| AlanR |
Hey All,
Back with another problem... I installed the PXNI peripheral about a month ago and it worked great for the first few weeks. About 10 days ago, my wife started noticing some really odd behavior with the radio. This is a 2003 Murano w/ Bose system:
When making sharp turns, it would make a loud popping noise, then cut out for a few seconds. Then it progressed to randomly cutting out while she was driving. We took a 6 hour trip yesterday and it was really bad. 1/2 way in to the trip, while we were stopped, I took out the radio and checked all the connections into the head unit. Two things happened after that: turning the car no longer cause the problem and we no longer could hear AM or FM; but satellite and MP3 played fine through the PXNI - for about an hour. Now, the audio would cut out any time we went over a bump in the highway. Oddly enough, turning the volume knob up and down a few times would bring back the audio. At first, turning the volume past 22 would bring it right back, then any adjustment in volume would work, but eventually that stopped helping. So now we have a car with no FM/AM and sporadically working MP3 or Sat. It seems the amp is just turning on and off at will for anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes. I have no idea why we can't hear AM/FM.
I came here today to see if anyone else had similar issues and found this post. I then remembered that my wife said she felt a drop of water hit her foot as we were driving. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I am wondering if we may have some water behind the dashboard? I was thinking that the installation of PXNI cause all of this, but now I think that these problems started to occur just as we started to use the AC this summer. Has anyone else had this problem with their AC drain? Or does anyone else have a theory as to what may be going on? I know it is a short somewhere, but no idea where to start.
thanks,
Alan |
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| zebelkhan |
That is a strange problem. The closest thing to this I can think of is the left or right speakers cutting out while playing the CD and that does not seem to be your problem.
Have you checked the AC drain below the car to see if it is plugged? Even so, I am not sure how it could get up there to the stereo to cause issues. |
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| AlanR |
Thanks for the quick reply....I haven't checked the AC drain yet, but I will try to this evening.
Alan |
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| Jude |
| Maybe removing the PXN1 will make the AM/FM work again?! |
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| krush40 |
| Probably a stupid response but are you sure you plugged the antenna back in when you removed the radio? You said the AM/FM cut out right after you took the radio out, right? |
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| AlanR |
Hi,
I was thinking the exact same thing about the FM radio part... I checked for the A/C dripping under the car yesterday and it was dripping a little, but not as much as I would expect to see after running the A/C for an hour or so. I think I'll take apart the radio and drive around a bit this weekend with everything apart to see if I can find something.
Alan |
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| zebelkhan |
quote:
Originally posted by AlanR
I think I'll take apart the radio and drive around a bit this weekend with everything apart to see if I can find something.
No need to pull the radio again. Pull the carpet covered plastic on the side of the center consol; right next to the gas pedal. I think it is on by a couple of plastic clips. You should now be able to see the evaporator casing as well as the drain tube. Check for leaks there. |
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| AlanR |
zebelkhan, thanks again for your reply. I took that little panel off and it was bone dry. I removed the radio again and made sure all the wires are secure. I then drove around with only one of the top screws holding the radio in and it was fine. I got back home and it started shorting out again while sitting in the driveway, so i removed it once more and moved the PXNI unit and some other cables and attempted to put it back. At this point, it shorted out as soon as the radio made contact with right bracket that holds it. Eventually it got to the point where just touching a screwdriver to the right bracket would short the radio.
When I installed the Sirius satellite radio last month, I used wire clips to pinch power and ground from the cigarette lighter so I could hide the power cable. These cables were touching the right bracket and I thought that this may be the problem even though they were insulated and no wire was touching the bracket. But when I moved these wires away from the bracket and tried to put the radio back in, it shorted out again.
Next, I disconnected the PXNI and played a CD while putting the radio back in. No short this time. I plugged the PXNI back in and again could not get it to short out while putting the radio back in, but I'm far from convinced that the problem is fixed.
Anyone know what would make the radio short out when it touches the right mounting bracket? Also, are the PXNI/PAC units grounded? If so to what? Could the PNXI unit be the cause of these symptoms?
Thanks again for the help,
Alan |
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| AlanR |
Still fighting with this problem...anyone have any idea what may be causing this stereo to short out like this?
~Alan |
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| AlanR |
I finally got a car audio technician to look at this problem and do some tests. He tested the voltage on all the lines and ok'ed the wiring behind the head unit. He tapped into the ground wire off the radio and grounded the stereo to the radio mount and it still cut out when the head unit touched the car. He told me it was probably a issue with the circuit board in the head unit. Didn't charge me a dime because he couldn't find the problem and he doesn't work on circuit boards.
So I took apart the radio based on a post made by user mchristisen on this page . Even though the problems he was having were mostly happening when playing cds, he said it was also happening with the radio. It took me a good hour or so to get the circuit board out, but once I did, I noticed that the volume dial had three solder points, one of which was completely devoid of solder on the top (the bottoms were all fine). This solder point was microscopic and seeing as the bottom was fully soldered, I thought I was wasting my time on the circuit board.
But seeing as I had it out, I went out to Radio Shack and invested eight bucks in a soldering kit. I added a tiny bit of solder to the connection missing it and put the radio back together.
The radio has not cut out once since.
Total time to diagnose and fix the issue: three weeks.
Total cost to fix the problem: about $0.005 worth of soldering material.
Good times.
~Alan
EDIT: I could be way off base here, but I would not be the least bit surprised if every problem that the people in the 8 page "Bose system problems" thread was related in one way or another to poor workmanship on the circuit boards in these head units. |
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| zebelkhan |
quote:
Originally posted by AlanR
I would not be the least bit surprised if every problem that the people in the 8 page "Bose system problems" thread was related in one way or another to poor workmanship on the circuit boards in these head units.
I think you are right. Both your problem and the "left channel cutting out while playing CD" which by the way are the only major problems I am aware of, are as the result of poor workmanship.
Glad to see you fixed the problem. Please post any pictures you might have taken for others to see. |
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| AlanR |
I did indeed take a few pictures. This is the front of the circuit board (the part you'll never see unless you remove the 20 odd screws holding it into place). You can see the climate control knobs at the bottom. Just above the red circle on the left is the volume control. In the circle you'll see three tiny little nodes; the middle and the right had solder, the one on the left had none. Turns out that little issue is what had been causing this whole mess.
Picture of the front of the circuit board (link) |
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| zebelkhan |
| Circuit board photo directly attached: Good job AlanR...! |
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