New L7 And ASK Unit Didn't Solve My Problems! FML!!!!!!!

Yesterday I met up with my boy who has more installation knowledge than I do and we attempted to quell my issue of "no sound whatsoever". I am the same guy who originally asked for assistance after letting a nearby auto detail shop detail my car. [Dropped the car off with perfectly fine audio ... picked it up with no sounds at all. PDC? Silent ... Seatbelt chime? Silent .... Even my tri-fecta of warning lights (DSC, ABS & Park Brake) don't chime like before.] I went on a rant about my Nav disc, all of a sudden, taking a missing. Of course the shop denied fault. Went to BMW to see if a missing disc in the Nav would result in loss of all audio. They said no. After tons of research, I started to boil it down to an ASK failure. I got my hands on an ASK & an L7 (I noticed crackling in my rear speakers when I did have sound). We set out to install the ASK first. No luck! Same symptoms. No chimes or anything. After inserting a disc, "CD" on the entertainment menu was still greyed out. We then hooked up the L7. Still no luck. What the hell??? To add insult to injury ... He installed my old units in his car and VOILÀ ... My units worked fine in his car. He did notice that he could see the red fiber optic light on his ASK connection whereas on mine we couldn't. Is that the culprit? What is that? Is it expensive to fix. I'm going to the stealership tomorrow to offer my ass as a sacrificial offering. But any advice beforehand would be greatly appreciated. Thanx 'Fest!

Originally Posted by verbals

Yesterday I met up with my boy who has more installation knowledge than I do and we attempted to quell my issue of "no sound whatsoever". I am the same guy who originally asked for assistance after letting a nearby auto detail shop detail my car. [Dropped the car off with perfectly fine audio ... picked it up with no sounds at all. PDC? Silent ... Seatbelt chime? Silent .... Even my tri-fecta of warning lights (DSC, ABS & Park Brake) don't chime like before.] I went on a rant about my Nav disc, all of a sudden, taking a missing. Of course the shop denied fault. Went to BMW to see if a missing disc in the Nav would result in loss of all audio. They said no. After tons of research, I started to boil it down to an ASK failure. I got my hands on an ASK & an L7 (I noticed crackling in my rear speakers when I did have sound). We set out to install the ASK first. No luck! Same symptoms. No chimes or anything. After inserting a disc, "CD" on the entertainment menu was still greyed out. We then hooked up the L7. Still no luck. What the hell??? To add insult to injury ... He installed my old units in his car and VOILÀ ... My units worked fine in his car. He did notice that he could see the red fiber optic light on his ASK connection whereas on mine we couldn't. Is that the culprit? What is that? Is it expensive to fix. I'm going to the stealership tomorrow to offer my ass as a sacrificial offering. But any advice beforehand would be greatly appreciated. Thanx 'Fest!

Stop complaining and use search here:
Start investigating what unit has failed.
Check if you have a light at L7 connector

Originally Posted by verbals

He did notice that he could see the red fiber optic light on his ASK connection whereas on mine we couldn't. Is that the culprit? What is that?!

well the red light is the data signal... fiber optics carry data through light waves on a glass medium whereas normal cables carry electrical pulses over copper.... so no light means no data is being transmitted....


I do not know where the source is created.... but... the Fiber is in a ring network around the car... so a disconnection will cause failure in ALL devices associated with that link (to a certain extent...

take out L& amp, and all sound fails but you can still check car data and certain other things on the display..... those must be sopper connections.... you can see the ask and l7 have fiber and copper connections..... so if there is not light at harness that connects to L7 then either one device is not transmitting or there is a different harness not plugged in somewhere.... .... the fiber cables are all green if I am not mistaked.... look for anything unplugged... I dont know if the fiber goes into engine bay though or if only for multimedia.... I heard someone say ECu was on fiber tho....

someone else here would know.... but check all devices for unplugged fiber harness... the sat radio, fm tuner, nav, dvd chnager, cd changer, and countless others lol...

ps. every device on the ring recives and transmits fiber data.... if it doesnt need it it just passes it back out.... if no device has a red light then you have a big problem.. if only ask then check device in ring before that one... i dont know which one it is but follow cable if you can....

