MMI system dies

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Nov 14, 2011 | 02:39 PM

#21

TimU

Audiworld Junior Member

Joined: Jun 2011

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From: Sydney, Australia

Try the Optical Bus Diagnostics (from the VCDS Applications screen):
http://www.ross-tech.com/vcds/tour/optical-bus.html

With the door lock handle issues, try to order and correlate the time that each of the events was reported and see if you can see a pattern.

They /may/ have been an old or intermittent error that's just misdirecting your efforts to fix the current MMI issue.

Take a copy of your full AutoScan, clear your DTC (error) codes and rescan for current/new errors.

Nov 14, 2011 | 05:19 PM

#22

old96A4

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From: sunny , snowy central New York State

yes I'll do what you say in your post, It's porring rain here pretty good, so I decided to take the back rear cover off where the power amp is. Saw little droplets of water on things, nothing big, but still it's leaking. My sun roof/frame and drains where all replaced last year by the dealer. I'm going back to see if they can do anything for me. it's there crappy workman's ship. I'm sure I'm going to still have to pull the components. There has to be a central control unit that starts the fiber so you can plug the loop back thing into. each unit I can see has a input and an output far from each other the loopback has input and out put close to each other. waiting for some sort of service manual that I ordered. I just hope the little bit of water didn't damage anything. I hope it's not the typical sun roof leak like other have had. I'll keep you informed on what happens..

Nov 15, 2011 | 02:17 PM

#23

TimU

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Joined: Jun 2011

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From: Sydney, Australia

There was/is a similar issue with the MMI on the A6 Avant, where the rear wiper reservoir (or tubing?) leaks onto the electronics in that rear section. Audi issued a mandatory service bulletin for the A6, but I'm not aure about the Q7.
Worth investigation though.

Also, there's a similar "MMI Dead" discussion happening on the VCDS mailing list at the moment. The car in question is an A6, but the info is still good.

Here's one of the better suggestions:
------------------------------------
From: Darryl
Sent: Wed Nov 16 01:13:41 AEDT 2011
To: VAG-COM@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [VAG-COM] Re: 2006 Audi A6 (C6/4F)

Hi Pablo,

I had a similar problem, and here's the steps I took:

First, you will want to use VCDS to do the optical bus diagnostics. That will let you know if the opticals are good.

Second, you want to see if there's power to the MMI control head. On the right side of the dash there is a fuse panel, and that fuse panel has the fuses for the MMI and others. Verify that all the fuses are good. (I believe it is a 5 amp fuse in spot 10 or 12, but I could be mistaken on that).

If the fuses are good, then you will want to obtain the fiber optic loopback connector from someplace (don't know where you are located, so can't make a suggestion on that, but the Audi part number is 4E0 973 802 which most places have a description of 'housing', and I paid $27.35 + shipping from worldimpex.com). Basically, the loopback connector lets you isolate each component on the MOST bus. If ANY of the components is bad (and I'll hazard a guess that if you have the bluetooth handsfree device, that is probably dead), the MMI unit will NOT start up, or, if it does, it will be momentary only.

It can be a pain to get to each of the components, but I'd probably start by bypassing the bluetooth module (under the drivers side floor mat) first, and then do the hard MMI reset (or pull and replace the fuse).

I will say that in my case, my failure was entirely self-inflicted, as I was updating the MMI software, and used the wrong disk first, which bricked my MMI control head. I located a used MMI control head for about $100 USD, and all was good. Worked out to be less expensive than having the dealer just do the MMI software update.

OH, almost forgot. If you have an A6 Avant, there's a very common problem with the rear window washer fluid line dripping on the electronics in the left rear, which will give the same problem. You may wish to check there too, but again, the optical loopback testing should get you to the right component.

Hope this at least points you in the right direction.

Best

Darryl
------------------------------------

Nov 15, 2011 | 06:14 PM

#24

old96A4

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Posts: 462

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From: sunny , snowy central New York State

Great information, I Just need to know where all the companoets are and how to use th eloopback thing. There has to be a central control unit that distributes the fiber. Each unit has an in and an out separated from each other. Not like the loopback has on it's end. I hope the blue tooth thing is protected from water unlike the CMM in the older Passat's. I need to find the time to rip the car apart when I can get a service manual to find the units themselves. Thanks .. I'll keep all informed, hopfully I can figure it out and help others ..

Nov 16, 2011 | 06:14 PM

#25

TimU

Audiworld Junior Member

Joined: Jun 2011

Posts: 87

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From: Sydney, Australia

Good luck

Care to attach a pic of the loop-back cable for us to gander at?

Nov 19, 2011 | 03:26 AM

#26

old96A4

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From: sunny , snowy central New York State

here's a pic of the loopback thing, cost me $28 plus tax. I did get a cheap service manual so over the next week I'm going to try to rip the insides apart to debug this thing. I'll post what I find, going after the bluetooth first I think under the passenger seat. Then hitting the back corner with the nav, radio, power amp, see if I can stop the drips. I see there are guys in Britan that will rebuild some of these components. We'll see what happens, I have access to some pretty smart engineer's that could help figrue out what's blown and fix it. Some say it's most likely dirt some place on the fiber. Dealer was in there last March playing with the components and I'm sure they weren't careful. but the dripping could have caused a problem but when the thing went it's wasn;t raining and hadn't rain for 4 or 5 days. first real cold day it went out. it was the CD player before giving me fits when it was cold. Common I guess.

