Pioneer HU upgrade/woes

[amitverma]

helllo all.
i have a palio installed with pio 5650 receiver. lately the hu started giving me en ERROR:AO message. the cd receiver freezes until i restart the ignition. changing the source does not do the trick. so until i restart the vehicle, i have to make do with the Tuner. and it happens with only 15-20 mins of listening. sometimes even quicker.

so i took it to the nukkadwala stereo/deck repair shop. he confidently said he can repair it. gave him the unit and came back. got the unit back in the evening and after paying 200 bucks got the unit installed back. the next day i am happily travelling to [i dont remember where], and suddenly the ERROR:AO display came back again. i was furious. wanted to throw the hu out the window. somehow i didnt. took it back to the repair shop. the guy is confused? he asks me to leave it with him and come in the evening. i go back and he says that the mainboard of the unit is the culprit. 600 bucks?

i flatly refused. its a 3 year old HU and God knows how long its gonna work. putting 600 bucks into it isnt worth the trouble. so i asked him to return the 200 bucks he charged from me. but then i asked him if i coudl somehow connect my ipod to the unit?

he then creates an auxillary input through one pair of RCA inputs. i was happy that atleast i could try living with it for a little more time. but that was not the case either. the ipod though connected fine with the HU but the sound output emerged quite a bit attenuated. definitely not enjoyable.

so here i am. at crossroads.
should i go ahead and spend 600 bucks on an aged senior citizen
or
go in for a new pioneer [i have to buy a pio cuz of the wonderful steering remote i cudnt live without] - which HU should i go for?

[DerAlte]

The life of an HU is 10 years at least, and 3 years is hardly there. Get it repaired, but this time ask around and go to a proper repair-wala. Needs a good cleaning. Doubt if there is anything that needs replacement. Sometimes it is only a matter of a loose belt or dust in the mechanism.

Before that, check your HU manual about resetting the HU. This is usually done by pressing a hidden button (check the location in the manual) with the power on.

[amitverma]

@deralte: i dont disagree abt the 10 year age of these HUs but i doubt mine is gonna do service for that long. i can already sense a weak lens.
another thing i doubt is a loose belt or dust being the culprit. the unit was serviced recently, as i already mentioned. the guy did his best to repair it. at the end he tried on another mainboard from some other 5650 receiver and the unit worked fine. but i still am not sure because it worked fine the previous time too until i got it installed in the car.
one more thing i noted, is that the player is heating up quite a lot. is it normal?

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by amitverma

... i can already sense a weak lens.
... the unit was serviced recently, ... tried on another mainboard from some other 5650 receiver and the unit worked fine. ... one more thing i noted, is that the player is heating up quite a lot. is it normal?

HU heating up is normal - all electronic equipment heat up to some degree or the other. Some, like PMPs, we don't feel it since the power dissipated is very small. HUs we don't normally feel it since the unit is covered and we don't touch it normally, and the heat gets dissipated inside the car. To be very sure whether the heating is normal or abnormal, one has to use an accurate thermometer to measure the temperature. 45 DegC (warm to the touch) is normal, 65DegC (quite hot) is not.

To test to be certain whether the MB is faulty or not, one has to check it on another unit. Testing another MB on your unit is half the test.

Lenses don't go "weak" that soon; they consistently fail to read CDs if they do. Dust is the culprit most often. Also, the problem may be in the CD too - quite difficult to differentiate with the naked eye.

Since the upgraditis bug has anyway bitten you, might as well get a new HU, instead of wasting your precious time on this one!