Audi MMi 2G Problem

[jordancalhoun]

Hello,
I looked and couldn't find anything that quite matched my issues so I decided to start a new thread.

Background of MMI in my car: In addition to the AM/FM and CD player my car also has Sirius, Navigation, and Telephone (all factory installed). It is a 2005 C6 A6 with ~97,000miles

The issue: The entire MMI will not boot up unless I unplug the battery completely for at least a hour or so. Once booted if i play music, the music will glitch/pause for a few seconds (this only happens after its been playing for a few minutes and happens sooner the louder the music is.) It will do this for a few times and occasionally display "please wait" on the screen where you would make your radio selection or cd/track selection and then eventually crash the entire system and all MMI related functions will go black, screen goes blank, top portion of screen between gauges is blank and no MMI related buttons are lit up.

Diagnosis so far After the system crashes and i restarted my car, I went to the trunk to see if I could hear anything weird in the compartment where all the MMI interfaces are located. The Bose Base Boost AMP (4F0 035 223 B) was making a weird tick noise and there also was a 'airy' noise coming out of the speakers in the same pattern as the tick in the box. It is about every few seconds it makes the noise.

Hearing this I was figuring this box was the issue, so i replaced that box and still nothing. So i started to play with the main Bose Amp to see if that was the problem. When I unplug the main amp the airy noise in the speakers that comes and goes every few seconds goes away, and also the ticking goes away in the base boost box.

so at this point i'm assuming it is the main (ridiculously priced) amp that is my problem and/or the power going to that box. I took the amp out and disassembled it to see if i could find any obvious burnt/fry marks on and of the boards and found nothing. It is also good to note none of these boxes have gotten water damage on them

At this point I am willing to buy a new amp for the car used on ebay I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t something obvious that i wasn’t checking first before i spend the money. If you guys suggest i replace that box my next question is this: i read about how the amps are not simply plug and play that you need to get a Audi Dealer to pair it with the car. Is this the case no matter the amp or would a amp with the exact same Part# and exact same SW# be a plug and play option?

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advanced!

[SinCityA6]

I am not 100% convinced that the issue resides in the amp. I cant make the connection why an amp would prevent the MMI from booting up. Yes, a bad amp will cause the hissing noise you are hearing through the speakers. I am more inlined to think that the main MMI control module may be to blame here. Has any liquid been spilled on the center console?

[jordancalhoun]

Thanks for replying,
No no liquid has gotten down in the center console. I was worried something like that might be the issue as well; however, if i leave the music muted I have yet to have it crash, which would seem the amp isnt having to work as hard

May i ask why you think this might be the cause of my problems? Also would there be anyway to test it?

[SinCityA6]

My thought is that the amp should only being supplying power to the speakers and really nothing else. I know that the radio module and Nav player are "Daisy Chained" by fiber optic cabling for data transfer etc but I am not aware that the amp is part of that. When unplugging the amp, does the MMI still have all functionality (except sound of course) and does the crash occur?

The way the MMI is crashing and that there is no power to the center console buttons, screens, etc tells me there is a complete power shutdown to the system. Could the Amp be causing this by drawaing too much energy? Possibly. Our cars do have a system that shuts down non essential systems to perserve the battery but this only applies to when the vehicle is not operational.

The only test that I can think of is disconnect the Amp and drive the car as you normally would for a period of time. If you have use of all other components (Nav, etc) and the system doesnt crash and shut down, then you have isolated the issue to the Amp possibly drawning too much power from the system. This in turn may cause the car to disable it because of the excessive power draw.

[jordancalhoun]

When the amp isn't plugged in the MMI won't boot up at all, the only way I've been able to get it to boot is everything connected and the amp powered up.

I don't believe I've tried doing booting up the MMI after disconnecting the battery for a while and leaving the amp unplugged.

When I say the MMI crashes I mean none of it will boot it gets to the MMI loading screen then goes blank again after 30-50 seconds, the only things that are functional are the CD player has lights on it and the nav DVD player will eject and take DVDs

But I also know that the amp has a fiber optic cable going in and out of it as one of the 3 connects to it so I'd assume it is also part of the daisy chain

I'll try disconnecting the power and seeing if it boots without the amp connected and post back


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[jordancalhoun]

I will add tho that when the system is down the volume button does turn on the MMI to get it to the loading screen. Also when the system is up and working all MMI buttons work normally


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[jordancalhoun]

I disconnected the battery for sometime and left the amp unplugged, it wouldn't boot up the MMI with it unplugged it would simply show the loading screen then go blank again. To ensure I waited long enough I plugged the amp back in and it booted right up, I'm going to leave the music on mute tomorrow and see if it crashes at all and report back




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[jordancalhoun]

So I started my car today and the MMi booted up after leaving the battery unplugged for sometime. I left the music on mute to see if that would prevent it from crashing however it still crashed about 5 minutes after driving.

