LittleBitBent

Hi, I haven’t seen any DIY’s on upgrading the PCM 3.1 performance so I thought I would post one.

I have a 2015 Cayenne Diesel with PCM 3.1, that I just recently upgraded with the Joyeauto CarPlay upgrade. Works like a champ, but it’s a bit slow. Was doing some research for a buddy on another forum, and discovered a fairly simple mod that significantly speeds up your PCM performance, and it involves replacing the existing hard drive with a solid state drive. The different is pretty significant, I would say, such that button presses for functions results in instantaneous response. Here’s what was involved:

1. Buy a reasonably inexpensive 2.5” SSD off of your favourite e-commerce site. I bought a Crucial MX500 256GB drive for about $69 CDN from Amazon. Current SSD’s like the MX500 have much improved performance over SSDs from even a couple of years ago, so don’t skimp. I would have bought a 128GB drive but I couldn’t find one.
2. Pull the head unit, as per the instructions elsewhere on the forum (search for CarPlay retrofit). For the Cayenne, it was as simple as popping out the two aircon vents on either side of the PCM, and then undoing the 4 T25 Torx screws that hold it in place. Note - you do not have to put the shifter in drive, because you don’t have to pull the PCM all the way out, but do cover it with a terry cloth.
3. Right on top of the PCM’s metal housing is a metal cover about the size of a 2.5” hard drive, held in with two T8 Torx screws. Remove them, then you can use a small screwdriver to pry the cover up. Start on the end that looks like it has multiple tabs, not the end that has only two. Attached to that metal cover is the hard drive.
4. Once you have it up, detach the ribbon cable by gently pulling on the connector. It should just pop off, but be gentle.
5. Once it is released from the ribbon cable, flip it over, and you will see that it is a generic 2.5” Toshiba 100GB hard drive. At least, mine was.
6. Take a picture of the orientation of the drive in the metal bracket. You will need to have the connections in the same spot with the new drive.
7. Remove the Toshiba drive from the metal bracket. There are four T8 Torx screws that come off, and they have locktite on them, so they will be sticky at first.
8. What you need to do next is use your PC to clone the contents of that Toshiba drive over to your new SSD. Despite being a Mac guy, I chose to use a Lenovo laptop for this (for reasons below). You will likely need two SSD enclosures. These are about $
   11 on Amazon.
   11 on Amazon.
   Here’s what didn’t work, and what did:
9. To clone the drive:
   1. DON’T use the software that Crucial provides for free for cloning and backup up drives. While I was able to back up the contents of the Toshiba drive using that app (Acronis), cloning it failed miserably. Might be user error, but I only got about 60% functionality, and the jukebox was gone, along with constant rebooting whenever the PCM tried to write to a partition that wasn’t there.
   2. DO Download Clonezilla (open source) and follow the instructions to install it to a USB memory stick. Ensure that you make the USB stick bootable by following the options. I used a spare 64GB stick which had tons of room.
   3. I put the existing Toshiba hard drive in one enclosure, and connected it via the included USB cable to a spare USB port on the computer (old Lenovo T500 worked fine)
   4. I put the Crucial MX500 into a second enclosure, and connected it to the PC as well.
   5. I happened to have three USB ports, so I took the bootable version of Clonezilla that I had on the USB stick and inserted it into the third USB port. If you don’t have three USB ports on the computer, you can very likely use a $5 USB hub/extender.
   6. I then powered on the computer, and used the BIOS selection to tell it to boot off of the USB stick.
   7. When Clonezilla came up, I selected the VGA 800X600 option, and when it asked me the type of copying I wanted, I selected the second one (partition to partition). Don’t select the one that asks if you want to clone via an image.
   8. If it asks you where to temporarily store the data, select RAM.
   9. Select the source disk as the Toshiba drive,
   10. Select the destination as the SSD.
   11. Proceed with all of the defaults until the imaging starts to begin. Mine took about an hour to complete.
   12. Once complete, select the option to power off the computer, and shut it all down.
10. Disconnect the external drives, and remove them from the enclosure.
11. Take the SSD and reattach it to the metal bracket in the same orientation as the Toshiba drive. This is why you took a picture earlier! 4 T8 Torx screws until snug.
12. Take the SSD back to the PCM, and ensure the PCM is turned off. Reattach the ribbon cable to the new drives connection point.
13. Turn on the PCM and ensure that all functions are working. Once assured, place the SSD and metal cover back in the original spot, and reattach the two T8 screws. If things are not working 100% re-clone the drive.
14. Put the PCM back in, and screw it back in place,
15. Reattach the aircon vents.

You are good to go!

This works with existing maps, and existing Navi/Jukebox/Aux/AuxBT and speeds up your entire PCM. And if you have a Joyeauto CarPlay installed, it will work as before.

Also, if you have read this far, and you need the software update that takes your PCM to software version 4.76, PM me. No, I don’t have it for the 3.x version of PCM hardware.

deilenberger

One might also consider copying to the SSD via hardware - WavLink makes a box that lets you plug the drives into it - press a button and come back about 10 minutes later to a block for block cloned drive.

BTW - does the software version 4.76 have the hard-drive function where you can copy CD/Memory-cards to the hard-drive in the unit and play them?

BrewDude

Yes, you have the option available to do so.

hotrod2448

Interesting thread.

LittleBitBent

Interesting. I didn't know you could do it with CD's. I have copied music tracks from a USB stick over to the internal jukebox but I've never tried it with a CD.

And BTW Don, I had software version 4.73 prior, and it had the Jukebox. 4.76 did't give me any additional functionality, but apparently it fixes some bluetooth connectivity issues and some other bugs. I couldn't find any documentation to confirm the same, so my information is very "apparently"

BrendonSF

This is very tempting. I will likely give it a shot when installing my Joyeauto unit in the coming weeks. Excellent writeup; thank you!

SandyCS

This is exactly how I did it on a 2011 CS. However the HDD in that PCM is a PATA not SATA. Had to purchase an adapter which can be found here


Also, as noted elsewhere on these forums, only the Zheino brand SSD works in the earlier PATA versions of the PCM.

twodollardoug

I found a hdd cloner on amazon for $30....

LittleBitBent

I thought about that, but ultimately decided against it, mostly because the enclosure is very portable, and I like to be able to work directly with software, as opposed to a black box.

coffeeisgood

a short video showing the change (after the mod)
might push a few people to do this...

for under $100 USD total & maybe hour+ of time it seems like a worthy mod

LittleBitBent

Good idea. Here's a quick demo I just shot:

​​​​​​

twodollardoug

Does anyone know if the 2012's are sata or pata?

BrendonSF

That is a massive improvement in loadtimes and responsiveness. I've ordered an MX500 as well, and am going to take some before and after metrics and will post them here.

Quadcammer

I'd like to do this upgrade, but my computer skills put me in the dullard category.

so I buy a Sata SSD like the Crucial 500 mentioned in the OP, add the SATA to PATA adapter as noted in your post, and then follow the OP to the T?

Would I need the adapter plugged in to the external enclosure while cloning?

Can anyone describe this to me like a 5 year old?

thanks all

Edit: Is there a firmware or software version that is necessary to complete this?

Quadcammer

Ok I think I'm catching on:

To buy for 2011:

1. SSD: 2. Adapter to Pata for use in pcm: 3. dual bay cloner for SATA: 4. PATA to SATA adapter to use in cloning device
Accurate?