Help. MID Stopped Working.
 

My daughter and son-in-law have a 2003 X5. They asked me to install an audio input jack, which I tackled today. Following the information here and the instructions that came with the audio input kit everything seemed to go smoothly. But when I turned the car back on, the MID was completely dead. Checked the fuse (is it #7?) and all the connections, but couldn't come up with a fix. Can any of you help, please.

Thanks.

Could be a bad connection on the interface kit you installed. Was it a plug&play harness you installed? Try remove the aux input and see if it solves the problem.

Thanks, Brian. It wasn't exactly plug&play. I had to move pins from the new audio input harness to the plug that was already there. I tried putting everything back the way it was and still no display at all on the MID. Do those display units fail completely like that?

No, at least not that I know of. I'd be pretty sure it's related to your mod.
In addition to fuse #7 check any an all fuses relating to OBC, audio, cd changer, telephone (anything that interfaces with the MID) including fuses in the trunk compartment (72-75).
http://xoutpost.com/gallery/files/4/1/AUX3.jpg

It maybe just that power has been lost to the MID backlights. The MID might be working otherwise but you just can't see anything because there is no backlight through the LCD.
There are about a dozen lights behind the LCD display and I suspect you managed to kill the power to these. Or maybe the ground connection to the MID is the problem. You will find some dissasembled shots of the MID here.
There is a downloadable scheme of the MID here (it's a pdf file within a rar archive - use 7zip to extract it). Maybe you can troubleshoot the problem with this.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Brian. Don't think it's the lights, since the volume control has no effect. Funny thing is, the unit came back to life a couple of times briefly. Makes me think your theory about a bad ground makes the most sense. Do you know if the MID gets its ground connection through the plug or is it a metal to metal connection through the case?