its own guidance says not to hold the button longer than 10 seconds because that activates a mode intended only for technicians rather than for regular customer use.

Forced cooling bypasses the normal controls. It is genuinely useful to a technician and genuinely unhelpful in a lounge room. Count while you press.

The filter light, and the pattern that identifies it

Fujitsu gives the filter alert a signature that tells you immediately it is not a fault. The indicator lamp blinks three times, at intervals of 21 seconds.

Three blinks, a long pause, three blinks. That is a filter reminder and nothing else.

Clean the filters, refit them dry, then reset the reminder by pressing the manual auto button on the indoor unit for two seconds or less. Note that this is a short press. A longer press starts auto operation instead, and you will be standing there wondering why the unit switched itself on.

Fujitsu documents cleaning the filters about once every two weeks under normal conditions, washing them in lukewarm water with a neutral household detergent.

On ducted systems with a wired controller the filter sign appears on the monitor screen and is reset from the controller. The exact sequence differs between controller models, so check the manual for yours rather than trusting a single set of steps found online.

How to reset a Fujitsu remote control

There is a reset on the remote, and it is a recessed pinhole rather than a button you can press with a finger. On older remotes the same pinhole is labelled ACL, which stands for all clear and does the same job.

Fujitsu says to use the tip of a ballpoint pen or other small object.

1. Find the pinhole. It is marked RESET or ACL, and on many remotes it sits behind the cover or on the lower part of the face.
2. Press it with a pen tip until the display goes blank.
3. Release. The remote returns to its factory settings.
4. Set the clock and the day of the week again, because the reset clears them.

Two Fujitsu Australia pages disagree slightly on the detail. One describes a single press with a pointed object, the other describes holding a reset button for five seconds on the bottom right of the controller. The operating manuals show it as a recessed pinhole pressed once. Press until the display goes blank and you satisfy all three.

How to power reset a Fujitsu air conditioner

This is the closest thing to a full system reset that exists, and it is done at the isolator rather than on the unit.

1. Stop the unit from the remote.
2. Switch off the isolating switch. Fujitsu directs people to the isolation switch near the outdoor unit, and it is often the one people do not know they have.
3. Wait. Fujitsu publishes three different figures across its own pages, from about 30 seconds, to at least five minutes, to 10 to 15 minutes where error codes are involved. Five minutes satisfies the common cases.
4. Switch the power back on.
5. Wait again before judging it. The compressor will not run for about three minutes after power is restored.

When power comes back, Fujitsu units with automatic restart resume in the same mode and settings they had before, so you should not need to set anything again.

Why will my Fujitsu not turn on with all three lights flashing?

This one deserves its own section because it looks alarming and the fix takes half a minute.

If the unit refuses to start and all three indoor lights flash a few times and then go out, Fujitsu Australia attributes this to the weekly timer being enabled.

1. Open the cover on the remote controller.
2. Look for WEEKLY on the display.
3. Press the WEEKLY button to disable it.
4. Check that WEEKLY has disappeared from the screen.
5. Start the unit with the on and off button.

No technician, no reset, no power cycle. An accidental button press on a remote that lives on the arm of a sofa.

What the three lights on a Fujitsu mean

Before resetting anything, read the lamps. They tell you whether you have a fault at all.

Fujitsu also documents one specific combination as a genuine fault. Its manuals say to stop operation immediately and turn off the electrical breaker when the operation indicator and timer indicator blink while the economy indicator is blinking fast, and then to consult authorised service personnel.

That is the combination that means stop. A lone flashing operation lamp in the middle of a cold Melbourne morning usually means defrost.

Before you reset anything, check these

Fujitsu documents several behaviours that look like faults and are not. Resetting through any of them wastes your time and tells you nothing.

Reading an error code from a Fujitsu

Fujitsu stores error codes and they can be read from the lamps, but this is a technician procedure rather than a homeowner one, and it is worth being honest about why.

The procedure puts the unit into a test run. It involves disconnecting power for 10 to 15 minutes, restoring it, then starting a test run either with the recessed test run button on the remote or by holding the manual auto button for 10 seconds or more, which is the forced cooling press. The operation and timer lamps then flash a pattern that has to be counted, with pauses, allowed to repeat at least twice.

The blink pattern then has to be matched against a model specific table. Fujitsu publishes those tables in a trade document rather than on a consumer page, and the tables differ between models.

For that reason this page does not print a blink count table. Every one circulating on Australian trade blogs is unverifiable against Fujitsu published consumer documentation, and quoting the wrong one sends you to the wrong conclusion about your own unit.

If you want the code, the honest advice is to have a technician read it, or to report exactly what the lamps are doing when you call. The lamp behaviour alone is often enough to narrow it down before anybody drives out.

When a reset is not the answer

Stop resetting and make the call when any of these apply.

• The operation and timer indicators blink while the economy indicator blinks fast. This is Fujitsu published stop now condition.
• There is a burning smell. Fujitsu says to stop operation immediately and disconnect the power supply at the breaker.
• The breaker trips every time you restore power.
• The unit runs but will not change the room temperature with clean filters and a clear airflow path.
• Water is appearing on the wall below the indoor unit.
• The same fault returns within hours of every reset.

A reset that works once and has to be repeated weekly is not a fix. It is a fault with a delay on it.

Getting a Fujitsu back without breaking anything

There is no single reset button on a Fujitsu, and that is the useful thing to know. There is a short press for the filter light, a pinhole for the remote, an isolator for the whole system, and a weekly timer button that explains more mystery failures than any of them.

Match the reset to the problem, count the seconds on the manual auto button, and give the unit three minutes before deciding anything. If your remote is the problem rather than the unit, our guide to Fujitsu air conditioner symbols covers what each display icon is telling you.

When a reset only buys you a few days, that is the point where guessing costs more than asking. We send a licensed technician who works on Fujitsu split, multi head and ducted systems across Melbourne, and the price is confirmed before any work starts. It is also worth knowing how often you should service your air conditioner, since clean filters remove a good share of the reasons people reset in the first place.

If you are resetting more than once a season, the answer is usually maintenance rather than a fault, and our guide on how often to service a Fujitsu air conditioner sets out the interval.

If the reset will not hold, our Fujitsu air conditioning service covers the diagnosis, and you can request a quote with the error code already noted.