Blank Navigation system screen

[fred_dot_u]

I searched the forum and very little appears regarding the wide screen of the nav system. While underway today, in my Rav4EV (not my wife's this time), the music ceased playing and the screen displayed the calculated charge time. This particular display is that which appears when one powers off the vehicle. It was certainly unexpected to see it while traveling.

I pulled off the roadway and powered off the vehicle, but at power up, the screen remained black. Close examination of the screen does not indicate a loss of backlight.

At home later, I removed the ground from the 12v battery for five minutes or so. On reconnect, nothing was corrected.

The vehicle operates normally, but no music access, no GPS and the dash panel clock is incorrect. I checked the manual and determined that the fuses are healthy.

I'm not sure where to take the diagnostic process at this point.

Suggestions, especially DIY stuff, are appreciated.

fred

 

[davewill]

Well, my two thoughts are either there's a wiring problem causing the display to think the car isn't on when it is, or the entertainment system has a fault. I'd start by looking for chewed wiring or some such, just because it's easier to look for and to repair.

 

[hokiematt]

Note that there are three fuses required for the head unit to operate: a 30A 'radio' fuse, a 7.5A 'ACC-B' fuse and 10A 'ECU IG1-1'.

Since you have another RAV at your disposal, the easiest DIY check might be to swap head units between the vehicles, and see where the problem lies?

 

[fred_dot_u]

Thanks to matt for providing the confidence necessary to rip open the dashboard. Pretty amazing how easy it is. A swiss army knife and a 10 mm socket was all I needed. The former to pop off the covers and the latter to unbolt the assembly.

My wife's unit operates normally in my vehicle, which eliminates so many not-problems in the wiring but pins everything on the unit. Unfortunately, there's a dearth of replacement parts for this vehicle.

If anyone has a lead on a replacement navigation unit, please let me know.

I'm not yet missing the back up camera and may not miss that. A few of the other features that are EV specific would be missed if I had to settle for an aftermarket unit, though. I'm hoping patience will win and I can hold off until a suitable vehicle appears.

 

[davewill]

If you know anyone who is versed in electronics repair, it might be worth having them open up the unit and inspect for obvious blown components, damaged connectors, cold solder joints, broken wires internally, etc... No guarantees, of course, and you do run the risk of ending up with a unit that doesn't work even as minimally as yours does now if damage is done during the disassembly, but I think it's worth a try.

Edit: Rereading your post, I guess it's not working at all right now. Even less risk, then.

 

[fred_dot_u]

I don't think one could describe the functionality of this unit as minimal. It's dead. Your suggestion is a good one, as the failure mode was as if power was terminated in a normal manner. The panel displayed the time required to charge, which is typical of a normal power-off of the vehicle.

If the internal power components have failed, the rest of the circuit may have continued to function and may yet continue to function.

Unfortunately, I might have damaged the internal hard drive when re-installing. It took a sharp blow with the heel of my palm to get the panel to engage the dash. On power-up, I can hear now what I suspect is the hard drive attempting to re-calibrate the heads, a common sound in the computer world. Perhaps it's an incorrect assumption and I haven't damaged the drive.

 

[davewill]

I have to admit I don't have first-hand knowledge, but I do have experience in automotive infotainment development, and I find it unlikely in the extreme that there would be a spinning hard drive in the unit. A bad or loose component in the power supply could make a whining noise that changes in pitch and repeats.

 

[fred_dot_u]

Thanks for the leads. I was directed to QC Charge on the left coast. This operation and operator, Tony, sure has a solid handle on the world of the Rav4EV (and other juicers.)

Depending on how quickly the box was filled and how long before the truck appeared for pickup, I could have my replacement nav unit heading this way even as I type this missive.

It was a pleasant surprise to discover that the units exist in a used, for-sale environment. It was not quite as pleasant to recognize the value of this device. Four digits to the left of the decimal point! I believe that Tony told me a retail version runs about six grand. Yowza!

I intend to keep the non-working one on the outside chance that my wife's vehicle has a nav unit burp and that the parts needed to make it work are functional in my removed unit.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

 

[fred_dot_u]

I have to admit I don't have first-hand knowledge, but I do have experience in automotive infotainment development, and I find it unlikely in the extreme that there would be a spinning hard drive in the unit. A bad or loose component in the power supply could make a whining noise that changes in pitch and repeats.

Perhaps today will result in a learning experience for both of us.

I also learned that the drive can be removed by taking a cover off the side of the unit. One does not have to completely disassemble the device, but it was fun anyway.

With a part number in hand, I also discovered that a 100 GB hard drive from Toyota Parts Supply (aftermarket) is more than one thousand dollars. Ten bucks a gigabyte is pretty amazing when consumer drives are pennies a GB.

I can't be sure that it's only the drive that is the problem with this unit. It went blank silently and only began the funky drive noise after I re-installed the nav unit with a sharp blow from my palm. That never does a spinning disk any good.

 

[davewill]

I have to admit I don't have first-hand knowledge, but I do have experience in automotive infotainment development, and I find it unlikely in the extreme that there would be a spinning hard drive in the unit. A bad or loose component in the power supply could make a whining noise that changes in pitch and repeats.

Perhaps today will result in a learning experience for both of us.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/ckoe67xil2b771n/nav_drive.JPG?raw=1

I also learned that the drive can be removed by taking a cover off the side of the unit. One does not have to completely disassemble the device, but it was fun anyway.

With a part number in hand, I also discovered that a 100 GB hard drive from Toyota Parts Supply (aftermarket) is more than one thousand dollars. Ten bucks a gigabyte is pretty amazing when consumer drives are pennies a GB.

I can't be sure that it's only the drive that is the problem with this unit. It went blank silently and only began the funky drive noise after I re-installed the nav unit with a sharp blow from my palm. That never does a spinning disk any good.

Well, hack off my legs and call me Shorty. Didn't expect that! I'd be tempted to source a drive with the same geometry (if possible), and image it from your wife's unit and see if everything is suddenly OK.

 

[fred_dot_u]

Neither the dead drive nor the good drive from my wife's machine appears on my Ubuntu box or my Windows 7 computer. When running the manage plug-in, I get a message that the drive has to be initialized. Nope. Not going to blow up a working system drive.

I'm a bit disappointed that the linux machine didn't see it. I was somewhat sure that the OS would be linux in some form or another.

 

[davewill]

I'd just do a dd of the entire drive into a backup file, then try restoring it on a new drive. Don't sweat not being able to mount the filesystems.

 

[fred_dot_u]

I'm not much of a whiz when it comes to linux and didn't pursue how to find the device that would not present any file system. I used df (or was it fd?) to see the device list, and only the system drive and mount points appeared. When the Windows approach told me to init the drive, that was it for me.

I was hopeful that I could image the drive and put it on an SSD, to get from the moving parts aspect of the original, but I also recalled that there may be a problem that is not related to the failed drive.