NG4 oh no it's not well.

[ChrisRobin]

Hi guys, well it's happened, the NG4 media system isn't well, slightly noticed last night reversing it on drive, screen came up but stayed black displayed nothing never thought nothing of it as I thought the wife had turned it off chucked in drive for out locked it walked away then stopped and thought were the parking sensors working??? Yes must have been.
This morning wife jumps in goes to work system working fine, but tonight took a long time to load nav but still playing music from sd or so she thought, sat at lights about 10mins into drive and nav loads, so when she gets home she tells me about nav and the fact there is now only one album in the sd card? As I in I get and use the media button to search for the sd as the system is actually playing from jukebox wife hadn't changed it but I can't find the sd card it is not showing it just an AUX option to select, odd! As I am looking "click " screen goes black system switches off, pressing the power button system make a buzz sound, button back lights flash for a second and go off again screen stays black, after a few attempts at a restart I pressed and held 1,3&5 no beep but on power button press system starts shows out icon you get a radio station then shuts down did this 3 times so I pressed n held the numbers again still no bleep but system now just make a buzz with no back lights on buttons and no start up, left it 20minutes and we managed to get the system to light up but no sound and nothing on the pop up screen in fact pop up screen does not pop up itself.... Is it dead? Think on Sunday of battery disconnect to see if that wakes it up. Not a happy wife either...
Oh and sos button and locking button on dash are now flashing when car is locked.

[GiveMeABreak]

A bit difficult to understand the above, sorry, but it may be that the Hard drive is failing.

What version of Firmware are you on?

If the hard disk is failing, then maybe replacing it with a CF card is the way to go. No guarantees, but have a read of this topic:

viewtopic.php?t=57430

[ChrisRobin]

Sorry waffled on a bit.
Last night, pop-up screen came up as usual but displayed nothing just black
Next morning working ok
Tonight on way home, nav took 10mins to load, but screen had images not black still played music. Once nav loaded all ok.
Got home wife tells me about nav and asks why only 1 album on sd card, when I went to look ng4 not even seeing sd instead playing from jukebox neither of us have changed this, whilst I was trying to find the sd through media ng4 switched off itself.
Every time I switched it on I get a buzz a flash of lights from the buttons on it then nothing
Left it for about 15 mins and then I got as far as a radio station then it switches off 3 times it did this restarting itself, so I pressed 1,3 & 5 and held them but no beep it was supposed to do, according to internet. After that system does not even light up just a buzz.
Left car for 30 mins and system now lights up but does nothing else, pop-up screen does not come up itself you have to press the button next to it then it does but it is still black.
We have noticed the SOS button and the locking button now flash when car is locked.
The other thing my wife remarked on was even though nav screen was set to day and night colours when light stalk set to auto nav screen stayed in night mode, only changing when light stalk is switched from auto lights to off then screen goes instantly to day mode, this started some time last year when we had dark nights, when we first had car 12 months ago it use to switch from day to night.
Hope that is a little clearer, no idea what firmware it is on screen is black, parking sensors dead since my has given up but parks worked as she reversed on tonight so all connected to this media unit.
We where going to do a complete battery reset on Sunday, remove battery lead for a while see if that wakes it up..

[GiveMeABreak]

Ok so there is definitely something else going on here and a BSI reset is not likely to sort that out, but here it is if you want to try:

BSI Reset / Battery Disconnect / Reconnect Procedure

The vehicle really needs a diagnostic with Diagbox as I suspect there is an electrical problem somewhere.

As for the day / night settings, these are linked to headlights, so once they are on the map display will go into dark mode and back to day mode when the lights are off. Of course you can keep the map display on daytime mode all the time if you wish.

If and when you get the fault codes, pop them up here with the VIN and I'll see if there is anything obvious.

[ChrisRobin]

Ok thanks
As soon as I get them will post them, wasn't sure on the nav day/night as my Megane TomTom works from the light sensor no matter what the headlamps are doing, wasn't sure how the pug works as I very rare drive it.

[ChrisRobin]

