Phatbox broken?

[rharms]

My phatbox stopped working months ago and have tried everything I can think of to fix it.

In the phatbox (unhacked, BMW model), the drive spins up with the red light constantly on. Then after a few seconds the drive suddenly spins down and the red light goes off. This cycle keeps repeating itself. The car does recognize a CD changer but I cannot use the 1-6 buttons and no music is played. The green light never comes on.

Here is what I tried sofar:
- replaced the Blitzsafe adapter
- updated firmware
- repaired the DMS using the hack and repair CD
- 'clean drive' option in media manager software
- format the drive

Nothing seems to work. I am about to take it out of the car and consider it a writeoff but was hoping somebody might have a fix for this.

[rharms]

I also tried to get a bootload.log but the system does not write anything to the file

[judb]

Can you give us some more to go on?  What size drive?  You've checked that the drive is fine by using chkdsk /f ?
how did you create the bootload.log ?

What does the green light do when you power the unit up and insert the DMS?  Count the blinks and the length of the spaces between them.

[rharms]

I creatled the bootload.log by copying properties.xml and renaming it as was suggested elsewhere.

The size of the DMS is 80 GB and has been working fine for about 1.5 yrs. I checked the drive with chkdsk /f and it had no errors.

The green light never comes on. The only thing that happens is the drive spins up, I can hear some drive access, the red light is on. After a few seconds the drive suddenly spins down, the red light goes off. This cycle repeats itself.

[judb]

Well, have you tried unplugging the phatbox from the radio for a few minutes?  Try that.. if that doesn't work the next thing to do would be to check and make sure that the cable inside your phatbox for the drive connection to the motherboard is still solid.  You'll have to take it out and take the heat sync off.  There is a ribbon cable (looks a lot like an IDE connector (just has extra pins for power and the power switch) ) make sure it is connected in solid on both sides.  give that a shot and see how it goes.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[djc122]

I had this problem this week.  My Ford Phatbox has been working fine for the last 9 months and this week I started my car and it did not work. I get the Red light on, hard drive being accessed and then the red light goes off. Red light blinks once after that and then the process repeats. My box was hacked with an 80 gig drive. I put the original DMS hard drive back in the cartridge (20 gigs) and it does the same thing. I tried to force a hardware update and no change. I opened up the phatbox as mentioned above and the ribbon cable is properly seated. I'm at a loss as to what do to next. Thanks for any help.

[markbowen]

I also had similar symptoms a few weeks ago, and it turned out to be the hard drive.  Checkdisk and other utilities all reported things as fine, but after a few days of failing in the Keg while continuing to work on the computer, one day it just totally died with the click of death.  My Music Keg seemed to "know" the drive was failing before it actually did!

Does your original DMS still have the patch files on it?  That could explain why it also does not appear to work in your PB.  In the absence of any other apparent cause, I'd strongly suspect your hard drive as well.

[djc122]

I cleaned up the original DMS and it still won't boot up. Does this run on a memory chip or something? Perhaps it's corrupted. Didn't seem like there were very many parts inside. I sent an email to phatnoise and I'll see what they say. thanks

[S80_UK]

Phatnoise are not that responsive these days it seems - Good luck!

Have you opened up the Phatbox itself?  A problem that many have had is that the ribbon cable that goes between the main circuit board and the DMS cartridge can start to work loose (caused by vibration, changing temperature, etc).  It may be the case that the drive still gets power, but does not get all the data or control signals for example, so it is worth checking that both ends of this cable are securely seated.

[rharms]

Decided today to have another crack at getting my dead phatbox working again. Was wondering if anyone had any luck? Keeps spinning up and then spinning down with the red light on. It actually seems to have drained my cars battery overnight. The phatbox was very warm, I assume from the constant spinning up and down of the hdd?

[sbingner]

did it ever put anything into a bootload.log file?

[rharms]

Nothing shows up in the bootlog. Only the red light comes on, the green light never turns on. The drives spins up and then spins down and the red light goes off. This cycle repeats itself. Today I tried it with the heatsink off and noticed that the vertical Philips branded chip between the power socket and the headunit socket gets really hot.

[judb]

Thats the power regulator, it gets hot like that, thats why it was pushed against the metal case with a screw through a bent piece of metal you may have noticed.  That isn't unusual.

so you say the bootload.log is empty?  or does it still have the XML data from when you copied the properties.xml to create it?

[rharms]

Sorry, I meant the bootlog is unchanged. Its still has the same xml data from the properties.xml file. The date of the file name is unchanged as well.

[judb]

then the bootloader isn't touching the drive..  if you've checked all the cable connections inside the box and it still doesn't work there isn't much else to have you try that I can think of.

[S80_UK]

Today I tried it with the heatsink off and noticed that the vertical Philips branded chip between the power socket and the headunit socket gets really hot.

It's OK if it gets warm, but it should only get really hot if it's not clamped against the case. I seem to remember that there should be a thin insulator between it and the back-plate. The clamp should be quite secure.  It it still gets hot, that could point to a hardware failure somewhere, but that's tough to diagnose remotely.

[rharms]

Checked all the cables and they seem secure.

I think it got really warm because it was constantly spinning up and down the drive.

I really would like to get a working phatbox again. Is there any use in trying another DMS? Can I buy another phatbox cheaply off ebay and convert it to a BMW model with the parts I already have?

[sbingner]

You should be able to use another phatbox off ebay... you already have the blitzsafe adaptor which is the tough part for BMW...

You people need to be in hawaii, I'd like to be able to look at it myself heh

[pacha]

My phatbox is doing exactly the same as this.  The only light that ever comes on is the red one.  Red Light comes on it spins up the drive, stays on for 5 seconds or so and then stops, light goes off.  About 15 seconds later it repeats this process. 

My DMS is not hacked and was working.  I hadn't used it for a while and now it doesn't seem to work at all.  As others have said the drive seems to work fine in the cradle on my PC, but I never see the Green light when it is in the car. 

I have just taken the heat sink off and checked the cables they seem fine, and I couldn't push them back in at all.  I also put the rc.sh and rc.sig in the root of my PHTSYS and a bootload.log, but nothing ever appears in here.

Anyone have any other suggestions? 
Thanks.

[sbingner]

The green light never comes on at ALL?  That is strange, if you're sure I'll have to look at the code to try to figure out what would cause that. I don't recall that ever happening before.