Phatnoise is silent!

[spid4567]

Hello,

   I have a GM Phatnoise system.  The dealer won't support it, they say I have to go to Phatnoise - they say they no longer support the product.  I do have the extended warranty, so I may be able to force GM to do something, but in the meantime, I would just like the system to work!

   Originally, the dashboard display showed a song playing, but there was no sound.  Looking at the video screen in the back of the van, it looked as if the Phatnoise system was continually rebooting.

   After playing abit with the Phat hack tools, everything looks right - the video screen shows the proper menus.  You can even select songs to play from the screen -but, there is still no sound.

   The GM dealer tried swapping  out the harness, but that didn't seem to make any difference.  Could the firmware in the player be corrupted some how?  Is there anyway to tell?

  I tried to upload the hacked firmware, but it didn't seem to do anything, so I don't think it worked.  But, maybe it did?

Spid4567

[VorTechS]

If your box isn't hacked, then you can't use the hacked firmware - and should ensure the option 'Install non-hacked' firmware is checked when you run the DMS tools.

When you say there is no sound, does the screen show that the track is playing whilst also showing an elapsed time being increment every second?

[spid4567]

Hi, I did have the box to install the non-hacked firmware checked when I ran the tools.

The screen shows a track is playing, and the time does increment.  But, what is weird, is the song never seems to end.  For example, "Tell Me Why" by the Beatles is < 3 minutes.  The counter went over 5 minutes before I shut it off. 

I also tried installing the hacked firmware, but, the installation didn't seem to work.  I let the system run for about 10 minutes, but nothing seemed to happen.

The hack tools informed me that the hack had not worked.

[VorTechS]

I'm not sure where things stand with the hack and the GM version of the box, as I don't think anyone that knows the low-levev side has ever had access to one to look at it.  So I would assume that the hack is not compatible with GM systems for now.

My recommendation would be to use the DMS tools to perform a 'Repair (FULL)' installing the non-hacked firmare.
Doing this will mean losing all of the media you have transferred to the DMS. 
Use the earliest version of the firmware rather than the most recent.

Once the repair is complete, pop a single playlist on the DMS via PhatNoise MM, save and eject and have another go in the car.

If that doesn't work then we can see how the RC pairs work with the GM firmware to see if that gives us any indication as to what's going on.

[spid4567]

I tried what you suggested, and no joy.  No sound comes out at all.  I have made a backup of all of the files from the system drive.  With your version, the video screen is completely blank, the dash display works the same as before (shows song titles, but no sound).

Copying back the original system files allows the video screen to show the proper menus, but still no sound.

And, like before, the time counter just keeps incrementing, well after the song should have been finished.

What do you suggest would be the best way to debug this?  The dealer has no idea - I need to prove to them that it is a hardware issue.  I have looked into getting a second DMS (for GM) from EBAY, but it's $100, and I'm not sure I want to spend that yet.

I really appreciate your help!

[VorTechS]

Unfortunately, none of us really have any experience of the GM system as we've never got our hands on one to look at.
All I can suggest, is you pop the RC pairs onto the DMS and we can take a look at the logs to make sure that the box is doing what we would expect of it. 

The RC pairs can be downloaded here: http://downloads.phathack.com/bushing/rc_pairs.zip, and you need to take the Level10 files and pop them into PHTSYS over the existing versions.  Fire up the box, until it starts 'playing' something.  Then pop the DMS back in the cradle and you'll see a log file in PHTSYS with lots of ---> and <---- entries in.  Attach it here, and someone will take a look.

[spid4567]

There are no RC*.* files on the system partition.  This is true for both the partition rebuilt through the Phathack tools, and the original partition.

I tried copying the files to the root anyway, and loaded the DMS cartridge into the car. 
Looking at the files back on my PC, there were no log files added to the files.

[mtrulz]

[...]  My problem is that all I get from the headunit is a buzzing sound.  The tracks show up, the text shows up, and everything else except the actual music.  [...]

Mod note: User posted this here rather than in a new topic. Please follow this separate topic here. - Terry Kennedy, mod - 2009/11/06 22:10 EST