Hey guys what's up. Basically as the title suggests my z1's been freezing up lately. Had it for about 3 months now with no problems but i've noticed over the past month on and off that ill start the car and it'll stay on the bootup screen. I can hear whatever source i was on previously before i turned the car off. I can turn the volume up and down and change tracks and stations but thats about it. I'll hit the reset button and it does the same thing. I did just notice that i iopened the unit (Had the screen tilt down) and noticed it was pretty hot behind there so im thinking the hard drives too hot. I live in the mid atlantic and it has been hot lately. Just wondering if anybody else has expierenced the same problem.

Per Pioneer's knowledgebase:

This unit's specifications reflect a operating temperature range of -10 C (14 F) to 50 C (122 F).
The unit incorporates a low temperature protection circuit for HDD protection. At specified temperatures the unit will start without HDD operation until the temperature reaches a safe level for HDD operation.

I know it talks about "low temp" here, but that was someone's question to Pioneer. I'm sure the protection circuit works at both extremes.

Sounds like your hard disk is way hot to run. Won't boot up, but the Z1 doesn't need the HDD to play your radio etc... I'd bet that if you left the radio on "library" when you turned the car off, if the temperature protection prevents the HDD from running when you start your car again, it will probably default to FM radio or even "off", because of the inability to access data on the HDD.

I guess you'll have to wait for it to cool down a bit. Run the A/C for a few mins, etc...

That answers a lot of questions. I have the exact same problem on mine, Here in Kansas, the day time temps have been exceeding 100, so I can imagine inside a black car, with black interior, that this thing could easily over temp.

I've never had that problem...and believe me...the inside of the car gets pretty damn hot here!

03Aviator said:

I've never had that problem...and believe me...the inside of the car gets pretty damn hot here!

i really need a resolve for this issue.

Well i talked to one of the techs at pioneer to keep you guys updated. He basically concurred with me. Basically from my understanding if the temperature gets too hot it won't run the drive like BSecrest said. Thats why i would hear the xm or ipod or radio. don't use the library much. Unfortunately Don't think there's a resolve for this issue as since this unit is harddrive based. But like I said to him i'd rather have it cut the hard drive and wait for the car to cool rather then fry a 2000+ radio. Lil sidenote for this cause i was hitting the reset button and everything but even if the harddrive cools off the radio need to lose turnon for the radio to work properly again. (i.e. turn the car off and then back on) it wont just restart if its been sitting there. He also said after the heat wave they got in cali early this month they recieved alot of calls about this issue. hope this answers some questions.

Lucky_Bagota said:

Well i talked to one of the techs at pioneer to keep you guys updated. He basically concurred with me. Basically from my understanding if the temperature gets too hot it won't run the drive like BSecrest said. Thats why i would hear the xm or ipod or radio. don't use the library much. Unfortunately Don't think there's a resolve for this issue as since this unit is harddrive based. But like I said to him i'd rather have it cut the hard drive and wait for the car to cool rather then fry a 2000+ radio. Lil sidenote for this cause i was hitting the reset button and everything but even if the harddrive cools off the radio need to lose turnon for the radio to work properly again. (i.e. turn the car off and then back on) it wont just restart if its been sitting there. He also said after the heat wave they got in cali early this month they recieved alot of calls about this issue. hope this answers some questions.

I have even tried turning the car off and holding reset to no avail...with the AC running...I dont know what else to do...it wont come back on....it just sits at the Pioneer screen....I am completely clueless...and I live in MD and the temps are in the mid to high 80's...so its no heat wave here...any more info would be great!

theblueprint said:

I have even tried turning the car off and holding reset to no avail...with the AC running...I dont know what else to do...it wont come back on....it just sits at the Pioneer screen....I am completely clueless...and I live in MD and the temps are in the mid to high 80's...so its no heat wave here...any more info would be great!

Maybe it's time you talk to Pioneer...

Online E-mail Form:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v ... 85,00.html

or

Phone:
(800) 421-1404

Hours of operation:
24 hours a day for most services. Hours for product service, product operation and parts inquires:
Mon. - Fri. 9:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. Eastern (all product inquiries).
Sat. - Sun. 11:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. Eastern (plasma, DVD recorder, navigation inquiries only).

MitchellStang said:

theblueprint said:

I have even tried turning the car off and holding reset to no avail...with the AC running...I dont know what else to do...it wont come back on....it just sits at the Pioneer screen....I am completely clueless...and I live in MD and the temps are in the mid to high 80's...so its no heat wave here...any more info would be great!

Maybe it's time you talk to Pioneer...

Online E-mail Form:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v ... 85,00.html

or

Phone:
(800) 421-1404

Hours of operation:
24 hours a day for most services. Hours for product service, product operation and parts inquires:
Mon. - Fri. 9:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. Eastern (all product inquiries).
Sat. - Sun. 11:00 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. Eastern (plasma, DVD recorder, navigation inquiries only).

they know nothing...they are going to repair it for free, but in the meantime i need to get it to work until I mail it in....

It turns out that this may be related to the problem I described in this thread... In my case, the hard drive IS running when the unit does not boot up (stays at the Pioneer logo screen), and will sequentially play songs from the library; however, only the volume buttons work, so you can't navigate tracks when it gets into that mode, and even then, the unit will randomly decide to stop playing one song and go to the next, sometimes skipping entire songs along the way. I can also switch sources in this situation, and the radio and iPod interface work, just with no display.

