My Z2's buzzing at idol and the buzz/whine increases as the engine RPM rise. Any ideas as to why this may be happening?

Anyone with a Z1 or 2 in or around Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada. I originally had a Z1 and the nav was always off by about 50-100 meters and always placing me that 50-100 meters south of where I actually was.

I now have a Z2... same damn thing. Only here in Grande Prairie though, everytime I go 100+ km's from here it corrects itself... then when I return it's out again.

I've reset the 3D calibration several times. Dosn't do anything.

Move??? Thats all you can come up with?

Thanks "tips"

Anyone got any USEFUL information?

get Alpine

Did you move your antenna and see if it helps?

Sorry.

Ya... tried it

VSS hooked up?

And check your grounds to get rid of the engine noise

VSS is hooked up... as far as I know. Z2's speedo works great, distance measuring works great... I'm assuming the VSS wire's hookes up. Oh, and I get a speed pulse on the calibration screen.

Have checked grounds quickly... seemed ok. I'll check again if thats the most obvious fix.

i bet no VSS

i get the same whine on my 03 sierra. ive been told its the ground from the cab or engine to the waxed frame that causes it in gm,s

id like to see how you do then ill likely do the same

rewired the ground wires. no whine and or pop when i turn off or start my vehicle gmc 2005 yukon

Re-do your ground(s).

A ground loop is your most likely cause. Try moving your grounds, don't use the factory ground and make sure its clean metal (no paint). If that doesn't do it Radio Shack carries Inline filters (noise suppressors)that will magnetically remove any engine noise.

take a close look at antenna placement. you could be getting some bad multipath situation going if the antenna is at a bad angle or is nestled down around too much metal.

I've noticed on my Z2 that it hums all the time. I found that turning off the backlight on the display causes it to stip. I probably need to take it back to the shop and point it out to them.

rewired the ground wires. no whine and or pop when i turn off or start my vehicle gmc 2005 yukon

Can you elaborate a little. I have an 03 Tahoe and I'm using the GMOS-04 with the stock radio ground. I have a noise, not to bad, but where did you go to ground and get rid of the noise. In the dash somewhere? Thanks.

take a close look at antenna placement. you could be getting some bad multipath situation going if the antenna is at a bad angle or is nestled down around too much metal.

which antenna are you talking about? FM? GPS? Thanks

I have just purchased a refurbished avic-Z1. I installed it myself and am now getting the same noise that has been described. (Whine from engine RPM and popping noises.) I installed the radio in a 2003 GMC Sierra with a Bose speaker system and no On-Star. I am new to the avic-z1 and to this site, however this site has been a great help so far.

Is there anyone who knows what these ground loops are. and how do we get a better ground on the chasis? does this solve the problem? I have tried moving my ground on various bolts of the truck but nothing has worked yet. I heard some talk about inline insulators and what not. I have also changed my chime adaptor from a Periphrial GMCO to a PAC unit. Still nothing has worked for me.Everything on the HU works great, but these noises and whines are going to make me go nuts. I am totally open to any suggestions.

I have just purchased a refurbished avic-Z1. I installed it myself and am now getting the same noise that has been described. (Whine from engine RPM and popping noises.) I installed the radio in a 2003 GMC Sierra with a Bose speaker system and no On-Star. I am new to the avic-z1 and to this site, however this site has been a great help so far.

Is there anyone who knows what these ground loops are. and how do we get a better ground on the chasis? does this solve the problem? I have tried moving my ground on various bolts of the truck but nothing has worked yet. I heard some talk about inline insulators and what not. I have also changed my chime adaptor from a Periphrial GMCO to a PAC unit. Still nothing has worked for me.Everything on the HU works great, but these noises and whines are going to make me go nuts. I am totally open to any suggestions.

i am obviously in the same boat. I use a metra adapter. The PAC and peripheral are identical harnesses because there the same company so that probably didnt help your case much. it is an issue no matter what harness you use. im gunna play around with it this weekend and see if i can solve the problem. if anyone know a solution let us know

Guys,

I went to future shop to get some sort of insulator or filter contraption that would get rid of the Whine and the pops we have been getting in our trucks. I have GMC 2003 Sierra and I installed Stinger Ground Loop Isolators on the preamps of the head unit. Tried it out and the whines and pops are gone. so anyways there are available at future shop for 20 bucks a piece. you need femal by female connectors and rca wires to hook it up becasue the orientation of the units are built for aftermarket amps and are too be installed by the amp. this took me 5 minutes to install. the sound quality is not jeopardized at all. Try it yourself.

Lodder

before in changed the location of the ground i did the same the with the rca fileter and the two adapter and i still had to turn the volume down on my gsm04 so that hearing the onstar difficult. anyway i brought another gsm04 from cc because i had cut the rca rear output wire and wanted the rear sound. anyway i was gonna just switch out the module and the pins didn't match. when i changed the module i regrounded the wires to a screw just to the right of the steering wheel on a metal bracket and no poping or whine not sure what done it the gsm or the ground. maybe some could look into the new gsm04.

