When pushed, the 30 sec button says 3 minutes. none of the display buttons work.

Are you merely tapping the Start button quickly, or are you maybe holding it for a pause or two, or are you perhaps pressing it twice. The Start button is programmed to add 30 seconds if it detects a 2nd push.

The interdace that converts pushes into signals may have died, you may need a new front panel...they may be available...had to change 2 on our old toshiba

clean ribbon cable contacts on control board

There are sixty seconds in a minute, so 1 min 60 sec is the same as 2 min. If you want 40 seconds less than 2 minutes then set it for 1 min 20 sec or for 80 sec.

follow the steps and fix it. God bless you

1) Press the "Stop" button on the microwave to reset the digital display to the clock setting.

2) Push the "Clock" button once. Locate the "Hour" button and press it once for each hour of time. For example, if the current time is 5:15 p.m., press the Hour button five times.

3 )Press the "Minute" button to set the second half of the time. For the example above, you would press the Minute button 15 times to set a time of 5:15 p.m.

4)Push the Clock button to save the time setting. Check the time on the microwave's digital display.

The drawer often stops working when it is abruptly stopped while opening and forced closed or vice-versa. To fix, simply do the following:
1) Push the draw all the way closed
2) Push the "Setup" button repeatedly until the "Open/Close ...?" appears.
3) Hold the Start Button until the time reappears in the display.
4) Repeat steps 2 & 3 three more times
5) Unplug the Microwave for 30 minutes.
The drawer is now reset. The drawer will now open electronically (automatically) either by pushing the open button on the panel or by pulling the drawer handle slightly.

The owner's manual is here. On page 10 we find:

COOKING IN ONE STAGE
1. Press the POWER button; the Microwave and High
Cook indicators will light and “PL 10” will light in the
display.
2. Press the POWER button different times to set the
desired power; the display will show the percentage
you chose. If selecting power level 70%-10%, the
Low Cook indicator will light instead of the High
Cook indicator.
3. Press number keys to set the desired cooking time.
OPERATION(CONTINUED)
4. Press the START/+30SEC. button to start cooking;
the Microwave and one of the Cook indicators will
blink and the display will countdown the remaining
cooking time in minutes and seconds. It will beep
five times when cooking is completed.

We're happy to help you with free advice and we'd appreciate your thoughtful rating of our answer.

Hi! I just purchased the same microwave, and came online to find the solution. I was then able to find the correct answer to this problem. On this model, Emerson does not put a "time cook" button for odd cook times such as 15 seconds. Instead, they have you push the "Power Button" prior to setting the cook time.

If you want to cook on full power, press the power button once, and then enter your cooking time and press start. If you want to cook on 50% power or 30% power or something like that, push the "Power Button" several times until the appropriate power level is displayed, then enter the cook time and press start.

The reason that it starts up right away when *********** pushes the 1 button is because Emerson has the quick cooking feature for 1 minute through 6 minutes. You only have to push the number once to get the 1 minute cook time or anywhere through 6 minutes respectively.

Hope this helps!

If you unplug the ac power cord , wait between 30 and 60 seconds and then replug the cord in, push the reset button and then select the time ot cook desired followed by the start button, it seems to work fine for a while (days) and then for some unknown reason it stops after one minute of operation and returns to all eights on the display. A real mystery as to why this is happening and what is really wromg with the unit.