Just a quick question which my wife brought up tonight, because this NG4 is not functioning at present the parking sensors do not work either we think it is because they are displayed on the pop-up screen, so does that mean the roof won't work either as that also displays in the popup, she doesn't want to try it in case it causes a malfunctioning roof plus not really the weather yet.
Brings me to next question, the aftermarket media systems you see on eBay and the like has anyone fitted one of these to a 308cc, we asked the sellers this question and they don't know the I got 308 and RCZ and displays parking sensors front and rear but can't get a commitment on roof.
Battery reset did not fix it (grasping at straws) but it has made the pop-up screen come up on start up and down on switch off but still black.
Omg the techs did plug his old laptop in with diagbox on it but it is an old version we didn't hold much hope as it read the 2007 307 but couldn't get into some of the systems so it was a shot in the dark but it just would not communicate with the car, tried his snapon box but it only showed a few systems media was greyed out, supose this is the trouble with North Wales there seems to be no Peugeot techs around, I had one for 12 months for 307 when we 1st bought it but he stopped working on cars so my renault guy does a fair bit, the VW techs I work with run a mile on both my Megan cc and now Our 308cc.
£350 I can get one from France with 12 month warranty, I can send it to Durham for vin coding for £25 so not all bad.
Got a 40gb hard drive coming from eBay Samsung PATA @ £10 not a bad price to see if it works if it does I will spend £50 on a Toshiba drive identical to yours in you conversion to C.F. Card it would come from China so I would wait 3 weeks for it, but if it works it would be worth the wait I was going to try the CF card conversion on it but to get a UDMA 6 compact flash card that does not look like it was found on a rubbish dump will cost me over £50 and that's pre owned, they are all UDMA 7 now, so I have a couple of options, also waiting on a reply from autotronics to see if they repair in case it isn't hard drive I seem to remember hearing a similar sound on laptops and desktops when there HDs give up.
Bet it isn't! But interesting to delve into it can't do anymore damage it broke

[GiveMeABreak]

1) If going for the conversion you need to stick to UDMA 6 otherwise it will ultimately come crashing down to a crawl, as the system does not use TRIM so will quickly fill up. It's not designed for SATA transfers or commands.
2) You can get all the stuff on here

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=UDMA+6+CF& ... nb_sb_noss

3) Parking assistance is linked to the display - it will work, but without the visual. Your roof should also work, it's just the display that may not.

[ChrisRobin]

Oooo there is a CF card there for £22, I studied your conversion which is really interesting, thank for the link all I kept finding for UDMA 6 were expensive all awful looking 2nd hand ones looked like they had scooped them out of a skip, the 7's were a lot cheaper which was tempting but I spotted that line in your conversion, UDMA 7 wont work properly, Samsung drive arriving tomorrow as are keys to remove unit, thought it was cheap enough to "lose" if it failed, which would mean unit is possibly goosed, there are a couple of options for that, I once had a desktop PC power pack give similar problem, it was spinning the HD for a second then stopping, power pack changed PC ok, just can't figure out why the screen pops up as is not driven by the NG4 unit as well, but I suppose it could get a small squirt of power to open it who knows, we will see! hopefully it wont go on fire and burn for too long!

[GiveMeABreak]

All I'd say there is be warned about second hand Hard Drives. They don't make these any more and the ones being flogged on the bay of evil are generally fakes / already worn out drives from old servers. So may have some life left in them, but they will not be new for sure. If you're buying an HDD as used, then fair enough, but be wary of 'new' drives for low prices as these have likely had their SMART data reset.

The other thing to be cautious of is that the original Toshiba Drives are automotive grade units, so are designed for high tolerances of cold and hot temperatures and for protection of the drive, given that it is being operated in a car. A CF card is compatible with the original drive because it uses the same AT command set and read / write speeds as the PATA HDD used at the time when the unit was designed. Also a CF card being solid state has no moving parts, so is extremely robust in that regard.

In this scenario, faster and newer is not always better

[ChrisRobin]

Thanks Marc
I get what you are saying totally, I don't actually trust the Chinese to be honest I once bought a 64Gb usb stick off them it turned up, it read 64gb on you PC available space but would only take 4gb of data it was then full, the Samsung drive coming is used @ a tenner don't want to spend to much on this unit as I am not 100% sure it will come back alive I actually feel it will be a "new as in to this car" unit or a repair of this one, if the Samsung boots it then I will certainly change it to CF, £10 to prove it will work is not bad, if it does not it is not a great loss + gained 40gig of storage for my own use, but I have been thinking on something I spotted last night and wonder if someone on here had tried it, I saw a facia panel for sale in France, there are two types of NG4 the one you have an image of for the link to this page, which you can pickup for around £200, my wife's is more expensive (not surprising really, never does anything by half) now hers has a gloss black surround and incorporate the hazard switch and all buttons along that plane, sos, parks, ESP etc. now unit is putting nothing out at all just that chink of HD, parks don't show on screen nore make any sound, yet the button lights up to inform you that you've switched them off, ESP lights up on dash as off when you hit button, so how do they get power? there own supply or via the unit.
So here is what I am wondering, is the NG4 unit a stock unit which has a different facia affixed dependant on model, looks like it fixes to the side of the unit and has plug sockets in it, Kenwood nav do it for VW vans same unit on the back different part number gives you a different fitment facia, problem may be the top row of mentioned buttons if they take power from unit then the "other" unit without my facia (if that makes sense) might not have the extra pins to run them, if that makes sense, my pins were wrong to remove it so still waiting on them to arrive so not had it out yet, but just wondered if anyone else had tried this, if so Victory or failure!
On a side note have you seen the amount of NG4's you can get from Poland all refurnished with 12 month warranty!!!! is that were they go to die, they have more than the French.

