Hello all. So, little background on the issue. Two days ago, the wife and I hop in the car to head off to dinner, then notice there is no sound from the radio! All station info there, volume control works, and can select in dash CD. Can't select CD changer, voice isn't 'there' either, same with rear DVD. Now, first thing I did is open the trunk and give the stack a good ole technical tap. Turned the car on again and all was well! Then after a few minutes it stopped again. Ok, got there, ate, left, did the 'tap' again and same as before, worked for a few minutes then stopped. Now from what I understand (and feel free to correct me) the radio, in dash CD and Nav can all be selected regardless of whether or not the D2B network is working, but CD changer, voice, phone, rear ice will all disappear with the network down. That was exactly what was happening to me. So, I figured it could be one of two things: 1) a bad module, or 2) break in the fibre optic ring, ie. bad connector or pinched cable. Since I happen to always have some spare D2B loops on hand, I decided to rule out, or find, the bad module. First I looped off the CD changer, still had the problem, then I looped of the voice, same. Next I looped off the power amp and guess what, no sound (obviously) but voice is there, so is CD changer, and rear DVD, all is well. So, by my deduction, I have a bad amp. I know these things are known to go wonky sometimes so it's not a surprise. But, before I hop on over to ebay and look for one, I wanted to check with all the gurus and see if my reasoning is sound!

I just started thinking and at the moment I can't remember if i checked the fuse for the amp (I think I did) so I'll do that tomorrow just to confirm it's not a bad fuse. I always forget to check the simple things first!

 

Little update. So, I'm 99.9% sure it is the amp now. After I hooked it back up, everything worked for a few little trips, then it cut out again and didn't come back on. So, I gave the amp a good ole technical tap again and it all worked again, for a few minutes. Then the sound started to cut out, the DSP button disappeared after another 2 or 3 second and dead again. So, I think my next move, before getting a replacement, is to take out the amp and open it up to have a look. I don't really know what I can do if nothing obvious is wrong, but I know these things can be repaired, but I don't know what is actually getting fixed. Again, my reasoning is if it's already broke, I can';t brake it more!

 

Okay. So I opened up the amp last night and didn't see anything wrong. It was actually pretty much spotless, no signs of water damage. Also, it appears that at least in my car they installed a piece of plastic to cover the amp in the trunk, probably to prevent damage by water. Anyway, I put it back together and then back in the car it went. Worked at first, I listened to it and the fan was running, everything looked good. However, this morning, same old problem. Stopped working about 5 min into my drive. So when I got to university, I got out with the car running and listened to the amp. Guess what, no fan running. So, it appears that the amp is working, just not getting power, or losing power after a while. The fuse is good as are the grounds in the trunk. So, where do I go from here? I guess it could be an internal issue but I'm leaning more towards a power supply issue. Maybe I need to dig out the wiring diagrams and have a poke around looking for continuity in the harness? I want to be sure the amp is actually bad before shelling out for a new one. I guess I could take the amp out of my wife's STR and swap them and see what happens.

 

If the amp is getting no power it would break the D2B loop. Check the wire harness - wiggle the wires a few times.

 

Thanks for that veffremov, but I have sorted it out to be a bad amp. I decided to just go ahead and swap the amps between my car and the wife's STR, easy enough (gotta love having two basically identical cars parked next to each other). Well, when I swapped them, my car worked perfect, her's, no sound and same issues as mine was having. Swapped them back (don't want the wife complaining about no radio!) and symptoms followed the amp, mine wasn't working and her's was. So, I guess that's that! There appears to be an internal issue with my amp not powering up/staying powered up. To me that sounds like a possible short or issue with the circuit board or something but what do I know! Anyone know if how to possibly fix this or what to look for? I can just get another one but don't want to write this on off until I know for sure it's a lost hope.

 

Think you have done well in tracking down the fault up to now and it would be satisfying to

find and repair the fault yourself.

My electronics knowlege is minute but I would try to find try to find the root cause eg a dry joint which is a soldered connection which has broken.

I do this by going over every joint with a magnifying glass. Also look for any signs of burning or overheating on any of the components.

If you find any evidence on a component and you do not know what it is -just google

the code on it!

If you can't track down the fault I would look for someone locally who repairs hi=fi equipment.

 

meirion1 - This was my thinking as well. I've got nothing to lose so I'm going to pull it out again and open it up and give it a good once over. I don't have an extensive electronics knowledge either, but I do know what a burned or dried up/bad solder joint looks like! Since I know it is works fine when powered up, I'm thinking try to trace the power line/circuit from the pin to wherever it goes and start there since I know the issue is a power supply one. Wish me luck!

PS. I don't think repairing it is really cost effective. I can get a working used one for $125-150 and I know a repair would likely be at least $100 or so without any warranty. When you start off saying it's an alpine amp, it's all good, but as soon as Jaguar enters the conversation, everyone seems to get scared!

 

Well, after tearing the amp apart and looking for bad solder joints, didn't see any. I did re-flow some of them that I knew were related to power, put it back in the can and it worked, for a total of about 5 min then quit on me again. I was going to try and have another go but I found a used one on ebay for about $100 CDN that is guaranteed to work so just bought it. Since I don't really know what I'm doing with the amp when it comes to fixing it, I don't feel like spending a few days trying stuff to see if it might work. So, that's that. Replacement amp on the way!