@SFbay ... Yes I have light at the L7 and thank you for informing me of my complaint problem. I must've been under the false assumption that this is a forum where at least 85% of its subject matter is complaint related. Now that I've been told, go from post to post and tell all the other "complaining" members the same thing. Have a great day.

@7Rage ... Ok. I'll get to it ASAP. Thank you for your input.

Problem is you have no signal getting to the ask unit. You have to back track from the ask to the next unit in the chain and see if it has light or not.

May be several modules before ask and after l7. If you have light at l7, the question is.....

What modules are between them and which one is bad.

Originally Posted by sirstopher

Problem is you have no signal getting to the ask unit. You have to back track from the ask to the next unit in the chain and see if it has light or not.

May be several modules before ask and after l7. If you have light at l7, the question is.....

What modules are between them and which one is bad.

thats what I said.....

Check your SVS module in the trunk ...
Also did you try putting a fibre optic loop
On the Navigation unit fibre optic line ???

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Bimmer App

-

@sirstopher .... I'm gonna have to check in the morning. Easier with daylight. @PAPER ... Can I use the lollipop in the glove box?

Originally Posted by verbals

@sirstopher .... I'm gonna have to check in the morning. Easier with daylight. @PAPER ... Can I use the lollipop in the glove box?

NO , YOU NEED ANOTHER .

@PAPER ... Ok ... That makes sense. Thanx.

Check out the document in the link below. The entire document is a good read if you want to understand how the fiber network works but page 11 shows the communication direction of the network. Based on where you are getting a light in the fiber cable it will tell you which module to check next for a light. E.g if you have a light in the fiber optic cable of the SVS module(speech module) but then don't have a light in the fiber of the navigation module then the SVS module would be the problem module since its not communicating the transmission forward. Good luck

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/BMW_docs/mostbus.pdf

Originally Posted by DFEL750I

Check out the document in the link below. The entire document is a good read if you want to understand how the fiber network works but page 11 shows the communication direction of the network. Based on where you are getting a light in the fiber cable it will tell you which module to check next for a light. E.g if you have a light in the fiber optic cable of the SVS module(speech module) but then don't have a light in the fiber of the navigation module then the SVS module would be the problem module since its not communicating the transmission forward. Good luck

http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/BMW_docs/mostbus.pdf

Agree a great read, most over my head....no pun intended.

Where you been Dfel?

Originally Posted by sirstopher

Agree a great read, most over my head....no pun intended.

Where you been Dfel?

I've been around...mostly reading..less posting. I took basically the whole month of December off to catch up with family so I wasn't really on here too much. Now I'm playing catch up at work compiled with the usual busy first quarter so not too much play time for me.

If people read that document from beginning to end it will really clear up some misconceptions and make troubleshooting a lot easier. I was working in INPA to figure out a way to trouble shoot this electronically....basically each module has an index number which uniquely identifies it on the network....similar to an IP address in the computer networking world. I noticed that the MMI which is the central module for the MOST would return an error with what appeared to be an index number when a module was disconnected.....was never able to correlate that to anything but the number would be different depending on which module was disconnected.

At the time I checked it wasn't a number directly associated to the module that I disconnected and I was not able to correlate it to anything meaningful. I may start working on figuring it out again when I get the time.

Great to have ya back posting. I still have something on my most not allowing my car to keep the memory in the MMI. Eq and l7 settings always reset????????

I have been putting this off for so long but it's my last bug with the car

Originally Posted by sirstopher

Great to have ya back posting. I still have something on my most not allowing my car to keep the memory in the MMI. Eq and l7 settings always reset????????

I have been putting this off for so long but it's my last bug with the car

Does it happen every time you restart the car or only when the car is allowed to sit for hours and fully goes to sleep. Don't want to high jack the OP's thread but since this discussion in inline with MOST problems I guess it's ok.

Originally Posted by sirstopher

Great to have ya back posting. I still have something on my most not allowing my car to keep the memory in the MMI. Eq and l7 settings always reset????????

I have been putting this off for so long but it's my last bug with the car

I had that problem where my EQ settings would reset. I changed the battery an paper register it an the problem never came back.

Originally Posted by DFEL750I

Does it happen every time you restart the car or only when the car is allowed to sit for hours and fully goes to sleep. Don't want to high jack the OP's thread but since this discussion in inline with MOST problems I guess it's ok.

