[BMW FOREVER]

Hi guys, so yesterday when I started my car, the idrive showed a message of low battery and then the screen shut off. HUD was working fine but the speed limit info was showing 3 dashes.

I thought I will drive the vehicle and once the battery charges up the idrive will come back on. After I stopped somewhere and switched the car back on now the HUD was gone too.

The battery on the car was around 11 years old so today I replaced the battery and registered it to the car. But the idrive and HUD are still not working. Also no parking assistance or radio works anymore. The cluster is working fine though.

Any ideas what could be wrong? Hope it’s not something serious.

[Hoa]

SLI is feed through thr HU through optical so if HU is not working, it will not provide SLI.

Sounds like your HU may have an issue or fuse may be out. Try to do a hard restart by holding the volume knob for a few seconds. If it doesn’t do anything, check your fuses. If all are good, your HU may be bad.

[Qsilver7]

Did you check to see if the HUD is turned on? Push the button on the switch panel to make sure it’s on.

[BMW FOREVER]

So I went about checking the fuses related to idrive and found fuse 105 was blown. Now this fuse says 20 (Amperes?) on it. I have ordered a box of replacement fuses but not sure if I should put back another 20 Ampere fuse in there since it has blown....looking at the attached digram for the fuses for 105 fuse the ampere is not listed in the table at the bottom. Any suggestions what I should replace this fuse with?

[Hoa]

20A is the correct fuse. It doesn’t hurt to install another one and see what happens. It may be just a lot of surge that caused the fuse to pop. If you replace and everything works, it should be okay.

[BMW FOREVER]

Update: Plugged in 20A fuse in today and it immediately sparked and blew. Tried it twice and same thing hapenned.

Not sure what to do next. Will probably have to take it to the workshop……

[Hoa]

Sounds like something is shorting it out. You can try to disconnect the HU and see if it still pop a new fuse. If it doesn’t then it’s your HU that have a problem. Other than that, it’s hard to narrow out. It would require tracing that fuse line to see what may be causing it to short out.

[Qsilver7]

Originally Posted by BMW FOREVER

Update: Plugged in 20A fuse in today and it immediately sparked and blew. Tried it twice and same thing hapenned.

Not sure what to do next. Will probably have to take it to the workshop……

Not sure if this will help or not...but since we don't know how your BMW is configured...it looks like F105 can be either a 20A fuse or a 30A fuse...depending on how the vehicle is optioned.

A 20A fuse is listed for just a regular headunit...but a 30A fuse is listed for the HiFi amplifier...which would be when there's an upgraded amp...perhaps the HK or B&O systems.

[BMW FOREVER]

My car has the HK system but the fuse that was in the car all this while was the 20A and everything was working fine. It’s just now that it has started blowing….if I put the 30A fuse then I might risk overheating the wires right?

[BMW FOREVER]

Another update: So I totally disconnected my NBT unit and re-inserted the 20A fuse and it was fine. After that I removed the fuse and reconnected the NBT unit and tried inserting the fuse again and it blew.

So the issue is somewhere in the NBT unit? Is that a correct diagnosis or am I missing something?

[BMW FOREVER]

Update: Replaced the headunit and all is good now.

[Qsilver7]

Wow...any clue as to what may have happened to it (the head unit)?

[BMW FOREVER]

Originally Posted by Qsilver7

Wow...any clue as to what may have happened to it (the head unit)?

No idea except that there is a short somewhere inside the unit. I did not see any sign of water when I removed the headunit and there was no water spill anywhere.

I had taken my car for a wash on that day but there was no water intrusion that I noticed. Even if water had entered it would be weird that every other module is fine except the headunit.

[a_wolly]

Hi, this thread seemed most relevant to an issue I'm having so thought I'd post for any thoughts. Recently I started up my 2010 523i F11 and noticed my iDrive had died. No boot sequence, no parking sensors, no radio, etc... I tried system reset (hold radio power button for 30s) and disconnecting the battery for ~1hr; neither had any affect.

I took the car to our local indie who checked all the fuses (none were blown) and said their diagnostics tool wasn't connecting to the HU, so said they'd need £300 to remove the HU and dig deeper to diagnose. That seemed ludicrous, so I removed the HU myself and didn't notice anything odd (annoyingly, our indie won't let me drop off the HU for testing). I noticed there seems to be what looks like a fuse visible when the main cable is removed (see circled area in pic). If so, I'm thinking this might be worth checking.

Given a used replacement HU from eBay can be had for under £200 i figured maybe the next step should be to get one of those and fit myself. Would also be useful to know if alternative part numbers can be used; e.g. a newer HU model?

Anyone have any other ideas what I could try before doing this and/or able to point me in the direction of someone who might be able to code a replacement HU in (again, my indie won't do this for 'insurance reasons')? I'm in south west Surrey.

Thanks in advance.

[BMW FOREVER]

Originally Posted by a_wolly

Hi, this thread seemed most relevant to an issue I'm having so thought I'd post for any thoughts. Recently I started up my 2010 523i F11 and noticed my iDrive had died. No boot sequence, no parking sensors, no radio, etc... I tried system reset (hold radio power button for 30s) and disconnecting the battery for ~1hr; neither had any affect.

I took the car to our local indie who checked all the fuses (none were blown) and said their diagnostics tool wasn't connecting to the HU, so said they'd need £300 to remove the HU and dig deeper to diagnose. That seemed ludicrous, so I removed the HU myself and didn't notice anything odd (annoyingly, our indie won't let me drop off the HU for testing). I noticed there seems to be what looks like a fuse visible when the main cable is removed (see circled area in pic). If so, I'm thinking this might be worth checking.

Given a used replacement HU from eBay can be had for under £200 i figured maybe the next step should be to get one of those and fit myself. Would also be useful to know if alternative part numbers can be used; e.g. a newer HU model?

Anyone have any other ideas what I could try before doing this and/or able to point me in the direction of someone who might be able to code a replacement HU in (again, my indie won't do this for 'insurance reasons')? I'm in south west Surrey.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for sharing…looks like yours is the CIC headunit….mine is the NBT headunit and has no such fuse. I disassembled the whole thing so I’m sure.

[rssazn]

Did you find a solution? Having same issue

[BMW FOREVER]

Originally Posted by rssazn

Did you find a solution? Having same issue

Yup headunit had gone bad. Replaced with a new headunit and everything is back to normal.

[nusica432]

Hi,

I have the same issue on my head unit but im not sure whats wrong or how to go about it, all of my fuses are not blown and everything is plugged in but the screen isnt working and i have no radio, no sensors, no bmw chime nothing. If i am to replace the head unit do i need to code it also can i put a newer system in i have a 520d f10 2011 can anyone help me please 🙏

[BMW FOREVER]

Originally Posted by nusica432

Hi,

I have the same issue on my head unit but im not sure whats wrong or how to go about it, all of my fuses are not blown and everything is plugged in but the screen isnt working and i have no radio, no sensors, no bmw chime nothing. If i am to replace the head unit do i need to code it also can i put a newer system in i have a 520d f10 2011 can anyone help me please 🙏

You would have to get either a new or used head unit. In both cases it would need to be coded to your car and FSC codes would need to be activated for things like navigation.

If you get a newer version then you might need to make some wiring changes too.