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2014 Cayman 981 with PCM3.1 V4.73 reboots every minute
As mentioned in the title, the screen keeps going through the bootup sequence. I can hear the system turning on and off, a slightly audible click as it goes from a blank screen to the loading screens. I believe the hard drive in the unit is failing. I'm about to call the dealership for a quote on the repair, but was wondering if I should go to a 3rd party and have them fix the hard drive and also upgrade to a system like one of these:
I suspect it will be hard to find a non-dealership shop that will be able to install the hard drive. I may have better luck getting the dealership to fix the PCM, and then go to the 3rd party for the retrofit.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the aliexpress vs nmautomotive retrofits? Are they the same?
Good luck with the cloning but I suspect, just like in my 2013 Boxster S, the hard drive is shot.
Also, I notice that your car has the painted console and PCM again--just like mine. If you do an aftermarket option, you will no longer have the painted PCM module as the painted portion does not snap on and snap off--it's an integral component of the Porsche PCM. If that isn't important, then the aftermarket option should work well. Since I wanted to keep the painted PCM in my car, I had to special order the unit from Germany. That was back in October and I still have no idea when I'll receive it. Also, if you order another Porsche PCM, be prepared to bend over and grab your ankles--they are $3500!!
The aftermarket option, while "sans painted PCM", is definitely the cheaper option. Good luck!
remove paneling to reveal four torx 25 screws holding the PCM
turn car on (not the engine), engage handbrake, and drop car into drive
remove positive connection on battery with 10mm socket
remove four torx 25 screws, rest PCM on gear stick in drive position
press tabs to at top of each cable connection to unplug each one, from the back of the PCM. the thick cable requires the black plastic strips to be squeezed together and pulled, to reveal a handle, which can be pulled to remove the plug
use torx 8 screwdriver to remove screws holding the PCM hard drive in
unplug the hard drive, the SATA interface is connected with a thin ribbon. The entire plastic piece comes off, not just the ribbon. see the photo
plug 2 hard drives into the computer, the original PCM hard drive (in my case a toshiba mechnical hard disk drive), and the new SSD i plan on cloning the toshiba drive to
get clonezilla, boot into the Expert mode to reveal the options you need for all your clone attempts
i have a disk failure :-( this is where i may hit failures.
More updates soon. about to remove the hard drive torx 8 the entire plastic piece, not just the white tab holding the ribbon, comes off toshiba hdd, wish this was an ssd to begin with torx 8 screws to remove the old hdd from the enclosure my replacement drive, toshiba drive is already inside the computer some options i tried in clonezilla it still failed with this screen
remove paneling to reveal four torx 25 screws holding the PCM
turn car on (not the engine), engage handbrake, and drop car into drive
remove positive connection on battery with 10mm socket
remove four torx 25 screws, rest PCM on gear stick in drive position
press tabs to at top of each cable connection to unplug each one, from the back of the PCM. the thick cable requires the black plastic strips to be squeezed together and pulled, to reveal a handle, which can be pulled to remove the plug
use torx 8 screwdriver to remove screws holding the PCM hard drive in
unplug the hard drive, the SATA interface is connected with a thin ribbon. The entire plastic piece comes off, not just the ribbon. see the photo
plug 2 hard drives into the computer, the original PCM hard drive (in my case a toshiba mechnical hard disk drive), and the new SSD i plan on cloning the toshiba drive to
get clonezilla, boot into the Expert mode to reveal the options you need for all your clone attempts
i have a disk failure :-( this is where i may hit failures.
More updates soon. about to remove the hard drive torx 8 the entire plastic piece, not just the white tab holding the ribbon, comes off toshiba hdd, wish this was an ssd to begin with torx 8 screws to remove the old hdd from the enclosure my replacement drive, toshiba drive is already inside the computer some options i tried in clonezilla it still failed with this screen
Looks likes a hard drive failure like mine.
Although this failed, THANK YOU for the detailed tutorial really helpful!
Unfortunately these 981 PCM failures are not uncommon.
Will you opt for aftermarket unit or new Porsche PCM?
To clone that sort of damaged disk you need a hardware cloning device. They simply copy block for block, never testing to see if the block is readable or not. I've used one a number of times where things like Clonezilla would fail on a bad block. The one I use is "WAVLINK" - something along the lines of: https://www.newegg.com/wavlink-wl-st...0VN-0069-00014
They're also MUCH faster than a computer-based clone - since all it's doing is reading and writing data. No error checking, no CRC, etc - bare basic copy, that usually works, even when ones made by programs like Clonezilla fail.
The hard drive clone with clonezilla was a success using the expert mode and options I showed in the screenshots
I have minor software issues a firmware update should resolve. No major hardware issues though which is a relief!
Dealership charging me half hour labor to do firmware update from 4.73 to 4.76.
Happy with the outcome 🙂
Excellent! Glad it worked. If I were mechanically and/or technically inclined I would probably tackle this, but I'm neither and will probably just have to eat it and buy a whole new unit. Not sure I would even know where to look to have this done.
If this method works, it's unfortunate Porsche doesn't do this on a routine basis. I guess they want to sell more PCMs and charge for labor. Brutal.
The hard drive clone with clonezilla was a success using the expert mode and options I showed in the screenshots
I have minor software issues a firmware update should resolve. No major hardware issues though which is a relief!
Dealership charging me half hour labor to do firmware update from 4.73 to 4.76.
Happy with the outcome 🙂
Did you simply install the cloned SSD disk - that was copied to with the error message? It's certainly possible that CloneZilla rearranges the content and order of the blocks - just referencing them in the disk directory structure, so what might have been a fatal failure on the old drive now is simply ignored with the new drive.
This ISO appears to be a copy of a Porsche DVD with part number WKD95280017
Name: pcm_20150721.iso
Size: 4579524608 bytes (4367 MiB)
SHA256: D19C34FBC9247CEA30E79D5939F4A0EFEADC8ADB3AF87B7F10B1CC6292C2B021
The unit still reboots even with the SSD. Not wanting to wait for Jan 2 for my appointment at the dealership to update the firmware, another kind rennlist user (flgfish) has linked to the ISO file, which can be used to burn to a DVD-R disc, and update the firmware. Giving it a go now.
This video makes it seem like it is a trivial process once you've made the DVD:
I took the car to the roof of my parking deck, so I had an unobstructed Sirius XM signal, in case that was necessary during the firmware update. I pressed Sound + Info together to get to the screen where I could see the Firmware Version (4.73) and serial number of my PCM unit. Upon inserting the DVD, I pressed "Confirm" to begin the process. It reboots on its own several times once the update begins, and at one point, it booted into the "Emergency Recovery" mode and ejected the DVD. It begins a countdown at this time, from 20, as it looks for the DVD again. I re-inserted the DVD, and it proceeded with the Emergency Recovery. The entire process took 25 minutes.
My maps load up fine. And the Sound+Info diagnostics readout for "SWID_PCM31HDD" no longer shows Invalid. I won't have to go to the dealership to get this resolved, after all.
12-21-2020, 05:49 PM
2014 Cayman 981 with PCM3.1 V4.73 reboots every minute
