Kenwood H/Unit playing up.

[W4SIM]

Hello all

Iv currently got the following H/Unit in the car:-

Kenwood KDC-PSW9521

Its a fantastic little thing with loads of features. I love this to bits but unfortunatly today its started playing up and now wont play at all.

It started just out of the blue really as i was just driving along. The unit switched itself off but the speakers kept "drumming" every sort 2-3seconds. I tried to switch it back on but nothing, it just wouldnt respond. I had to eventually switch the car off and then try again. It worked for abit, and then about 5mins later the same thing again. Again it would only respond when i would switch the car off and then restart it. This happened 3 times before i switched the unit off myself and drove on.

Strangely though, even with the headunit switched off the "drumming" through the speakers came back and would only stop when i would switch the car off. So when i got back home i disconnected the battery for about half hour. Connected it back up and then the unit would power up, display the graphics for about 20secs and then just not respond anymore. All i can do with it now is to switch is completely OFF when it powers itself up. I cant even eject the CD thats in there, as the button wont respond!!!!

1 of the graphic sequences it goes through is like a "Fruit Machine" effect. Now what its doing is stopping the the fruit machine bars so they look like "BAR/BAR/Cherry's" and then a number 1 next to them. I think this could possibly be the error message its trying to send out but i have no idea aboit ICE or electronics.

Is there anybody out there who does? Iv checked the fuse on the back of the unit and that was good. Anything else i should check?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Retepetsir]

Is this a headunit with a face that swings out/down?

Kenwoods are renowned for the ribbon cables connecting to this face to become damaged over time, and this could be the problem.

 

[richmicratwista]

yes most probably ribbon!!

it is because of the fascia flipping up and down which bends the wires which eventually break.

bit of a bad design really

 

[W4SIM]

Yeah the unit is the "Mask" one with the face flipping down and out.

But iv managed to find the problem though, and the solution thankfully. Being as top notch as this thing is its also extremely complicated to use. But basically when iv disconnected the battery ands then reconnected iti needed to put a code back inthe headunit. But unlike the old headunit's where you put the code in by the numbers on the unit itself, this daft thing has like a transponder key to it.

Just point the key and press the button untill it finds its code. Once it did it came back on again and now seems to work fine. The only reason i didnt know about was that when the previous owner was telling me about it i, as usual, was paying attention to something completely different and just nodding my head. Luckily for me my mate was with me who WAS paying attention, and it was he who showed me how to unlock it.

So thanks to him for that.

And thanks to you 2 gents aswell for pointing out the bad design fault on the faces, hopefully its not something il have to go through with though.

Cheers.