[LOLrance]

While coming home from class today, i started the car and noticed the radio didnt have any sound. I turned the volume up and nothing. Then after a few mins of driving i-drive just froze itself. Like, it'll load the climate/entertainment/navi/communication up to that point. Then if i try to go to lets say entertainment, it wont do anything. Its basically suck, nothing that is controlled by idrive works, including my radio and bluetooth. And then a few seconds later i get a error message, i looked it up in the manual to find out wtf it is, but couldn't find it. It looks like a telephone with the words SOS next to it and a big cross through it.

I was reading through some old threads about the CCC, but those people were having idrive completely shut down on them, like the screen would go blank. My screen still appears and even the bottom little bar that shows you date/time etc still scrolls through the name of the song that is playing on the radio station it is stuck on.

Not exactly sure what i should do right now. Is there some way to reset idrive manually? Worst case scenario i'll have to take a trip to the stealership and tell them to check it out. Just wanted to see if anyone had this problem before or know how to fix it before i take the long drive over there.

[SoYank]

Wait until tomorrow when you start it up again. If it persists, take it to the dealership. If it doesn't do it then it was intermittent but I'd suggest you expect it to happen again pretty soon, like within a week or two. The screen may or may not light up next time. The iDrive knob won't have any resistance (just spins). When it gets to where the screen blinks on and off without fully booting you'll notice a green LED next to the SOS button will blink along with the screen every thirty seconds or so. Or, the next time you start your car the iDrive will be completely dead and you'll need to have one or more of the components replaced. When the CCC is replaced they'll have to reprogram it which will mean you'll get the latest Progman version.

A bit of advice. If you have a Nav disc and/or a CD in the drive(s), take them out at your earliest opportunity and just use the radio. The dealership won't be able to get them out of the drive units if those units have to be replaced. Mine were both replaced and the drive had to be sent to Germany to get the discs removed. That took almost a month -- and I'm in England -- and the condition they were in upon delivery wasn't exactly pristine.

You could also try the BMW three-finger salute: press the volume control, CD eject, and DVD eject buttons simultaneously, although I've never gotten that to work.

[LOLrance]

Originally Posted by SoYank

Wait until tomorrow when you start it up again. If it persists, take it to the dealership. If it doesn't do it then it was intermittent but I'd suggest you expect it to happen again pretty soon, like within a week or two. The screen may or may not light up next time. The iDrive knob won't have any resistance (just spins). When it gets to where the screen blinks on and off without fully booting you'll notice a green LED next to the SOS button will blink along with the screen every thirty seconds or so. Or, the next time you start your car the iDrive will be completely dead and you'll need to have one or more of the components replaced. When the CCC is replaced they'll have to reprogram it which will mean you'll get the latest Progman version.

A bit of advice. If you have a Nav disc and/or a CD in the drive(s), take them out at your earliest opportunity and just use the radio. The dealership won't be able to get them out of the drive units if those units have to be replaced. Mine were both replaced and the drive had to be sent to Germany to get the discs removed. That took almost a month -- and I'm in England -- and the condition they were in upon delivery wasn't exactly pristine.

You could also try the BMW three-finger salute: press the volume control, CD eject, and DVD eject buttons simultaneously, although I've never gotten that to work.

I owe you big time. I was just about to disconnect the battery and if that didn't work, drive down to the dealership to have it looked about. But i read your post and decided, what the hell might as well try it and it worked and everything is back to normal.

When i did it the first time, my NAV disc was still inside, so it didn't do anythiny but eject my disc. The second time i tried it i made sure the disc was already out, and it pretty much rebooted idrive and when it came back, everything was ok.

Thanks again, appreciate the help. No wonder i love this forum so much

[jerrym]

teh law's idrive ftl.

[vase330]

Trust me I had 5 months of hell, and it started exactly like that 17 km from pickup Yes thats right, it got so bad I was ready to sue to lemon the car. If I were you, I'd make a video of it when if freezes. Mine just got fixed and has not returned. A little early to judge, but I do hope it wont reoccur. It was so bad the car was parked 65% of the time completely undrivable due to a defening shreak coiming from I-Drive. SOS does not work, neither does CA or any of those cool electronics when the thing goes bad. Restarting the car worked sometimes, but most of the time, it was so bad even disconnecting battery had no effect. BMW replaced all electronics in my car, GPS, CCC, Bluetooth everything. Finally it seems to have resolved my issue. It took them 5 months though, Aaaaargh! Good luck, and go complain about it ASAP as it usually only goes downhill. Search around on BMW boards, you are not alone. As I said mine was really severe. I am so thrilled with the car once again after 5 months of hell.

[Raz335]

Mine froze last week in the morning on the way to work. When I got back in the car during lunch, it worked fine. So you guys are saying that this problem will continue??

[SoYank]

Originally Posted by vase330

Trust me I had 5 months of hell, and it started exactly like that 17 km from pickup Yes thats right, it got so bad I was ready to sue to lemon the car. If I were you, I'd make a video of it when if freezes. Mine just got fixed and has not returned. A little early to judge, but I do hope it wont reoccur. It was so bad the car was parked 65% of the time completely undrivable due to a defening shreak coiming from I-Drive. SOS does not work, neither does CA or any of those cool electronics when the thing goes bad. Restarting the car worked sometimes, but most of the time, it was so bad even disconnecting battery had no effect. BMW replaced all electronics in my car, GPS, CCC, Bluetooth everything. Finally it seems to have resolved my issue. It took them 5 months though, Aaaaargh! Good luck, and go complain about it ASAP as it usually only goes downhill. Search around on BMW boards, you are not alone. As I said mine was really severe. I am so thrilled with the car once again after 5 months of hell.

You're not alone. Mine started in late November last year just as l4wr3nc3 did. Over the course of five weeks the CCC was replaced, the screen was replaced, both drives were replaced, and a section of the wiring loom was replaced. Two software uploads were done. In January I just decided to live with it because I noticed that it was intermittent and the workaround I found was to park and wait ten or fifteen minutes or drive in silence softly singing to myself; trust me, the silence was much better. In September I took it in for several issues including the intermittent problem and they reloaded with the latest software which, knock on wood, seems to have fixed it for the past two months.

All the best with yours.

[Seattle135is]

I got the exact problem with my 335 today - unfortunately I read this thread after dropping the car off at the dealer - I will try the 3 finger salute if it happens in future - the car is 10 months old - 11k miles - no problems at all barring this i-Drive crud... and it's Proceded!

[vase330]

BMW better take care of this before they develop a reputation. They are not far from it now. My car was really really bad. Nothing would make the deafening noise and freeze go away, not restarting, not disconnecting battery nothing. As I said, I took it to dealership while it was happening, and after they couldn't make it stop no matter what, the manager maybe frustrated and embarrased got all sacastic and dry humored the situation. I was not amused, I was however really pissed when he suddenly started sacastically making remarks that I didn't buy the car there, so why would they try any further to help, when it had cost them too much valuable time already. Almost as if he was saying a deserve it because I didn't buy the car from them. That was low Anyway I hope it is definitively fixed now. I haven't had a sneeze since the replaced everything and reprogrammed the car.