Xantia S1 radio going berserk

[Mandrake]

Hi All,

The Xantia hasn't been driven much lately, today I had the battery off for a while to reset the engine ECU and afterwards I noticed the radio was behaving VERY oddly.

Among its many symptoms are:

1) At random on some stations it starts beeping instead of playing audio - I have never heard it do this before in over 3 years of ownership. It seems to happen more on some stations and comes and goes randomly. You can see what I mean in this video:


2) Sometimes trying to select a memory triggers a band scan instead of switching to the memorised station. Also seen in the video above.

3) A couple of times the display has gone full bannans:


4) I can't seem to switch it from LO to DX and have it stay there - if I press Memo it seems to go to DX but even if I save that in a memory when I recall the memory it is back to LO. Because of this it has a tendency to want to search for the station instead of playing one that is a bit weak. (I don't have the manual so don't know how you're supposed to switch DX and LO - anyone know ?)

5) The volume is jumping up and down uncontrollably, intermittently. It will be quiet one moment blasting full volume an instant later with no effect from the volume controls on either the steering wheel or the radio itself to turn it down (although mute works) and then the next moment it is quiet and the volume is controllable again. Sometimes the volume starts quiet and turns itself up over a few seconds to full volume and stays there...(faulty rotary contact on the steering wheel ? The steering wheel has not been off in my ownership though, and probably never)

6) Just generally weird behaviour where it either has a mind of its own or doesn't seem to do what you tell it to.

I've never had any trouble with this radio before today and I've already tried disconnecting the battery a couple of times and no joy. The random numbers on the display is particularly worrying and makes me think it has developed a fault.

Very annoying when we are going away on Thursday with a 4+ hour drive each way with no usable radio that either starts beeping or blasting at full volume!

Anyone else had their Series 1 Xantia radio go completely berserk like this before ?

[elma]

That's new on me.
I've had the beeping, I think that was poor radio signal.
The rest is mind boggling.
They're hard to find the 4030 radios, I've been trying for a while myself.
Maybe take out, clean connections and reinstall? I'm clutching at sTraws though.

[Mandrake]

You might be right about the beeping being due to a low signal - because if I try a couple of other stations that are much stronger (and not distorted, like the first two) then it stays on the station and doesn't beep.

However I have never heard it beep on weak signals before today - normally it just goes silent or has a small amount of static. Perhaps the beeping is a feature of LO (local) mode versus the normal DX (long distance) mode ? I'm pretty sure it used to be in DX mode but I can't figure out how to get it to stay in DX mode without the manual. Anyone ?

I managed to capture another video of the volume jumping around - you can hear it clearly jump from quiet to pretty much full blast and stay there despite me hammering on the volume down button. And yet when I change to a stronger station the volume works normally again! Very, very weird...

[ekjdm14]

Not heard of this before, and the combination of symptoms makes me think either something has died internally or there's a bad connection somewhere inside or possibly between the casing components. I've witnessed truly bizarre behaviour from electronic kit before when the casing has been opened or not installed correctly due to outside interference (in particular a VCR I cleaned the heads on a few years back that went totally nuts until the top was fully screwed back on.)

Worth checking the basics first. (the poor reception on one of ours was caused by a small 2-pin connector just forward of the RF input being loose, it appeared to be connected to the tape deck but after plugging it back in securely the reception was much improved)

[elma]

If you pm me your email address I'll send you pictures of the relevant pages from the manual when I've got these last 2 seats in.

Sorry I've just checked my manuals and I'm actually missing the radio one.
I know I've a few spares knocking around from old cars but I won't be able to put my hands on them for a while.

[chinkostu]

Ooh mine did this once, ill try and remember what i did to fix it. Pretty sure i ripped it back out and checked the connectors at one point.

Tried turning loud and AF off?

[wurlycorner]

Think I would start with taking it out, taking the top off and giving it a good clean (dust vac, clean all the electrical connectors and the pcb with contact cleaner etc.)
If the front panel switches are linked to the main board via a ribbon cable or such like, dirt hair across the contacts on the plug/connector can cause spurious changes in status
Then after that it's probably a case of checking all the components that age (electrolytic caps) and if there's an internal battery to maintain memory, check that hasn't leaked.

[GiveMeABreak]

That first video in your first post is set to Private Simon, so I can't view it.

[Mandrake]

That first video in your first post is set to Private Simon, so I can't view it.

Whoops! Should be fixed now, although the second video demonstrates the problems a bit better.