W220 - Comand reboots and/or crashes at random times (after using with Nokia phone)

[Irresistance]

Hello,
Slightly annoying problem here on my W220. Since about 3 months or so, my Comand has been misbehaving. This started to occur after I bought (what is said to be) an orignal Nokia 6310i phone for the carkit. The phone works OK, rings, does SMS, shows on display, etc. - but ever since I have put it in, the following issues have started to occur:

1) Mid-music radio decides to restart. Screen goes black with music abruptly stopping. Restart will take about 5-10 seconds and then it acts like nothing happened. Sometimes it will revert back to the last known channel, sometimes to some 'default' selection (so you can tell it indeed actually CRASHED and did not store running values).

2) It will hang. Just sit there. Sometimes music continues, sometimes it becomes silent. Just... yeah. And then it will take up to two minutes before it either self-resets, or I have to reset it myself. Interestingly, it does seem to remember my button presses, so it will go on and off again coz I hit "on" twice.

3) When I have the entire unit switched off, now and again (rarely, about three times in the past 3 months) it will switch itself on (screen will come on with the nanny warning, but no sound/music) and go off again. Yeah...

4) Once in a particularly foul mood it actually restarted 2-3 times in a row until finally settling. I would say that this last month the type of problems have become more severe - first it was just restart and continue, now it also hangs more and generally appears very unhappy...

Now - this also happens with the phone NOT in the car. So its presence is NOT required for these random acts of insubordination to take place. It also does not appear that its presence increases the severity or frequency of misbehavings.

Thus, the phone thing might be a coincidence. Before the phone I believe this has happened only once or so (volume was gone for no reason) but only after using the phone in it, has it become a serious problem. Sometimes I will be driving 500+ miles and it will work fine, sometimes it crashes three times over the span of 30 minutes. It seems completely arbitrary. The only semi-hunch I am having is that it seems that it tends to crash when I do something, anything, electrical (indicator, switch C/S switch on gearbox... anything really) but I think this is just coincidence.

Will STAR tell me what is going on with the unit? Do I have some sort of general electrical problem that tortures the Comand unit?

The only other "electrical" issue I have had (first time and only time) is a SRS warning about a week ago, but I suspect that is either some sensor or a loose connection. Aside of this, nothing electrical/CAN-related appears to be going on, and the vehicle works fine.

Oh and last but not least... about a month ago (so in the middle of this whole saga) I have actually disconnected and reconnected the battery, and this did nothing. If anything, it's made things worse (see point 4).

 

[Irresistance]

Oh and one last thing... on at least one occasion I heard what I think was the fan of the Comand unit spinning up in the middle of a hang/freeze (with engine off/parked) seemingly indicating the device is well and truly hanging (on 100% CPU usage). So this would seem to indicate the unit itself is at fault, but hell do I know... thanks

 

[Irresistance]

So nobody has any ideas.... really? Rare unusual fault? :/

 

[Wirral_guy]

Oh and one last thing... on at least one occasion I heard what I think was the fan of the Comand unit spinning up in the middle of a hang/freeze (with engine off/parked) seemingly indicating the device is well and truly hanging (on 100% CPU usage). So this would seem to indicate the unit itself is at fault, but hell do I know... thanks

Sorry, I know nothing about Command but, from the above 'symptom', it could be similar to PCs and laptops in that the thermal paste on the cpu has dried out, making the cpu get hotter than it should. That does give rise to all kinds of strange effects including freezes (should that be boilings, ), hangs and random behaviour.

Dave

 

[Alfie]

Hello,
Slightly annoying problem here on my W220. Since about 3 months or so, my Comand has been misbehaving. This started to occur after I bought (what is said to be) an orignal Nokia 6310i phone for the carkit. The phone works OK, rings, does SMS, shows on display, etc. - but ever since I have put it in, the following issues have started to occur:

1) Mid-music radio decides to restart. Screen goes black with music abruptly stopping. Restart will take about 5-10 seconds and then it acts like nothing happened. Sometimes it will revert back to the last known channel, sometimes to some 'default' selection (so you can tell it indeed actually CRASHED and did not store running values).

2) It will hang. Just sit there. Sometimes music continues, sometimes it becomes silent. Just... yeah. And then it will take up to two minutes before it either self-resets, or I have to reset it myself. Interestingly, it does seem to remember my button presses, so it will go on and off again coz I hit "on" twice.