[GiveMeABreak]

Ok, so let me be specific. There is and was only one NG4 model ever produced. What is different is that some Peugeot models had the rising and lowering of the display and that's it, but the unit is identical apart from the colours of the fascia.

If you have a link to what you have seen I'll quite happily tell you what it is.

This is the NG4, unique and unmistakably a double-DIN unit.

[ChrisRobin]

This is an image of what we have in our 308cc

as you can see the facia is different. it seems to come up more often with an RCZ search vehicle is 2012 Alure, but is still called NG4. as you can see the facia panel is quite different but the unit "looks" the same from the back if its a stock unit you should be able to change front panels, maybe! just wondered if anyone on here has tried this. To me the facia button/dial positions look the same just the facia panel itself is a different shape, what I can't tell yet is you see the hazard button and the button left to right of it , they all work ok so they are getting power from some where, it could be the unit as the flip up screen is getting a signal from it to pop up and close down, so I think something is still going through this unit maybe a direct power feed so what I am trying to figure out both the images to look at are different, but take off both facias just leaving the bear units are they then the same stock unit? interesting question do you not think! if they are the same stock unit then all the people on here who have my type of unit which is rather expensive and difficult to find could in theory use the cheaper NG4 unit and just change front panel, there seems to me more of the type you have shown out there then mine so commands a cheaper price tag still high mind you, cheapest I have seen was £185 but mine seems to start from around £354 and up to £990.

[GiveMeABreak]

Yes, on some Peugeots like the RCZ where room is limited they incorporate that top bit as an add-on. The similar buttons on the C5 X7 are presented as modules to the left and right sides for the SOS, Service Call, Parking Assistance on or Off etc.

Obviously if considering a replacement unit, make sure you get an identical part number for your vehicle as there are several variations depending on build date and model / marque for this sort of thing.

[ChrisRobin]

cheers. I take you think the stock units behind the facia are different then. Years ago I would have been convinced they would be as that's what they use to do, same with car main looms they use to put the top of the range loom in at factory then just plug into it what ever trim level vehicle was, great for home upgrading, these days every car is built to spec on the line so the same goes I would imagine for the NG4 units I bet, was worth a thought I suppose if I had the money spare I would of tried it as it broke anyway but £185 in this present climate is a little to expensive just to test an idea.

Can I just run these steps past you. HD will here soon so.
Format it to Fat32, do nothing else to it
chuck it into unit, chuck unit into car, reconnect battery.
stick firmware usb stick into slot in arm rest
start car and switch unit on leave car run NO eco mode allowed.
unit should pickup usb and auto install firmware making its own partitions on new disk, leave run until finished. Remove stick. (similar to the old VAS tester software before it became ODDIS)
would I need install maps immediately or can I test unit 1st via radio then pop in map stick IF it works ok.........
is that right?
THEN : jump and down and rejoice...... or cry!

I am getting on a bit now so the technology is not just a step or two ahead of me these days is sprinting ahead. What is scary these days is the amount of VW, Skoda and Audis coming in with MMI screen frozen and not working 3-5 year old cars costing £1,250 to £2k and then the 4-7 year olds coming in the control unit failure F5 we call it sits in glovebox controls all media and BCM and ECU also run through it, set you back £4K and up depending on year and model, wow! 2 year old cars coming with steering wheel issues not vibrating for lane change or vibrating all the time prices start at £1.250 + vat for a steering wheel ok at mo its in warranty what happens after? we have last month 2 TT's with control unit failure in the gearbox, mechatronics can't communicate with it one 2015 the other 2017, part not available on its own so a new box required almost £10k for the gearbox, also had a Golf with same issue only £8k for their box again 2017 scary prices and that is just for the box never mind the rest of the bolts required and labour, had a few crying customers I mean were on earth do you find that money really more than the car is actually worth and I have to admit it does make you wonder if this is part of the manufactures idea of getting us out of IC's and into EVs interesting to see if it gets worse as we get closer to total EV, if I am still working by then.

[GiveMeABreak]

Yes, you've got it about right there and patience - lots of.

Make sure you have the time and get comfortable first, as the last thing you want to be doing is pressing any buttons, opening windows etc. as you don't want any interference on the data network whilst performing this operation.

Leave the maps completely for the moment as you want to ensure everything is working. Be warned it may take several attempts at installing the firmware too if it fails initially.