X5 E53 - On board phone not working

[maxandfriend]

OK guys... got my car phone working again..!!

Lets start saying that TCU was ok.
After a lot of investigation I found a damaged cable underneath my central console.
After I repaired it, the phone kept refusing to work, so I had to go for the next step and decided to have a look inside my eject box too.

There I found a little smd component damaged which I desoldered (looks like a 3 pin resistor or diode) and then wanted to give a try without it just to see if something chenged in behaviour of the whole phone and in a try to get some hints.

Surprisigly enough, it started working..! Phone recognized there was a sim inserted and in a few secs it was registered on the net.

Maybe the little smd was part of a voltege divider which is not critical... I dont really know what it was meant for, but all is working without it..!
If I found a schematics i might have given a try to discover what it was and replaced it.

During the next days I'll test the phone extensively and will come back to you with any news.

Anyway, at last, now we have a working phone to play with.
If you need some navcoder log or anything else, just ask..!

And last but not least, I want to thank you all for your help, and a special thank goes to Stringbag who offered to try before buy his TCU.

[big bob]

Originally Posted by maxandfriend

OK guys... got my car phone working again..!!

Lets start saying that TCU was ok.
After a lot of investigation I found a damaged cable underneath my central console.
After I repaired it, the phone kept refusing to work, so I had to go for the next step and decided to have a look inside my eject box too.

There I found a little smd component damaged which I desoldered (looks like a 3 pin resistor or diode) and then wanted to give a try without it just to see if something chenged in behaviour of the whole phone and in a try to get some hints.

Surprisigly enough, it started working..! Phone recognized there was a sim inserted and in a few secs it was registered on the net.

Maybe the little smd was part of a voltege divider which is not critical... I dont really know what it was meant for, but all is working without it..!
If I found a schematics i might have given a try to discover what it was and replaced it.

During the next days I'll test the phone extensively and will come back to you with any news.

Anyway, at last, now we have a working phone to play with.
If you need some navcoder log or anything else, just ask..!

And last but not least, I want to thank you all for your help, and a special thank goes to Stringbag who offered to try before buy his TCU.

Are you in possesion of a WDCT handset? I wonder if one needs to be present in older TCU systems befoe the TCU movs on to pairing. Yes, please log a full power on, pairing, connection routine with navcoder!

[maxandfriend]

Originally Posted by big bob

Are you in possesion of a WDCT handset?

Do you mean this one..?



Sorry about poor image... crap smartphone cam.

Originally Posted by big bob

I wonder if one needs to be present in older TCU systems befoe the TCU movs on to pairing. Yes, please log a full power on, pairing, connection routine with navcoder!

OK, no problem... I'll log a session for you in a couple days.

Do you think there might be a way to use this phone system as a modem connected to a computer?

[big bob]

Originally Posted by maxandfriend

Do you think there might be a way to use this phone system as a modem connected to a computer?

If it were possible it would be at 9.6kbps max for data. 3G offers much higher rates these days, 7.2Mbps max.

[maxandfriend]

Originally Posted by big bob

If it were possible it would be at 9.6kbps max for data. 3G offers much higher rates these days, 7.2Mbps max.

Yes, I understand that.

There might be a boundless potential despite its slowness anyway.

I was not really thinking of that as a way to surf web2... maybe just get some simple info to be displayed on the onboard monitor (think about meteo forecast or a news ticker...), or a way to remotely control some of the car functions, or maybe just ask your car what its position is, and again a remote diagnosis system might be a reality soon...

It should just be a matter of finding a way to break into the system and get the right codes, as most of this is already done by bmw assist.

What about if we could control our own car the same way bmw assist does?!?


Maybe we'd better open a new thread for this though...