Tim Baker

I just went through this with my a6 I stealered it and they said sorry we removed cp but still no sound. So, I went h so I went home and scanned it and there was still no sound and component protection was active. So at that point I removed my control head and did the heat gun trick to swap that eproms put it back in my car and everything works. My advice is if you don't have any other modules in component protection just do the eeprom swap..

Dont do it unless you know what you're doing. I would rather have used an in circuit programmer to copy it but as I didnt have one with small enough clips to get to the pins I swapped them. Using a heat gun for removal was good but I had to use a tiny solder iron and flux to get it back on. The heatgun wasnt good for putting it back on the pads. In my case I think it was because most of the solder came off with the old eeprom.

Shark_V8

Yeah i practiced - heat gun on high, removed several chips on the old board. Then removing the EPROM a little cap or ? and the video port literally exploded off the board. It was part of that video circuit.
I lost two diodes? near the EPROM.
My soldering iron and eyeballs are NOT up to this - FRIG!! I looked around to get some magnifiers this week nobody has them. I'm really lucky I didn't get hit in the eye with that component that blew off.

Tried to get the chip back on - I think it's fried. NOTHING works now. Replacing little microchips without proper tools = stupidity.

Tim Baker

yeah it took alot of practie to get working right, and i thought i fried mine the first time. i practiced on an old tv control board from a broken tv, just figuring out the tempature to use and stuff. if those little resistors come off it will be a pain in the as to replace them, there are two... that chip the at64a uses the two pins those resistors hook up to for data read access. the board would work without the video port but not without the eeprom resistors. if you use a heat gun i found i couldn't go above 520 degrees, and the lowest fan setting.... (i include a picture of the heatgun and solder iron i used) and it took 15 seconds held an inch away for the solder to melt.... keep in mind, i am an electrical engineer and computer scientist by education, so i've had a bit of experience, and i had alot of different little tools to use to get it done, and it still took me over 2 hours to complete. There is a red fault light on the back of the control head board, plug it in without the box on it and see if that is lighting up. if so use a multimeter to check that the pins aren't shorted if you can, basically you'd put one pin on the resistor that it connects to and the other pin on each of the pins, each resistor should show current from 4 pins, if that makes sense. if it just doesn't turn on then make sure you havent bridged the pins with solder... if so then use a very fine tip solder iron and a wick (a twisted strand copper wire) to soak up the solder on the bridged pins, then use the solder gun to touch each pad and make sure there is solder on it and that the pin is connected to it. be careful there are only .5mils between each pin. i used a bench grinder to sharpen a solder tip to a very fine point then coated that in solder, then touched each pin, then when i reconnected it, everything fired up and cp was gone.

hope this helps

Shark_V8

Thanks for the write -up it does help. I'm also (way back) electronics/ current systems engineer - but don't have PCB/small component etc capability, as I have CNC/machine shop now . This is my first go at surface mount. But the biggest problem I have is vision - seeing the details. Because I can't see for beans .... pulled a leg off the EPROM so that is that. End of madness.

Ordered another A8 MMI from EBAY and will try the dealer route.

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

Is the leg off the new or old? Take the pictures so I can see. Send both boards to me, I can ask someone to do it nicely. Cheaper for the cost of shipping. Hold off on the new order. USPS flat rate box $7.20 x2 <$15.00.
Cheers,
Louis

Shark_V8

The leg or pin on the chip is with the proper EPROM. But you know I think that sucker is overheated/toast. And the new board like I said parts literally exploded off the board when I used the heat gun. It wasn't even that hot I am not sure what the heck happened. I'll see if I have the chip still I might have chucked it in disgust.

I ordered another module $100

Shark_V8

Wrapping up my saga, the dealer recoded the used module from eBAY cost of $300
Notes - I had installed the used module and everything works, until you start the car then from there its just stuck on audio MUTE
The dealer had to pull the dash board again and pull the module, bench it and re-install. Apparently could not remove comp protect while in the car

storka

I think dealer was telling you BS
How would you remove CP if it was out of the car

?

Jack88

I've heard of the dealer removing CP before, but no one has mentioned removing it from the car. My guess is that they just told you that to justify the cost. I don't see why they wouldn't be able to plug into the OBD port and do it like they do with everything else software related, MMI updating excluded.

Shark_V8

Well I can got back in there to see if that is the case. Because I left the one plug retainer down and used the wrong screw in one spot. And I left out the plastic duct (which is a PIA)

Crazy thing they let the car out of the dealership with a hard BRAKE (!) fault due to no brake fluid !!