It IS due to heat, but I don't think it gets up to 122 degrees in my car. Besides, my iPod lives in my glove box, and it has been there for at least a year and a half, and has never had any problems with its hard drive in that time.

Last Saturday, I took my unit back to Sound Advice (where I bought it--about a 140-mile round trip for me), and since it was an overcast morning, the unit worked fine all the way down there, and they could not reproduce the problem when I got there. They did reset the unit and unplug and reconnect all of the wires to the unit; I gave them the benefit of the doubt, thinking that maybe one of those two things may have helped, but of course, Sunday it exhibited this same problem again. So I'm taking it back one more time, and will insist on a new unit or a full refund for this system (they offered to remove it and send it to Pioneer for service, which could take "up to six weeks," but I doubt that Pioneer would go through the trouble necessary to reproduce this problem in their repair facility). The bottom line is, if it's sold in Florida, it should work in Florida, and if that's not the case, it should be Pioneer's loss, not mine.

I'm hoping that this problem only occurs in a relatively small number of Z1s, and that replacing the unit will take care of it; if all of them were susceptible to this heat-related problem, it seems like there would be many more people seeing this than have reported it so far.

Marauder said:

It IS due to heat, but I don't think it gets up to 122 degrees in my car. Besides, my iPod lives in my glove box, and it has been there for at least a year and a half, and has never had any problems with its hard drive in that time.

If you had ever designed electronic systems you wouldn't make this statement. The heat generated by electronics these days is incredible. The heat generated by the CPU in your PC is the equivalent of a 75 Watt or 100 Watt light bulb in a small, closed box. Cooling electronics these days is one of the toughest design challenges facing engineers. The inside of your Z1 can be many, many degrees above ambient, especially if the fan opening or other vents in the Z1 case are partially (or completely) obstructed.

ufd108 said:

Marauder said:

It IS due to heat, but I don't think it gets up to 122 degrees in my car. Besides, my iPod lives in my glove box, and it has been there for at least a year and a half, and has never had any problems with its hard drive in that time.

If you had ever designed electronic systems you wouldn't make this statement. The heat generated by electronics these days is incredible. The heat generated by the CPU in your PC is the equivalent of a 75 Watt or 100 Watt light bulb in a small, closed box. Cooling electronics these days is one of the toughest design challenges facing engineers. The inside of your Z1 can be many, many degrees above ambient, especially if the fan opening or other vents in the Z1 case are partially (or completely) obstructed.

Yes, but this problem only occurs when starting the car, not when it's already running, so there should be no electronically-produced heat at that point; it's the ambient heat that's causing this problem, and I don't think it gets up to 122 degrees. I'm going to put a thermometer in my car and record what the temperature is when I start it up, and find out what the "breaking point" is for my Z1. I know that there have been mornings when it has been no higher than 80 degrees, and the unit failed to start up (although it does start up most mornings), but it rarely works on the drive home from work in the afternoon...

If it were me, and I confirmed that it *was* a heat issue. I might consider cutting a little side vent behind the dash in my a/c system and route some cool air with a little hose or something towards the Z1. Be careful though, condensation could be your next enemy if not done properly. Obviously, this would not fix the problem when you first start the car, but it would reduce your wait time.

branas said:

If it were me, and I confirmed that it *was* a heat issue. I might consider cutting a little side vent behind the dash in my a/c system and route some cool air with a little hose or something towards the Z1. Be careful though, condensation could be your next enemy if not done properly. Obviously, this would not fix the problem when you first start the car, but it would reduce your wait time.

The problem with that idea would be that in winter you would be dumping hot air on the Z1. If you go this route make sure you do it in such a way that you can easily close it off in winter.

Yeah, didn't think about that. Leave it to a Floridian to not think about winter 8)

branas said:

Yeah, didn't think about that. Leave it to a Floridian to not think about winter 8)

Well, I'm a Floridian too, so it wouldn't be a problem for me; I don't even think I ever used my heater at all last winter!

I talked to the Sound Advice guy yesterday, and he called Pioneer and found out exactly what we've been discussing here--that the Z1 will cut off the hard drive at 122 degrees until it cools down enough to operate. But that's not exactly what mine is doing; it's not completely booting above a certain temperature (much lower than 122, never getting past the Pioneer logo screen), although the hard drive IS running, because it plays music from the library, but none of the buttons work. And I checked yesterday when I left work--it was raining and overcast, and the ambient temperature was 87 degrees, inside the car it was around 89, and the Z1 failed to boot.

Long story short, I have an appointment next Friday to get my Z1 replaced with a new unit (for a $40 service charge...), but at least I won't have to wait six weeks to get mine back with a note from Pioneer saying they weren't able to reproduce the problem in their seventy-something degree testing facility. I don't look forward to re-ripping the 55 CDs I had stored in the library either, but I'll be glad to get rid of what I hope is simply a lemon Z1.

ufd108 said:

The problem with that idea would be that in winter you would be dumping hot air on the Z1. If you go this route make sure you do it in such a way that you can easily close it off in winter.

For me that would be a good thing. I live in North Dakota so the winters here are usually in the negatives and it is well below the lowest operating temperaure for the Z1. When I had my N1 and my N2, during the Jan-Feb period, my screen would turn on extremely slow and waiting for screen changes while navigating through the menus was a pain in the ass. I haven't had my Z1 through a ND winter yet but it'll probably do the same thing. I find it funny that I can touch the 1,000 watt amp under my seat after it's been on for an hour and I have to remove my hand after a while because it's too cold.