hey guys noob here... I just bought my AVIC-U310BT today and its installed. I just can't figure out 1. where to change the color of the unit and 2. sound options i.e. lower bass for example

any help would be great!

Turn the unit off (hold down the SRC/Power Button)

Then push the joystick button and hold, this will bring up the "initial settings" menu. Should find everything you need in there.

Ok I just tried pressing and hold the joy stick button and it did nothing. Am I just that dumb that I'm somehow doing it wrong or is my headunit just a POS cause it's not giving me sound?

Everything is in the manual page 106..

You need to turn off the radio (by pressing SRC button). And then press and hold center multi-direction button. There's all your options regarding initial setup. Sound option, you can get to them by pressing and holding center button while music is playing.

I had a hard time getting the radio into "initial settings" mode after the radio was on for a while (after a drive). I had to turn the key off and on again and try changing settings right away. I don't know if there is a time limit to doing this, or if something was just gone a bit flaky that 1 time I tried it. The 2 or 3 times I've played with "initial settings" have always been right after power up and it worked just fine in those cases.