The engine noise in the GMC's is purely caused by the Bose / Onstar interfaces. It's an issue with the modules themselves. I've used the GMOS04 from Metra, the Soundgate module and as of yesterday an Axxess from Best Buy.

The Metra, had the engine noise unless the amp gain of the module was about 10% or less for me. The metra also had a firmware bug where the door chime would chime non stop for 10 minutes (even if the doors were closed) if you closed the door at the exact same time you put the key in the ignition (exactly why I dumped the metra module).

The soundgate module fixed the door chime bug because it had a newer firmware, but it had a bug where it would loose the amp gain setting randomly (about 1 day every 2 weeks of driving) and even with the gain wheel on the module set at about 15% it would kick in about 50% for no reason (my guess is cold temperature or something). The only way to get the module to go back to the original setting was to disconnect it completely (fuse pull) for a few minutes and then hook it back up. That was fun because I'd lose all my presets and some Z2 configs.

My soundgate module after 9 months of owning it started draining my battery randomly as well. I had a 2amp current draw from that circuit with the truck off. I got tired of going out to a dead battery every few days in my truck so I just yesterday dumped the Soundgate module.

I bought the Axxess module from Best Buy and hopefully that'll resolve my isuses.

I will note, ALL of these modules are made by the same company and they're just rebranded for whoever you buy them from. The Metra and soundgate were identical boards and wiring harnesses and just different firmwares flashed on them (likely an age of shop inventory more than anything for what firmware you get). The Axxess module I picked up yesterday is still a GMOS04 module, but they're using a 2006 dated board (the previous Metra and Soundgate were 2004 stamped boards) and the newer board has a new 14 pin connector on the one side instead of a 10 pin (the other 24pin is still the same across all 3 modules). I'm hoping the newer hardware solves the random amp gain issue as well as the battery drain.

One other nice tip for those of you with GM's is the new module with the 14 pin connector brings you VSS to the module instead of having to chase it down at the instrument cluster. This would have saved me time on my original Z1/2 install 18 months ago when I had to hunt around for my VSS wire in the instrument panel.

Anyway, hope this helps some people, I'd like to know my $300 in multiple Bose/Onstar modules is going to some use other than fixing annoying bugs with crap firmware.

Oh, BTW, the new module (2006 board with 14 pin connector) also has a connector on the module that looks like it's for flashing firmware updates. Now I just need to figure out how to flash it to newer firmware when issues are fixed by the OEM's instead of having to buy a new $100 module every 6-9 months.

If anyone has questions about the firmware versions, hardware revisions or other info about these modules let me know. But I'm quite confident the GM engine whine issues people are referring to are 100% attributed to the interface modules themselves and not a ground loop in your head unit wiring.

Ralph

I have a '02 pathfinder and was getting a terrible engine whine and it was ridiculous. Albeit I also have a ton of sound equipment in the rig, but here's what I did to get rid of it. I grounded the rca's. Here's how... get a small 12-16ga wire and i suggest creating a long lead on the wire and wrapping it around the negative lead on one of the rca out's (probably better off being one of the front or rear out's vs. the sub or any video out's) and then twisting it real nice and tight and then taping it to the rca then grab a cable tie (you know those long black plastic/nylon straps that keep/bundle wires/cable together) and torque the cable tie down on the rca over the taped part to secure the wire to the rca and simply ground it to the chassis of the HU. BAM! I had no more noise/engine whine. Now given I have amps and stuff not sure if that is a fix exclusively due to having amps but I wouldn't think so. It’s sound that is leaving the HU weather or not it goes through an amp or not before it hits the speakers shouldn't matter. It is commonly known that among a select few of us that deal with amps and crossovers and stuff like that that PIONEER has major issues with their rca's being grounded and giving off good clean sound with no noise. In fact there are some high end amps out there (i.e. US Amps) that the technical people say that their amps do not do well with PIONEER Equipment because of this problem.

If you don’t like the taping and cable tie resolve you can always solder it to the rca just the same... I'd be concerned as to how well solder will take to the rca as it is coated/protected to some degree. Other possibility is to get a set of rca's that have the grounding wire (some call it a drain wire) built in to them. I saw a pair on eBay for under $5.00 shipped (http://cgi.ebay.com/6-Ft-2-RCA-MALE-PLU ... dZViewItem)

There's always the possibility of a ground loop isolator but the money spent on that is almost moot when grounding the rca's is basically the same and fixed my issue for simply 15-20 minutes and a spare little piece of wire lying around downstairs.

This may not be the fix for all but it fixed my engine whine 97%. If i listen closely while parked i can still hear a lil' something but as soon as it goes in R or D the noise from cabin/rubber hitting the road it is now drained out.

Hope that helps some of you

mh

long lead on the wire and wrapping it around the negative lead on one of the rca

That for those who may not be aware... it's the outer sleve of the rca connector. Just wanted to clarify!

matt