My Columbus lost consciousness last night

[k_rider]

Dropped into Bunnings last night on the way home from work, radio playing away quite happily when I parked up. Picked up what I needed, jumped in the car, started it and as I was driving out of the carpark I became aware that the radio wasn't on and nothing was up on the display. So I flipped the power switch on and off a couple of times, by which time I was out on the street (a bit darker than in the Bunnings carpark) and noticed that the whole unit was black. No backlights in any of the buttons and still nothing at all on the screen.

Tried all the buttons, which achieved nothing. When I got home, I stopped the engine and then cycled the ignition switch a few times, waiting a couple of minutes each in the on and off state. Still nothing.

I decided to leave it until this morning to take a closer look, check fuses etc.

Before rummaging through the fuse boxes, as a sanity check, I thought to turn the ignition on again first. I was greeted with the 'Welcome aboard' startup screen and a track on the HDD playing! I then pressed the 'Radio' button and was greeted with a 'System starting...' message on the screen and after about a minute the radio screen popped up with blank buttons initially, but these filled in after a second or two with my selected presets.

Tried the other functions and all were working (the 'Map' display came up with the 50/50 compass and map view instead of the full map view that I usually have).

The system also now starts slightly differently from before, in that the clock appears for a few seconds before the radio comes up, whereas before, the radio screen would come up immediately (after starting the car).

It appears that the unit had lost power, gone through a reset and started up with default settings. I'm assuming the Body Control Module controls power feed to the Columbus, as well as managing its anti-theft functions, so maybe the BCM had a glitch.

I have had the Columbus hiccup once or twice before, but a single cycle of the ignition switch sorted it pretty much immediately.

Anyone else had similar experiences with their Columbus? Just want to make there's not a disaster in the making when the car is only about four weeks away from the end of its warranty.

[readerr0r]

It probably crashed, not many people realise but with the RNS510 it doesn't actually turn off when you turn off the car. It stays in low power standby mode for 10-30mins (I can't remember exactly). So flicking the car off and on won't help with some rns crashes. In that case you just press these 3 buttons all at once to do a manual, full reset.



Btw all this info is about the Mk5/6-era RNS510 based Columbus, not the new Mk7-era Discover Pro based Columbus.

[zei20t]

happened to me ages ago. I removed the fuse for a few seconds and put it back. Came good and hasn't been an issue since.

I would get a dealer to check it out NOW while its under warranty. that way you have shown them its an issue within the warranty period. they might do a goodwill repair/replacement once your warranty has expired. just make sure you get a receipt and its noted that they have looked at it.

[Martin]

I thought my RNS510 was crashing several times until I worked out it was interference from the Polar FIS device (firmware crash - needed a cold reboot)

[aslsw]

We had a similar intermittent fault with our MY10 vRS (can't remember what unit it was, it was just the default one) - it would seem to turn off randomly. I got it checked, they replaced the ignition switch and it never happened again.

[k_rider]

Thanks guys.

Yes, probably crashed. It's all still working fine since it sorted itself yesterday morning. The standby mode sounds right too and explains why it needed the overnight stay (or fuse removal in zei20t's case) to allow it to re-boot itself.

I'll drop into a dealer and have them take a look and make sure the fault is noted in their records, in case it does drop its bundle in the future.

[wfdTamar]

I had the screen go dark after copying files from SD card to hard drive while playing. Thought it might have got too hot. Came right after stopping and starting it.

[donweather]

My Columbus has stopped working twice now in the last 3-4 days. Will just be driving along playing the radio and it will just completely shutdown (as if I'd turned the Columbus unit off with the on/off switch). Hit the on button and it comes back on again but takes a while to boot up again (10-15 sec).

Should I get this checked out with the stealer? I'm just worried about wasting my time cause every other time I've taken my car to the stealer with an issue their standard response is "oh we couldn't replicate or find the fault". So I'm pretty sure they'll just say the same unless VCDS has stored an error/fault with the Columbus unit rebooting twice now?

[k_rider]

I seem to recall my Columbus doing that once or twice in the past (over the last 3.5 years I've owned the car), but hasn't done it recently. The last real hiccup was the incident that I started this thread with - the problem hasn't shown itself since, by the way. I didn't think to check for fault codes using VCDS at the time, but any codes should still be there, so I'll have a look on the weekend.
I guess I've gotten used to the Columbus' little oddities over time! Things like random volume of the Bluetooth connect/disconnect tone, random startup from 'Welcome Aboard' screen or straight to radio and one or two other little hiccups.

[k_rider]

Ran a VCDS scan yesterday and radio, media player and navigation all came up clear. So, whatever caused it to 'blackout' before didn't leave any fault codes behind.

A couple of other fault codes showed up though - the defroster flap motor and vehicle inclination sensor have thrown up faults.