empeg dead!

Driving along today, took a bend and clunk, the empeg cuts out. Remove and replace it in the sled and it fires up again, so fine I thought, must have not been seated properly.

Five minutes later, same thing happens again - except this time it doesn't come back. Neither car nor AC power get any response out of it - hard disks dead, no display power.

Nothing obviously loose inside, nothing that could have caused a short circuit.

Help!

When you have time, open it, check all connections for hard drive and display cable. Check all fuses. Inspect for any burned / discolored or otherwise strange looking spots on the main board. Note any smoke or acrid smell from the player. Try taking a boot log (if you can get anything at all).

Checked the hard disk and display connections - no problems. Checked the three fuses near the display connector (only ones I could find) and they're all fine. No obvious signs of anything burnt out - PCB looks fine, and no smells.

Doubt I can get anything from the serial log - the power LED doesn't even come on

OK, closer inspection has only revealed the following - whether it's the problem or not I don't know. I can't see it causing an intermittent problem (in that it stopped working, worked for 5 minutes, then died completely on me from then on) but there is a 3-pin SMD component near the AC power plug with what looks like a section of casing missing.

Pictures (Sorry for poor quality):

Overall view:


Component view:


Could this have anything to do with it?

Another angle:

Yeah, that's gone. Assuming that was the cause and not just a symptom then it's a trivial fix - just need to get the correct part and replace.

Righto. Anyone know what that part is - I've got someone who can do the replacement, but I'll need to get hold of the part from RS or similar.

You say that you turned a corner in your car and the empeg stopped working?

I know you guys are looking at something on the inside of the player, so that's fine and everything, but why aren't you also looking for loose wires on the docking connector as described here? That seems the most likely explanation. Either that or a wiring problem somewhere else in the installation. Turn a corner, wires move...

(Edit: I know you said AC power doesn't work any more either. Remember that a wiring problem like the one linked above could cause a short circuit that could theoretically be the root cause of that blown component.)

I'm aware of that, but I would have expected it to work on AC power whether or not the sled connector/car wiring is FUBAR?

Bear in mind that I was turning this corner at roughly 1G

No loose connections player-side...

Found the culprit - but it's not good news for the player. One of the springs from the handle had unclipped and got underneath the motherboard.

God knows what it's taken with it.

On a positive note most of the board is SMT topside only, so there's only a limited number of things that it could contact bottom side. Any signs of scorching? Where abouts was the spring? (Photos would help...)

I would check for frayed, cut or exposed wires in the dash between your fuse and the sled connectors.
There could be a short there. Things can get pretty crammed up in there and with constant vibrations and jerks going on, wires can get rubbed against sharp edges and wear away their insulation.

No use in correcting the problem if it is to happen again once you slide the player back in the sled.

-Edit- I saw the post on the spring after the fact. So I guess nevermind.

I can't tell where the spring was unfortunately - it moved about during the removal of the main board.

No obvious scorching, which is a good sign I guess...

I'd say reassemble it and see if it works with the spring removed. Make sure to look for a boot log too.

Does anyone think that there is anything that could be made worse by trying?

Matthew

Crap - I forgot about all those test points. Regardless, that transistor blew up because it was dissipating too much heat, which makes it likely that the transistor itself was shorted. The fact that the player was working up until the moment of death is a good omen, as is the lack of scorch marks. I'm wondering if the initial black out was caused by the auto-resetting fuse cutting out, but not until the transistor had got nice and hot, and then after the fuse reset itself the transistor then blew before the fuse could cut out again.

First action definitely has to be to reseat that spring and make sure it doesn't come loose again. Second action has to be the cheap one - replace that transistor and see whether the rest of the player is good.

Spring is gonna get the talking to of a lifetime!

Anyone know for sure what the blown component is?

Quote:
I'd say reassemble it and see if it works with the spring removed.

You, sir, are my god.

IT WORKS!