My sound system has been flawless since I replaced the power caps and renewed the thermal paste in my Bose amp several months ago. And then ...

Today as I drove out of the Home Depot lot I failed to cut the wheels adequately. The front scraped the tarmac. Not hard. But contact. And the radio went silent. Due to scraping the front? I don't know. But it seems like a cause and effect scenario.

I changed from satellite to AM. All of my stations were blank. No sound.

I switched to FM. No sound.

I flipped over to CD. No sound and while times were displayed the times were frozen. If I forced track changes the times did not update.

And now the Tuner button would not be seen. So no more radio options.

I powered down and drove for a while. Still wouldn't work.

I stopped for gas. No luck on next start up.

I drove home and pulled the negative cable from the battery for ten minutes. Now everything is back to normal.

Battery voltage looks good. Connections at the battery look good. For the record, Covid disuse has seen the battery discharge several times as I was cycling my tender between cars (I now have multiple tenders).

Not sure what happened. Just happy it appears to have self healed.

Computers ...

 

If it's a PCM 3.0 something similar happened to me once. Powering car on and off didn't help, I had to reboot the PCM (I think hold down the "Info" button for a while?) and that fixed it.

 

My PCM 3.0 in my 997.2 Carrera S stopped working at the end of November 2021. The screen went black. No sound. No nothing. Just dead. I sent the PCM 3.0 into Becker Auto Sound in NJ to have them troubleshoot and fix. Issue was the mainboard. Replaced and shipped back to me for $965.00. Turnaround time was 2 weeks total. No need for PIWIS since it was the same head unit.

Best regards,

MaxMax256

 

Mine was black that way when I had the Bose amp removed (while I was "fixing" it). That doesn't sound like your problem. Just putting it here as a data point.

 

Wow - $965 to keep the fairly crappy PCM? Isn't that about what the brand new upgrade option for the Porsche unit costs or about 2-3x what putting in an aftermarket PCM would go for? Seems like that's not the best ROI scenario but some folks love originality....

 

2009 C2S 178K miles

Wayne... Can I get your parts list for the cap upgrade? I am getting settled in my new home and will be doing that project. Maybe post the parts in a new thread for all to find?

I still get my newish problem "loading" where the maps won't pull up. I think an old GM executive went to work at Becker... GM was famous for perfectly engineering ***** and parts to fail 1,027 miles out of warranty... folks said the product was junk but it was excellent engineering actually. I never heard of info-tainment systems failing like this with age. Usually this stuff lasts forever, I wonder what happened.

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

 

Sorry to hijack this thread a touch. I have this same problem on my '06 C4S. The stats on the NAV screen show the correct latitude and longitude (but show 0 satellites), and the NAV subsystem never gets beyond loading. I've tried all the reset options and everything looks good with the DVD drive and the disc. At some point I'm going to pull the DVD drive, open it up and see if it's at least seeking on the DVD, but haven't had a chance yet.

 

i made a thread that resides somewhere on this Forum. Here are the details again. The photos posted in reverse chronological order ...

2200uF@25VDC electrolytic. 8 of them. Plus thermal paste (or transistor *** if you prefer). As for the work ...


Hot melt glue was used on the new caps to match the original.

New thermal compound installed.

Hot melt glue was used to vibration proof the caps. This cuts off easily. The PCB is multi layer and cap removal and desoldering is difficult. A few of the ground holes would not clear so the new cap had to be installed while heating the old solder. Be gentle. You can see the diminished thermal compound on the ICs.

The state of the original thermal paste and cracked silpad that was used on one device.

 

Geez what junk. Integrated IC's, not dedicated output transistors. Probably class D too given the small footprint. I would replace it immediately if the car were not so pleasantly noisy.

 

Great Wayne!!! Thanx!

So you didn't address the smaller caps... That is OK as the issue is usually with the biggest.

A fun project with real benefits.

Peace
Bruce in Philly (now Atlanta)

 

The amplifier in both our 997.1 and 958 decides to quit working intermittently. With the 997 it usually comes back after a key cycle or two and with the Cayenne, it just does what it wants. Sometimes it goes months or years without doing it, then it'll do it like three times in a month. No rhyme or reason. The 997, I couldn't tell you what causes it but I've never had it just cut out because of a bump... I wish I had your soldering skills to recap my amp though, that's rad...

 

Just did the bigger caps. As you say, the smaller caps are not prone to failure. For that matter, neither are the bigger caps. So I can't say the "fix" wasn't the thermal compound only, or even a cold solder joint.

While it is difficult to say an intermittent problem is fixed, it has been four months of Covid (less frequent) use without a problem ... other than a complete shut off (different problem) yesterday that was corrected with a battery disconnect reset.

 

This is the problem that many have described previously on this Forum.

See my second response to Bruce above ... I'm still not inclined to say I know what is going on. My best guess is that the thermal compound is to blame. But I had this happen on first start up in a 45F garage (one time).

I thought it was a CANBus filter problem shutting the amp down. The CANBus architecture can do this and then try a component re-allow at a later time. But Bruce set me straight on that.

So when I had my amp out I did everything (thermal compound, caps, and resolder). My fingers remain crossed.

 

I wanted to keep the OEM PCM due to Sport Chrono Plus and other some of its options being tied to the PCM. A new PCM 3.0's with Nav, XM Radio, and DVD (997.642.971.01) are $2500.00 with discount through Sunset Porsche and Suncoast. Becker Audio was the most cost effective option for me.

To my ears, the upgraded Bose PSM 3.0 isn't that bad. It's not great, but after playing drums for +30 years, my hearing isn't all that great anymore.

Best regards,
MaxMax256

 

Makes sense. The Sport Chrono aspect is something I often forget about since my car doesn't have that option.