Any suggestions to look next?

[SinCityA6]

So I started my car today and the MMi booted up after leaving the battery unplugged for sometime. I left the music on mute to see if that would prevent it from crashing however it still crashed about 5 minutes after driving.

Any suggestions to look next?

Can you get into the "Car" menu to see which version of software you are running? You may need to load/reload the software. I cant imagine that the amp is the cuprit here.

[jordancalhoun]

I have actually taken a pic when it was running so yes! See attached, I ordered vagcom today since I needed it for other things anyways and I'm good with directions so any help is much appreciated

[jordancalhoun]

See above

[SinCityA6]

See above

You are in serious need of a software upgrade. Current version is 46.1.0. I would start there before replacing components. Here is a related thread....

http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...light=software

[jordancalhoun]

Okay question about that tho with my current issue, I'm afraid the system will crash in the middle of the upgrade leaving my system bricked, is the only way to update that through the cd drive and with MMI booted up?


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[SinCityA6]

Okay question about that tho with my current issue, I'm afraid the system will crash in the middle of the upgrade leaving my system bricked, is the only way to update that through the cd drive and with MMI booted up?


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That is the only way to update. You will also want to put the car on a trickle charger to keep battery power during upgrade. Some have done it with the car running.

I truely believe you are experiencing an software issue here. Yes, you run the risk of an issue if the MMI crashes during the update, but at this point, you basically have a non functioning unit as it is. If it were my car, this is where I would start.

Anyone else have some feedback or input?

[jordancalhoun]

Understood, That would make more sense to me then the amp at this point. Ill give it a whirl and cross my fingers

[SinCityA6]

Good Luck! Update this thread with your progress and results. This is how we all learn.

[jordancalhoun]

I come with good news!! -- First off thank you so so much to SinCityA6 for all the great communication and help to get my issue solved. without youd id be buying a new amp at this point

[TL;DR] at bottom

So after a hour or so of research I found this post on good 'ol audizine and read what he had posted on updating the MMI system. I was able to get the zip file via the torrent posted and extracted the .zip

I was only able to get the ISO's to open in powerISO and burn successfully in that program as well.

After I successfully burned all three cds, 3360, and the 2 4610 discs i went to my car, powered it off via the battery and then booted it back up. As soon as the MMI booted I got into the SWUpdate menu as soon as i could. What is great about this menu, i found through this process, is that it is separate from the MMI systems flash itself (which would make sense to make updating possible since it has to flash the MMI to update). Therefore once into the SWUpdate screen I didn’t have to worry about it crashing mid-install.

-- Anyway onto the install process
I first started with the bluetooth disc one of 4610 since i knew my bluetooth was in need of a update before I could proceed to the disc 2 as haloguy628 warned on linked post. After trying to get this to update twice it failed both times with the error: device finished download with error 152 and wouldn’t update the bluetooth module.

Therefore, i decided that If i could get 3360 to install that would at least update the MMI to a newer-much better- version of the MMI and fix my issue if in fact the MMI was corrupt. So the only way to get out of the SWUpdate screen at that point was to click "restart MMI" which of course restarted it but it wouldn’t load past the loading screen.

So i did the usual, unplugged the battery for a few and then got it to boot, got into the SWUpdate as quickly as possible then inserted the 3360 disk in the cd player. Clicked yes install and it was able to install everything successfully except the bluetooth with again the same error 152 as the 4610 version.

So after the install i restarted the MMI and it works! Everything is fully functional and works better than it ever has! The only thing that i'm currently wanting to fix is the bluetooth update issue. My main reason for this is that i have a iphone and i have the common Phonebook wont load my phone contacts since its such a old bluetooth version.

so my next question is, are you familiar with this error code and do you have any suggestions for fixing it as well?


[TL;DR] Installing a new MMI software fixed my crashing issues, however my bluetooth wont update with error 152

[SinCityA6]

Great to hear! Glad to be of assistance and always happy to help. Did you burn your files to the +r discs?

[jordancalhoun]

Since the update is done through the CD player not the Navigation DVD player I used CD-R (since they never made CD+R discs)

What are your thoughts on Version 55.5.7? I like the 3D map view but dont think its worth it if I have to VAGCOM in to get all my other stuff back

[SinCityA6]

I do not think you can get the 3D map view on the 2G MMI. You would need the 3G MMI for that.

[jordancalhoun]

I think you are right, It was only released in Europe for the 3D view in MMI 2G