3) When I have the entire unit switched off, now and again (rarely, about three times in the past 3 months) it will switch itself on (screen will come on with the nanny warning, but no sound/music) and go off again. Yeah...

4) Once in a particularly foul mood it actually restarted 2-3 times in a row until finally settling. I would say that this last month the type of problems have become more severe - first it was just restart and continue, now it also hangs more and generally appears very unhappy...

Now - this also happens with the phone NOT in the car. So its presence is NOT required for these random acts of insubordination to take place. It also does not appear that its presence increases the severity or frequency of misbehavings.

Thus, the phone thing might be a coincidence. Before the phone I believe this has happened only once or so (volume was gone for no reason) but only after using the phone in it, has it become a serious problem. Sometimes I will be driving 500+ miles and it will work fine, sometimes it crashes three times over the span of 30 minutes. It seems completely arbitrary. The only semi-hunch I am having is that it seems that it tends to crash when I do something, anything, electrical (indicator, switch C/S switch on gearbox... anything really) but I think this is just coincidence.

Will STAR tell me what is going on with the unit? Do I have some sort of general electrical problem that tortures the Comand unit?

The only other "electrical" issue I have had (first time and only time) is a SRS warning about a week ago, but I suspect that is either some sensor or a loose connection. Aside of this, nothing electrical/CAN-related appears to be going on, and the vehicle works fine.

Oh and last but not least... about a month ago (so in the middle of this whole saga) I have actually disconnected and reconnected the battery, and this did nothing. If anything, it's made things worse (see point 4).

The symptoms you describe are consistent with one of the MOST devices on the fibre bus misbehaving.

First off check the boot on the left where the nav drive and AGW are for water. Its a common issue. Next you need to isolate the MOST devices one by one until the issue goes away. Id start in this order; CD changer, Nav drive, Phone controller. You cant isolate the AGW as its needed for anything on the bus to work at all.

To isolate each device you will need a MOST looping tool.

 

[Irresistance]

Okay... I just came back from my mechanic and he said that the faults I describe are consistent with the head unit motherboard being faulty. Replacement (of head unit or board only) is the only option he says, and it would not show anything on STAR.

Your explanation is entirely different... and frankly sounds just as reasonable (if not more, for once! - the guy is usually always right).

So I will first take a look at your suggestions. Do you mean to tell me that I can just unplug various MOST-devices (aside of the Audio Gateway) and "see what happens"? Which connectors are those, I am assuming the orange fiber ones...?

Anyway... thanks for the tip, will check and see. Water ingress-based causes would also help in explaining why the occurence of the problem seems so random, and that the problem varies. Frankly, I have not been paying attention to this (whether it's wet/rains/etc.) in relation to the fault, kinda dumb I guess

 

[Alfie]

Okay... I just came back from my mechanic and he said that the faults I describe are consistent with the head unit motherboard being faulty. Replacement (of head unit or board only) is the only option he says, and it would not show anything on STAR.

Your explanation is entirely different... and frankly sounds just as reasonable (if not more, for once! - the guy is usually always right).

So I will first take a look at your suggestions. Do you mean to tell me that I can just unplug various MOST-devices (aside of the Audio Gateway) and "see what happens"? Which connectors are those, I am assuming the orange fiber ones...?

Anyway... thanks for the tip, will check and see. Water ingress-based causes would also help in explaining why the occurence of the problem seems so random, and that the problem varies. Frankly, I have not been paying attention to this (whether it's wet/rains/etc.) in relation to the fault, kinda dumb I guess

You will need at least one fibre looping tool if you unplug any device otherwise the loop isn't intact and the testing is useless.

 

[Irresistance]

Ok so one of these then: https://www.commandonline.co.uk/most-loop-tool.html

And I imagine that the cables are not long/flexible enough to just "skip" one device and remove it from the MOST loop... by simply plugging the cable going from Device A to B directly into Device C (thus excluding device B)..? They are all quite nearby so...

I'll dive into the trunk later tonight, check for water etc. - Thanks

 

[Irresistance]

+1 for water ingress! Went to wash the car (high pressure touch-free affair). Upon driving backwards into my garage (which is a fairly steep incline), boom, radio reset itself. Clearly, water somewhere was now able to slosh/move around and caused an error.

