Z1 Freezes on start up

[nismoRoadster]

I think I fix it. I did a level 4 reset and restored it to factory condition. The troubleshooting guide said to do a level 4 reset if the unit freezes or has abnormal behavor, possibly due to a corrupted drive image. Before i did a restore, i checked the wiring, took it apart, checked the rear fan, checked the GPS ant., anything I could do but the next day it froze. I was sad to loose my music and address points but it was worth it. It's been like 5 or 6 days and still no freeze on the splash. After freezing like a thousand times, thats good for this unit.

[Audiotek]

Yeah, some people come here to the shop asking for an exchange because it does that. We called pioneer and they said the unit is made to handle high temperatures, they also said that if you own a chevrolet, ford, or chrysler, it is most likely to do that because american cars have no insulation under their dash boards. I think they could be alittle bit right on that because the people that came back to us all had american cars. But then again, they could be BSing.

[aziator]

My shop owner called his Pioneer rep and they say they have never heard of this problem, even after the talk to their tech reps... I shouldn't have to install an insulation or a 12V fan (as some have suggested) to make a $2k headunit work.

[djmixmac]

Coocho question, if theoretically the USDM vehicles lacked insulation, wouldn't that mean better out flow of heat?

 

 

Meaning any heat created both by the Z1 and the car would be exerted out due to lack of any insulation?

[deathfrombelow]

FYI - i bought my unit from crutchfield b/c i didnt want to risk buying one off ebay and not having a warranty. i called friday and explained what happened and they shipped out a new unit that day. we will see what happens with this one, but definitely great service on their part!

 

Did you discuss what their course of action would be if your new unit did the same. I purchased mine through Crutchfeild with their extended warranty. If they would give me my money back, I would take it in a heart beat. This is such a rip off. I really don't want to spend the time to remove, reinstall a new unit, lose all the time I spent ripping my cd's, lose all the time I spent adding in my phone book one at a time and most importantly, loose my bypass for something that is probably going to do the same thing.

[dimaj]

Wait a minute, they said that this is only on American cars? I have an Audi and I'm experiencing this problem almost every day... Sometimes I can fix it by turning my car on and off until I turn red from anger and frustration.

I've also noticed that if unit is freezing, radio turns on immediately, but if unit is going through a normal boot-up, you will hear your radio sound after 30 seconds or so. (Just an observation)

 

nismoRoadster, any updates on your situation? Did your unit freeze again or is it back to normal?

 

btw.. I'm not sure if this is related or not, but sometimes my unit skips tracks (from music library) randomly. On one track I've noticed that if volume is too high, it skips at a certain point, on the other, it skips at the same point just because it chooses too. Anybody else has this problem? Is this related to high temperatures?

 

Thanks.

 

dimaj

[djmixmac]

^^ Does this occur at extreme warm cabin temperature? Or at normal Temps?

 

 

 

It sounds like something is definitely fishy with your unit if this happens in normal temps.

[dimaj]

temps are more or less normal... I'd say no more than 80-85 degrees (inside the car)

 

dimaj

[nismoRoadster]

dimaj, That fixed it. It hasn't done it once ever since. Its been about two weeks. Not sure if heat had anything to do with it but 90% of the time it did freeze during high temps. Today was pretty warm, about 80 outside temp, and I drove my car four times today already, no freeze.

 

I can see how restoring the drive can fix the problem, it kinda makes sense. It seems like during the pioneer logo startup, the map and all other information are being loaded up. and if there's a corrupted drive image or sector it dosen't know what to do, so it just sits and waits. HDD are unreliable. What dosen't make sense is; I can listen to and change the songs in the Music Libary if there actually was a problem with the HDD.

[dimaj]

I'm glad it worked for you! I'm going to give it a shot... hopefully it will work, otherwise I will have to try to get a new hard drive.

 

As far as playing songs from music library goes, I think I can explain it... If i am not mistaken, there are several partitions one is for Data (such as maps and other stuff) and another is for your music. That being said, if partition 1 fails, it doesn't mean that partition 2 will.

 

So, during Level 4 reset it actually restores the image? How? Where does it keep image to be restored?

 

Also, I hear about all these different levels of system reset... how do you do them and where are they explained? I don't recall seeing anything like this in the user manual...

 

Thanks.

 

dimaj

[nismoRoadster]

I don't really know how it restores it but I'm guessing it just erases the data that wasn't factory installed and the corrupted files came from either the music or user inputed map points or data.

 

oh the restore is on page 175-178 of the manual. Its the Method 4. Method 1, 2, and 3 didn't work for the people who tried so I did the Method 4: complete restore.

[dimaj]

Awesome!

Thanks a lot for your help! I hope this will do the trick for me too

It's kinda sad that you pay $2K+ for a system which proves to be completely unreliable

 

dimaj

[nismoRoadster]

Goodluck.

 

hey look at what I just stumbled upon. It would help if these topics were combined. Method 4 reset worked for someone else too. read mrhappi's post, page 2.

 

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3111&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

 

I wonder if it has anything to do with ripping burned CDs to the HDD. What if the burned CD had an error but still playable and that error transfered to the drive? I mostly used burn ones.

[dimaj]

That is interesting. I would buy that if unit would get stuck in boot only when last source used was Music Library. It tries to read that specific sector and then BOOM! In my case, it can be on XM, FM or any other source which doesn't require HDD usage.

I don't know if unit does a complete scan at boot time to check if everything is ok in terms of HDD read errors.

 

If you are saying that due to my post with not being able to play certain songs from HDD, those songs used to work before. What I found (which freaks me out) is that it is volume sensitive. If volume is higher than 5-10, it will skip after a few seconds (at the same time stamp).

 

I hate loosing all my information (addresses, phone book, music,...) but if that's the only way to get this thing up and running again, I don't have much of a choice

 

dimaj

[dimaj]

So, I decided to bite the bullet and did a level 4 reset a few days ago. Today I was parked under the sun for about 40 mins and when I came back... yup it never booted up... Do you guys think that it is a HDD problem? Unit problem?

 

Thanks.

 

dimaj