I went over a bump on the way to work this morning, and my MkII wedged. I was listening to the radio, and the sound just stopped and the buttons were not responding. Eeek! So, I pulled out the stereo and shoved it back in (hard boot!), and it came back up fine, but with wacky bumpy sounds coming out of the speakers, generally correlated with my driving (hit the breaks, evil sound comes from rear speakers). I thought my car was going into self-destruct mode, until I pulled the stereo and the sounds all stopped.

Turns out, there's now something rattling around inside my MkII that must have gotten jostled loose by that bump. I'm betting it's one of the screws I added to hold in my second hard drive. If the screw happened to bounce across the analog sections of the circuit board, that could explain the weird sounds.

I'll verify it tonight when I get home (meanwhile, the Empeg is out of the car).

Questions:

Could something like this cause permanent motherboard damage? Should I just put it all together again and, if it sounds good, assume that I'm just lucky?

Assuming it is a hard-drive mounting screw, should I use LockTite (or equivalent) to hold it in place? Has anybody else had one of these things come loose? It's been a couple months since I did the drive upgrade, so it's not implausible that a screw has been slowly working its way open.

*sigh*

when the drive is spun down, laptop drives tend to rattle a bit, because they take the heads off the platter.

email carsupport is the best idea

I had a screw fall out after my hdd upgrade (DIY I might add so not Empeg's fault). It was one of the screws I had put in. Luckily it didn't affect the player at all but I immediately dismantled it and put the screw back in. I didn't have any Loctite to hand at the time so it might be unscrewing itself at this very moment. Thanks for reminding me. I think I'll do that now.

I'm betting on some of the rubber shock mounts having come undone.

Read the drive upgrade guide at www.riocar.org for information on how to open the player and repair the mounts if they've come undone.

If you use locktite, use the lowest adhesive type, I'm not sute what it is. Alternatively you could use asmall bit of hot melt glue or similar. I agree with Tony that It might be a rubber mounting that's come adrift.

Screwlock or Nutlock are the weakest. Then you get Studlock & Retaining Compound etc. which are more difficult to break. Hang on, I'll go and have a look at the Loctite website...

Right, I'm back. Well those I mentioned are the old names. The weakest is Threadlocker 222. Then Threadlocker 262 & 243. Strongest threadlocking stuff they do is Threadlocker 272 & 2701. I'd go for the 222, that'l be enough to stop the buggers coming undone. Personally I don't think it is the rubber mounts, but you won't know until you take it apart.

A generous blob of hot melt glue over the screws would be best as it's very easy to remove in future and doesn't leave a mess behind.

The rio players all have fabric washers between the tray and the drive - mainly to stand the drive off the metal, but they also happen to keep the screws in as they're quite a tight fit.

Well, indeed, the culprit was a screw that fell out. In fact, all seven other screws were anywhere from a quarter turn to a full turn loose. I fixed all that and, since I don't have any Locktite handy at home, the current solution is using small squares of Duct Tape to cover the screw bottoms. That's the temporary fix until I find some of those cloth washers or a hot glue gun.

How's the sound? Have the nasty thumping sounds you described all gone now? I hope so. btw I checked my screws again and everything was still tight. Next time I take my player apart I think I'll put some Loctite on them anyway just to be sure. I'd be inclined to check the small squares of tape after some use as the adhesive might get a bit soft with the heat. You don't want them falling off. Anyway, I'm pleased you found the culprit.

Tightening the screws quite well should probably feature in the drive upgrade faq, if it doesn't already.

We have had a couple of toasted units from this - mainly when the screw manages to short between the fuse casing and the side of the case... this is worst-case, as it bypasses the fuse and dumps rather a lot of current (when in-car, at least) through the PCB tracks, burning them out. It's *usually* fixable, though not very neatly and you end up with a big hole in the pcb that smells of burning

Hugo

Hugo, I noticed now that RioCars come with drive screws that have fasteners on them so even when they are not screwed into anything, they are still held into place. Is this why you guys started using them? Or was it to help with some drives that need spacers? (IBM travelstar 20GB IIRC).

A bit of both, really. They could still in theory fall out over a long period of time, but they're pretty securely screwed in on the rio units.

Hugo

Hmm, time to "borrow" the unit I sold to a friend and make sure the screws are secure...

I can probably use some of the extra locite spread around on that unit.

Tightening the screws quite well should probably feature in the drive upgrade faq, if it doesn't already.



Fixing...

How's the sound? Have the nasty thumping sounds you described all gone now?

Yeah, it sounds just fine now. I wish I had a tape recording of that sound. It was comparable to a piece of heavy construction machinery crushing the rear of my car. You should have seen me whipping my head around to see what, on earth, was happening behind my car.