Buttons and knobs on my radio aren't responding.

[bartolome1]

Hi, I'm visiting from the E39 boards since you all seem to have a pretty good base of knowledge about the BMW navigation/stereo systems.

I've been experiencing an intermittent problem with my 16:9 widescreen headunit in which the buttons and knobs cease responding to any input. Menu, On/Off, <>, 1-6, the nav select button, nor any other button will respond. Although, volume works and sometimes the eject button works (in which the screen tilts and acts as it should.) The problem is completely random and it is difficult to reproduce the issue or find any sort of patterns to cause the unit to act up. At times it will be stuck at the Safety Screen waiting for me to hit the 'Accept' button, however I can't since that knob isn't responding regardless of how often I press or turn it. At other times the CD changer will play and I can use the steering wheel controls, but I cannot switch discs or fwd/rev tracks with the buttons on the headunit. And then the rest of the time it works fine.

I've replaced all fuses related to the Nav and Stereo, I've had the unit out and reseated the cables, and I've even had the top cover of the headunit off (http://www.bmwmotorsports.org/pdf/BM...een_repair.pdf) and did a good spray with compressed air. One thing that I haven't tried is reseating those ribbon cables for the monitor and I think i'm going to try that when I get my car back from the dealer.

My suspicion is that something behind the screen and buttons isn't sending the correct signals, or any signals at all. Or something like that, I'm no EE but logically that sounds correct, right ?

Anyhow, I'm wondering if anyone here has heard of such issues and whether or not a fix was available. The dealer is feeding me some story about how they can't reproduce it and since it's only 1/2 broken and not completely broken that they can't do anything for me. This is the 2nd time I've had it in to them and I've owned the vehicle for less than 14 days.

For the record, I have the MKIV DVD Nav system, 16:9 widescreen, SW 4-1/60.

Any help, tips, suggestions, wisecracks are appreciated.

Thanks for listening.