find a friend and swap his idrive screen with urs. If ur idrive screen works, buy a working one off a crashed car or ebay.

 

$3-6K??? Damn, worse case just buy an aftermarket warranty. Shouldn't be more than $2k for an extra 50 thousand miles. Wait a few days, then fix it under warranty.

 

For the technically minded people here.....if the MASK unit is faulty (the screen is not the issue it is the unit controlling it) would it be possible to replace it with a second hand unit and then have BWM recode it?

 

I really can't remember if the light came on or not. I think I may have tried it, but since there was no display or audio, I just called it dead in the water.

 

Check this forum. I had the same problem and BMW wanted ?1200 to replace the entire I drive. Not covinced I simply changed the Micro Processor Module which is the "brains of the I Drive (sourced for ?70.00 new, sometime available used on Ebay), this is the little white box under the spare wheel. And it worked a treat.
The black box next to it is the PDC parking sensor module unit. This may need changing...although mine did not.
Hope this helps.

Kaz

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=21359

 

Thank you so much. This information was very helpful. I started the car agian after 40 minutes and the screen came back on. I also had to have the idrive replaced a little over 2 years of having the car. Fortunately for me, the dealer did replace it at no cost.


quote name='porsche911targa' timestamp='1256688007' post='1041609']
Check to see if you had one of the steering whee buttons programmed to shut off the display and maybe you hit it accidentally. Other than that, try shutting off the engine and lock the car for 20 minutes or more to shut off all the electronics. Than you should try the Idrive reset procedure (do a search here). If none of this works, plan on spending about $2K for a new iDrive if you're out of warranty. G/L, keep us posted.
[/quote]

 

I am surprised more people haven't had same problem and figured out a solution, Mine started going off a couple times, then it went off and stayed off, not the screen, whole unit is off. So is there a fuse one can check since these cars are known to have short circuits or a schematic of power circuit. Surely someone has opened up unit to explore for problems like diodes burned out, heat issues, surely it can't be that difficult to fix unit rather than get hosed from stealer. Any ideas over all these years? Is there a diagnostic tool that can narrow down faults and codes on these units. When dealer updates, is this software available which can be uploaded using BMW diagnostic tool.

Thanks,

 

I would just disconnect the battery all together for about 30 minutes.
That may reset the iDrive for you.

 

Thanks,

Yes, I did try that, disconnected overnight, but still not coming back to life, also bought new battery as the original was a little slow to turn over last Winter, still dead. Tried the reboot people talk about with NAV hitting all three, eject and radio, nothing. I can't imagine more people haven't had same issue in last few years of this forum topic being posted.

Thanks again,

 

the idrive is known to have insufficient cooling, over here in the uk I believe there is someone you can send the CCC to and they'll repair it (i think it's the graphics chip).

If you don't get any noise from the PDC when reversing then it's likely your CCC has gone rather than the screen