Now I just need to find the darn device affected... Thanks Alfie, u saved me 200GBP on replacing the Comand (albeit admittedly I never was quite convinced this is the problem as it can also work fine for weeks on end; not exactly a sign of imminent death)

And - for ONCE my mechanic was wrong! Ha! That's a rarity...

 

[television]

The big problem was in the Phone module in the early cars, I do not know if these were better in the cars with MOST, it was the same module used in the 230 and mine went down giving the same symptoms as yours. They could also stop the cars from sleeping.

 

[Oarsman]

Check that the heater air inlet drain is not blocked with debris. It's under the grill at bottom corner of windscreen, which can be seen with bonnet open.
If this fills with water it can leak into the front footwell where the cables run in a channel under the carpet and insulation.
This can cause some interesting electrical faults.

 

[Irresistance]

The big problem was in the Phone module in the early cars, I do not know if these were better in the cars with MOST, it was the same module used in the 230 and mine went down giving the same symptoms as yours. They could also stop the cars from sleeping.

Could this (sometimes) result in a drained battery? Also, please define "sleeping" - do you mean the dome lights stay on or that some (MOST) device is not being powered off?

Finally, when you say Phone module, which part is that? The cradle? Some other device somewhere?

I've had my battery drain a couple of times... for reasons unexplained. Who knows all this might hold the key... so thank You

 

[Alfie]

Could this (sometimes) result in a drained battery? Also, please define "sleeping" - do you mean the dome lights stay on or that some (MOST) device is not being powered off?

Finally, when you say Phone module, which part is that? The cradle? Some other device somewhere?

I've had my battery drain a couple of times... for reasons unexplained. Who knows all this might hold the key... so thank You

If the unit doesnt shutdown when the ignition is off, then yes it will drain the battery. The presence of water can cause all sorts of strange behaviour. I would get it all dried out thoroughly.

The fibre cables are too long to remove. the easiest way to isolate the devices is the looping tool.

 

[Irresistance]

Ok well.... have just spent about an hour in the boot, getting things out, inspecting them, cleaning it all out... the air-vent next to the nav/audio-related equipment does have some water on it... seems a tad wet. Not much... but some trace amounts are there. The AGW appears dry. So does the Nav DVD. The CD-changer.... has some residue on it although I would not call it water.. more like... globs of... well no idea actually. Looks like fairly solid/sticky stuff, on one corner. No actual wetness that I can see.

Now - this CD changer has been a PITA for quite some time now anyhow.. would stop working mid-play, sometimes fail to load next CD (although ironically lately it has been working flawlessly....)

The CD changer I have is MC3330 (A2208274642) - I was wondering if I can upgrade without hassles to the MC3520 which supposedly can also play MP3 disks? Or will this result in a general FAIL?

 

[television]

If the unit doesnt shutdown when the ignition is off, then yes it will drain the battery. The presence of water can cause all sorts of strange behaviour. I would get it all dried out thoroughly.

The fibre cables are too long to remove. the easiest way to isolate the devices is the looping tool.

The only way you see if the car is sleeping is on the B CAN bus, where the H and L buses should be in their sleeping state =dormant, you do not need a scope as just a simple voltmeter will do the job.

For the 203,215 and 220

CAN H is 0.65v active and 0.025v dormant.
CAN L is 4.65v active and 11v dormant.

Any B Can connector is OK for testing.

 

[Irresistance]

Small update here. It appears that it is the Navigation DVD that is the cause of the mayhem. I am not sure yet... as it has only been a couple of days of error-free operation, but it looks promising.

I have disconnected the NAV drive by removing the MOST-connector, stripping it down to bare cable and joining it using A0005454484 (a 3-quid piece of plastic allowing you to connect two ends of a fibre-optical cable). No need for a GBP 49 MOST looping cable, although of course it takes a bit more skill and patience to remove all the connector bits and strip the plug down to base elements.

First I did the CD-changer, but that did not cure the issue, radio crashed again after about a day and a half. Just after the crash, I decided to quickly switch the NAV on, which for a long time after was in "Initiating Nav, please wait..." (or somesuch) and this gave me the idea to suspect it. Clearly, the crash that had just happened caused it to crash/reset as well. Moments later I reconnected the cd changer, disconnected NAV (1 minute job, they both use the same MOST connector!), and since then - no crashes.

Also ordered a MC3520 for a very nice price (about GBP 80) so I am hoping to finally be able to play MP3 CD's once I get it