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iDrive restart?

36K views 19 replies 14 participants last post by  JDSX  
#1 ·
I have a G30, 540i. Last night I was scrolling through Sirius radio stations with the wheel and the system became unresponsive then the screen went black. It appears the system flaked and restarted. Never had this happen before in previous BMWs and everything seems to be working ok now...just wondering if this has happened to anyone else with this model?

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#2 ·
There are now several threads dealing with this seemingly spontaneous screen blackout issue. It seems to happen at random but is definitely a problem. Someone I know with a 540xi had this happen and the car spent almost a week in the shop. IIRC the car's software had to be recoded and a control module had to be replaced. Though I have not experienced this particular problem it is definitely an issue and one that is not isolated to two or three people.

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#3 ·
We've had numerous other BMW's that have had the iDrive screen go black. In every case, it was a matter of the car sitting in the sun, the screen heating up too much, and the system shutting it off for self-preservation. Cooling the interior down always allowed those to reset by themselves. My M3 convertible and my daughter's X1 were the biggest culprits (she likes to keep the sunroof blind open when she parks the car. Drives me crazy, which many be why she does it).

It sounds like the OP's problem may be something different, but if it resolves by itself it could be this same situation.
 
#6 ·
It may have been a Sirius channel update ... I've seen that a couple of times in the past on my F10 and once on my G30 - but it only blanks the Sirius channel screen when that's the one that is on. Nothing affected if I'm just in navigation etc.

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#8 ·
My F10 did it several times earlier this year and they couldn't find any issues with it. Nevertheless they updated the software and the problem went away. I did lose all my coded features though.
 
#14 ·
Haven't had that happen in my G30 -- yet. It happened at least once on my F10 (in three years of ownership) and a couple of times in my E60 (7 years of ownership) and at least once in my E39 (7 years of ownership). I recall having to do a 'three finger salute" on the E60 once to get the audio back. In my experience, it's not common but can happen. Interestingly, I don't recall it ever happening in my E53, E70, or F15 X5's.
 
#16 ·
If you're getting it consistently then it may mean a trip to the dealer.
 
#17 ·
Went on a bit of a road trip yesterday. About an hour into it, I got a message on the screen saying that an update to the navigation system was available, asking if I wanted to apply it now (which would restart the system) or apply it on the next engine startup. I chose to let it wait. Shortly afterwards, we stopped somewhere for lunch, and sure enough the navigation system took a bit longer to start up after that, so I assumed it was doing its thing.

Several hours later, on the way home, we were listening to satellite radio, and suddenly the screen went dark and the audio went off completely. About 30 seconds later, it restarted itself. Maybe it was related to the nav update... maybe it was related to satellite radio... but it resolved itself, so I'm not going to worry about it. For all intents and purposes, there's a big-ass computer in there. Occasional software glitches are bound to happen. As long as it's not chronic, I'm not bothered.
 
#20 ·
I've had the system do a complete reboot a few times already; mostly as I was beginning a drive.