Aux Input brought upon problems
 

I have a '03 x5 3.0i and I made my own aux input cable and connected to the rear 3 pin connector for my non-DSP, non-Nav radio and when connected without anything plugged into the female connecter the Aux does not show up from the MODE selections. When I do connect something to it, the MID screen goes blank but the radio still going for about 10-20 minutes and then turns off by itself. When I unplugged the aux cable, the MID goes back to normal.

At first, I thought it was the components problem and I tested each one for the correct values with a multitester and a capacitor tester with all being the correct values. Then I checked the placements and they were all correct as well. I went back to try it one more time with everything being checked and the same thing happens just like before, but this time the radio is permanently blank with the radio going on by itself and turning off after 10-20 minutes by itself.

I tried taking off all the fuses, the four fuses in the back and the 1 in the front glove compartment and waited a while before putting back in but that didn't help. After about 2 hours of trying again with the cable and the fuses, my battery seemed to have died out by itself. I did not keep the car on during the whole time, only when I wanted to test to see if the Aux would come up. It seems that somethings draining the battery by itself now after testing the Aux input cable.

Anyone have had this problem or know of a solution? Why the aux cable not working with it connected to the back 3 pin connector? (I don't know my radio version now that there's nothing to see on it at all, also all the buttons on the MID is non-responsive) How come the battery is draining? Is it because of the on-board computer is shocked/shorted from the aux cable?

Thanks in advance.

It's going to be difficult to diagnose without any pictures of your cable or where you connected it. Which DIY did you follow?

How did you remove the radio? I plan to isntall my aux cable this week. Do you remove the trim on either side? Do I need to remove the torx screw behind the volume knob? Looking for the best way to install the BMW aux cable I purhcased last week, thanks!

See attached Aux Cable Rear.jpg the red circled connector is where I inserted the the DIY aux cable, imprinted with the numbers 8377064. The rear cable goes from Bottom to Top as Ground, then I believe L, R or could be the other way around but L & R does not matter reversed or not.

The DIY Aux Cable was made with the correct values on each component as I tested the resistor with MultiTester to be 330kOhm and the capacitor being .220uF. This Aux cable is my 2nd revision as I had 3x100kOhm resistors at first.

When I connected at first I had 3x100k Ohm resistors connecting pin 1 and 2 and each pin connecting to the their correct pins on the rear cable but Aux did not show up, only showing TR and Radio, then I tried connecting my phone on with the 3.5mm jack. That's when the first time the radio blackout, then turned off the car and removed the aux cable the radio came back after turning on the car again. I thought I had plugged it in on the wrong way so I flipped the DIY Aux cable and plugged in the other way and the radio blackout again after turning on the car. So I unplugged it and replaced with a 330k Ohm resistor and tried it one more time and then this time the radio would not come back again, plus after 2-3 tries with the new aux cable my battery was drained out which I had to jump start with my other car to recharge the battery.

Currently, I had 5 fuses removed relating to the radio for the whole night, didn't take the battery off because I wanted to see if anything else was draining the battery and luckily nothing had drained the battery overnight. So, this morning I took the battery off as well for about 1 hour then plugged everything back in but the radio is still blackout on me. When I turn on the car, the radio is running but the controls on the MID does not work and there's no display on it.

Hopefully someone can come up with a solution for this as to why this is happening. The rear cable looks to be the correct one and there's imprinted the numbers 8377064 on it. Thank you.

You remove the radio by pulling off the volume knob and then use T-10 to turn the screw under it counter-clockwise and dont use too much force and it's only a hatch release, once you turn it until you can't turn anymore, pull the radio with your T-10 and it should come right out. Then using the same T-10, you should see 2 screw holes under the CD insert area, turn them counter-clockwise until you can pull the CD Player out, if the CD player will not come out then the screw is not entirely unscrewed. I had that problem at first when the screw felt so loose but it's actually not entirely loose yet. There's no 3 Pin connectors in the front on my x5 but hopefully it's there for you.

Thank you! Seems too simple haha, I will give it a try when I get my truck back this afternoon for thermostat replacement.

Sorry but I can't tell how your capacitors are connected from the photo. One lead of the the capacitor should be connected to the wire and the other lead should be connected to the pin. The wire should not be connected to the pin directly.

Also, did you meter the resistor to make sure it's not shorted?

The capacitor is in between the wires and the pins separating the two. The resistor is not shorted as I have made sure of that before even trying to connect it to the 3 pin cable.

One main concern is, does anyone know what that cable I am connecting to is? I read on forums that is the correct 3 pin cable but in this situation, it does not seem to be the correct one. I checked on ALLDATA and I see that is for the CD Changer x18180 connector. Can anyone verify that?
The connector has imprints of the following:

Top Line: 8377064
2nd Line: 1355 6201
3rd Line: AMP BMW
Remember, it only has 3 pins.

Color of wires from Bottom to top is:

Brown, Red/White, Bluish-Grey/White

Thank you.

Stupid of me... I over looked the 5A fuse, forgot if it was the front or rear one, but after replacing it everything was back to normal.