Is my phatnoise dead?

[simonp]

It's an Audi phatnoise, I've plumbed in the cable to the back of the Symphony II.  However it does not power up (no activity from the leds).

I've checked the cable and it outputs 12v on the correct line when the head unit is switched on.

I don't know whether it's a problem with the head unit not being programmed for it, I am told it's touch and go about 25% that aren't - but would it power the 12v line if it didn't need to?

With the 12v line going live would I expect the phatnoise to spring into life or not? 

Could it be a problem with one of the other lines in the cable preventing it from starting up?

Or is the poor thing an ex-phatnoise?

Any help would be much appreciated, I don't have much hair left to pull out these days!

[sbingner]

If the PhatBox has been disconnected, the FIRST time power is applied it WILL power up.  After that, it will wait for a signal from the head unit.

So, if it's the first time it's connected it should power up and turn itself back off... if not, you have something wrong.   After that, it depends on the rest of your cable and the firmware on the PhatBox

[judb]

after the first power on (with or without a DMS, just when you plug the cables in) it wont power on again until a DMS is inserted and if the cable from the DMS interface inside the box is loose so the motherboard connection isn't sound it wont power up because the DMS hits a switch to enable the unit to power up.  So that could be the issue if you missed seeing it power up when you plugged it into the head unit.

[simonp]

I've made a little progress.  I found that the round DIN plug connector of the Audi-changer cable had only 9 pins (it should have had 10).  I took it apart and repaired the missing pin, which I think had rusted away, with a modified paper clip and the soldering iron.

With this modification the phatnoise spins up when the radio is switched on, but is still not recognised by the symphony II head unit, and the phatnoise after a bit of light flashing is left with the red led illuminated and the disk spinning but no other signs of being usefully connected!

According to the manual the phatnoise should spin up and both leds should go off, so does the red led being left on hint as to the nature of the problem?

Any ideas anyone?

[sbingner]

In normal operation the red light should be on, and the green light should blink for disk access -- sounds like it's booting up fine to me.  You could try a bootload.log or something, also might want to force it to reprogram to your firmware if you're not sure about the firmware