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Nov 23, 2011 | 11:28 AM

#27

old96A4

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From: sunny , snowy central New York State

was raining this morning, open up the back hack and I had watre running down the right rear of the car out the seat belt adjuster. Man, what the hell was that?? open t etrap door to look at the electronics , didn't seem very wet, just a little bit. So I went to the dealer who did all the work on the sun roof last year. he said bring it in right away so it can be out of the wet water. well lucky it's not going to rain for a few days now, so I'm going to bring it in on friday. thingsout of warranty so we'll see what they will do. I asked him about it and he said let's see what's going n with it first. if it's soething we can fix real quick we'll do it but let's see what's wrong with it. I exspect to pay something but we'll see. Also i was going to do an oil change myself. but at almost $9 a quart of castrol syntec. it's going to cost me $80 bucks anyway. and the dealer is charging me $89, why would I want to get my hands dirty... hope we can come to some agreement on fixing this..
they told me not to touch it.

Nov 27, 2011 | 02:26 PM

#28

TimU

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Joined: Jun 2011

Posts: 87

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From: Sydney, Australia

Thanks for the update. Hopefully they can resolve it.

BTW, here's an update from the A6 post on the VAGCOM groups: Some REALLY good troubleshooting info here.
[I've made some minor edits to Dave's email for clarity]

----------------------------
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oNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-AU</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w

ontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/> <w

ontFlipMirrorIndents/> <w:OverrideTableStyleHps/> </w:Compatibility> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac m:val="off"/> <m:dispDef/> <m:lMargin m:val="0"/> <m:rMargin m:val="0"/> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/> <m:intLim m:val="subSup"/> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> From: Dave
Sent: Wed Nov 23 18:23:59 AEDT 2011
To: VAG-COM@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [VAG-COM] Re: 2006 Audi A6 (C6/4F)

Hi Pablo,
In your second "diagnostic" test it showed "error"/"error" for the media player.
The first "error" is checking the electrical power to the unit, the second says it can receive a fibre ring data signal.
The electrical power of all devices on that fibre ring is checked by a diagnostic wire. This has no connection to, and does not rely on other devices on the ring to work.

Does this car have a CD player?
If so then it is telling you that the electrical supply is either not there or the CD is faulty.

Now, the master controller, i.e. J523, when powered on, sends a data "packet" around that fibre ring and tests to see if it comes back. i.e. the ring is intact.
If it is, the controller then asks each device on the ring to identify itself.
If the master control packet is NOT received, the ring is faulty and the controller/MMI/radio etc etc does nothing!
The multi media control head is just the display. Because the ring is not intact, the controller J523 is not switching the display on because it cannot initialise the units.

The electrical power to devices on the fibre ring is separate and each device has a fuse.
The CD player (Media player 1) is supplied by fuse SC12 on ST1 (black strip) on fuse panel C which is the right hand side of the dashboard (passenger side in LHD cars).
The power on the 8 pin plug of the CD unit is pin 2 (red/black).

My route would be to either fix the CD player first or remove it completely from the fibre ring (with that bypass adapter to rejoin the fibre ring) and go from there.

I have seen on forums that this bypass adapter is about $23 from Audi (dont quote me :-) ). Unfortunately you would have to ship one in.

BTW, the fuse for the Level control module, J197, is SC11 (15a) on that same strip and is the fuse above the media player fuse... coincidence or what!?

Good luck,
Dave
----------------------------

Ditto the good luck

Tim

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Nov 28, 2011 | 07:09 AM

#29

old96A4

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From: sunny , snowy central New York State

Talked to the dealer about the car last week, they told me to bring it in so they can look at it. They found that the power amp went bad, didn't say if it's was from water. Might have been something they did last Feb. He's ordering me a new amp and also going to look at the sun roof drains, He seemed to think there is something going on there. Won't know till they take it apart. Going to have it all week to fix it. The drains and the power amp we're replaced last Feb. I think they have to warranty there work for one year, so he said they we're going to fix it for free. Great, he said he wants to do it right and doesn't want to keep doing this. Me neither, so I'll have to fumble around this week without a car till they can fix it. It sounded like it may have been something they did last feb or did not do. They won't tell me.. but I just want it fixed. I'll get full details when I get the car back at the end of the week. So when the start up screen comes on for only a few seconds for the MMI system then goes off. You have a break in the Fiber loop, either a component or fiber break, the loop break test diagnostics with a VAG or simlar tool can give you an idea where to look, but you still have to use a loopback thing to by pass each component out of the loop to make the loop complete again.

Nov 30, 2011 | 12:39 PM

#30

old96A4

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Joined: Oct 2007

Posts: 462

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From: sunny , snowy central New York State

Just got a call form the dealer, the right back drain hose was leaking for some reason, one they replaced in Feb. they weren't sure what happened, that was causing water to drip down on the power amp and shorted it out I guess. I didn't see that much water dripping , but the power amp is up in the wheel well , can;t see it when you open the hatch. So they replaced the power amp also. says it's working now. Didn't charge me anything to fix it. I think because they did teh work last feb. they have to warranty tere work for a year. I'm just glad I didn't have to pay for it. would have been expensive. I bet there are so many of these power amps that have been blown they refurbish them and replace shorted out ones with refurbished units. So it doesn't cost them as much. My only concern is how long do i have to wait till one of the other ones come off?? I'll have to ask if they checked any of the other ones.. I bet not, just fix what is broken, don't do any prevetive maintenance.

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