When the car sits over night or at work all day.

Rookie, I also thought it was my battery and replaced it last June. Registered it with INPA.

I also get the CDC player shuffling thru the CDs sometimes when the car resets. I have read the PCM turns these units off due to battery drain.

Something is keeping my car awake, seat lights go off in the 5-8 min after the car is armed.

I was told the SMS was a module that causes a bunch of problems being in the trunk and on top of the nav disc.

It's my last little problem I have in the car except for a oil leak but that's getting fixed Wednesday.

@DFEL750I ... That .pdf is very useful to read & have for the future. I'm gonna call BMW Parts Dept. to see if I can put my hands on a MOST bus jumper today. If not, I'll order it off of bavauto.com ... I can most definitely say that without taking the left hand side paneling off in my trunk that the SVS module has "light" at its connection. Maybe my Nav unit is at fault. I'll find out when I get the looper. Thanx, guys!

Originally Posted by sirstopher

Great to have ya back posting. I still have something on my most not allowing my car to keep the memory in the MMI. Eq and l7 settings always reset????????

I have been putting this off for so long but it's my last bug with the car

This usually happens if L7 hasn't been coded to the car.

Originally Posted by sirstopher

When the car sits over night or at work all day.

Rookie, I also thought it was my battery and replaced it last June. Registered it with INPA.

I also get the CDC player shuffling thru the CDs sometimes when the car resets. I have read the PCM turns these units off due to battery drain.

Something is keeping my car awake, seat lights go off in the 5-8 min after the car is armed.

I was told the SMS was a module that causes a bunch of problems being in the trunk and on top of the nav disc.

It's my last little problem I have in the car except for a oil leak but that's getting fixed Wednesday.

I am having same issue, I have one power module error though, which I believe is the issue.. also my L7 and Ask are having issues, so I am thinking they may be the cause too.. once I get the money I will have them replaced, but they just haven't been a priority as the system still sounds fine at reg volumes..

Originally Posted by sirstopher

When the car sits over night or at work all day.

Rookie, I also thought it was my battery and replaced it last June. Registered it with INPA.

I also get the CDC player shuffling thru the CDs sometimes when the car resets. I have read the PCM turns these units off due to battery drain.

Something is keeping my car awake, seat lights go off in the 5-8 min after the car is armed.

I was told the SMS was a module that causes a bunch of problems being in the trunk and on top of the nav disc.

It's my last little problem I have in the car except for a oil leak but that's getting fixed Wednesday.

CD Player cycling is a sign that you have a battery drain somewhere. Your power module is doing its job and shutting down non essential features and modules so you dont wake up to a dead battery.

Im not sure if you have changed your logic 7 amp or MMI but this has nothing to do with no having the right VIN coded to it as I saw in another post. I have left my SVS module disconnected all night which means that my MMI didnt have access to see my logic 7 amp even if it was doing some kind of check and that did not reset anything in my MMI.

You said you changed your battery and already registered it so thats not the problem. Sometimes registering the battery will help because it lets the car know that there is a new battery which has the full 120 minute reserve our AGM batteries have. That will allow the powermodule to permit the battery to drain more aggressively without having to shut down features on the car. So in Rookie's case registering his new battery prevented his powermodule from shuting down features prematurely and resolved his problem. He must have had just a minor power drain somewhere. As the battery ages and goes through charging cycles the powermodule uses an algorithm to determine how much actual reserve the aging battery theorectically now has.

The power module cannot measure the actual reserve of the battery and it only knows how much drain there has been and how much charge the battery should have based on how its allowed the alternator to charge the battery. This info is part of what is used to determine the current reserve capacity and when it makes sense to shut down features to leave enough power to start the car.

Unfortunately for you...power drains in this car are extremely difficult to diagnose. In most cases people just resort to putting a trickle charger on the car to keep the battery topped up.

Thank you to all the contributors to this thread. I picked up the jumper that I ordered from BMW today. I didn't even have to remove the trunk panel. I opened the latch and tried the SVS module right out the gate. Right after I attached it, I heard radio static. Never been so happy to hear static in my life. Thanx fellas. I really appreciate y'all steering me in the right direction.

I think SFbay deserves all the credit, without his super informative post about your complaining there is no way you would have found out what the problem was. Keep it up SFbay.