Well, I have made some progress on debugging my Empeg. Wow, I never thought I'd say that I needed to debug my headunit!

I opened her up this last weekend, and changed the ribbon to the end connector. That seemed to solve the problem with the hard drive ending up "missing" once in a while. While it was open, I installed the 1 amp 200 volt diode inline with the switched power.

BUT

I'm STILL getting the weird syndrome where the power comes back on after I leave it in the car! I actually sat in the car and waited last night, and it took around 10 minutes. It didn't go through a 'partial boot' where the logo, etc is displayed. That little blue light started blinking at me. Mocking me. The unit is unresponsive, so pushing the buttons and turning the car on doesn't change its state. Only pulling it out of the cradle and pushing it back into place makes it reboot.

I'm running the 2.11 Hijack kernel, I've installed a diode to kill the negative spike bug, and I've reseated the laptop drive.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here? I'm tempted to install some kind of kill switch on the darn thing! I took apart the dash again to see what might be going on after the problem, but all the voltages looked ok. Main power was showing 12.5 V, switched power was showing .03 V. My car (Audi) has a floating ground... maybe something to do with that? Also, could the grounding of the amp be a problem? Current traveling back up the 12V amp turn-on line? Ugh, this is getting really frustrating. Anyone who can help me wins a case of beer of their choice. I'm not kidding, I will find a way to ship it internationally if I need to!!!

Thx

player stats: mk 2a, 2.11 w/ hijack kernel. HDD cable fixed, diode installed
car stats: 1998 Audi A4

- James

switched power was showing .03 V.

This sounds like the root of the problem to me. Switched power should not show any voltage at all, positive or negative.

The only way I can envision the player waking up from full-power-off mode in the car is if it's somehow getting voltage on the switched ignition wire.

Are you absolutely certain that the wiring is correct? I've heard that recent VWs and Audis can have some pretty goofy wiring connectors, and also I've heard that they changed the pinouts recently. You sure you didn't wire it with an aftermarket harness plug that expected a different set of pinouts, perhaps for a different year of Audi?

For instance, is it possible that you've wired the switched power wire to something that isn't really switched power?

Okay i know audi swaps the constant and switched lives around so that might be it

Secondly you could try to taking the sled out the car and a 12v supply and run the player that way or try even just running it off your wall wart plugged into the back. Going in through the docking connector might give you more idea.

Also bin hijack incase it is screwing around

One last thing look at the crimping real careful as you might have a dodgey crimp shorting occasionally across the switched and constant lives

A power up in "around 10 minutes" is what the initial watchdog powerup in the power control PIC will do; that is, if the code at 0xc000 in the flash isn't working (or present).

Do you have any logos (etc) uploaded? Can you try it with a fresh beta11 install (and nothing else installed on top, no logos, etc)? After 10 minutes of powerdown, the power control PIC powers the unit up and 0xc000 is run by the strongarm. The default action of this code is to tell the PIC that we don't want any more watchdog powerups and then do a shutdown again - usually, this results in the player coming on for about 0.3 seconds. You should never see a full boot, you *may* see a very short flicker on the standby LED.

If the code at 0xc000 is corrupt, then the unit will come on after 10 minutes, possibly in a locked-up state, and stay there.

The watchdog powerup is to enable features like timed radio record (if we ever needed it) or wireless sync listening.

Hugo

NOW we're getting somewhere...

I re-installed the 2.11 software with a fresh copy last night, and I installed the Hijack over it. No logos. I noticed that it took an AWFULLY long time to do the 'pump'. In fact, I left it on overnight and went to bed while it was working! When I woke up this morning, it said it was successful. I quickly loaded the Hijack kernel and was all set. I noticed, however, that my user options such as favorite visuals, etc, hadn't been changed back to the default. I haven't tried to use the Emplode software since the reinstall, either. Is this normal? I should know within an hour or so (when I wander out to my car) if the 10-minute boot problem was fixed. I seem to remember uploading a background image to the wrong address a while back, so you may have hit it right on the head. If this doesn't overwrite the correct address, how can I go in manually and change it back to its default state?

Also, if this is the problem, I owe you a case of beer.

-James

Now that is what i call service

It is normal for the options you described to be preserved across software installs. It is also normal for the pump to take a long time. You haven't described anything out of the ordinary.

I wasn't clear, from Hugo's post, whether the watchdog code at 0xc000 is replaced when using an .upgrade file? If it really is a bug in the watchdog code, and if 0xc000 is replaced on an upgrade, then what you just did should have fixed the problem.

After I reinstalled the 2.11 software, the problem went away! It appears that you're exactly right, the watchdog location was being 'tripped' and was causing the unit to stay on. I guess I owe you a case of beer! You can email me at thermobob (at) hotmail (dot) com

Thanks a ton

-James

Probably be easier if you just buy them a round of drinks at the pub down the street. I'm told that they have a special account set up with the pub owner just for this purpose: You just call in a round for the empeg guys. I've haven't done this yet... Anyone have the details again?

This post probably has enough detail.

Tony, can you add this to the FAQ? And will Tom know what we are talking about when we ask for a round for "the guys from empeg"?

Not sure if I should or not. Empeg guys, can you comment on this?

I kind of think it would fall under the contact information category of data. Either that, or perhaps it should be added to the photo gallery somewhere...

In reply to:

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... will Tom know what we are talking about when we ask for a round for "the guys from empeg"?

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I believe that's sufficient identification.