P38A Sat Nav screen

Has anyone got any closer to sorting out these dreaded blank sat nav screens yet?

Not quite

Would have thought if you @Rick-the-Pick cant sort it the rest of us dont stand a chance !

U know it lol

If it's the white screen of death issue, then I believe there is a guy out in Eastern Europe who can repair them... I'm not sure exactly what the fault is, but believe it's something to do with corrupted memory ( I presume an EEPROM that's being written to when power is cut or something like that) - but don't know what the fix is - whether it needs firmware reloading, or replacement parts.

I started looking into it awhile ago, as I have a spare (dead) drive here and stripped it down to see if I could get an idea of the components on the board etc - but it ended up getting swamped by work and other projects.

These sat nav's are completely different area to what I specialise in. This comes under radio stuff, & different equipment needed.

It costs thousands to set up & I already have enough investment ( over £100k) in the equipment I have already.

I heard of that eastern European chap in the past, but it's still hit & miss with him.

The early L322 units fit, I'm led to believe, but someone please correct me as I'm advising others on these at mo.

Yes, the early L322 units which take a mapping CD rather than DVD fit, and work... to some extent.
I put one in my vehicle as it came to me with a dead drive, and whilst I could get it to work, due to the differences in setup/integration into the whole infotainment system between the P38/L322 not all the functions/features were available. I ended up ditching it for an aftermarket nav/radio etc as I had a missing DSP amp too (which are also unrepairable I've concluded after probing about 5 dead ones here on the bench) and found the L322 drive was ok, but not amazing.

Keep old of them Marty, It might be worth investing a bit of time into these & see what can be done.

Mine is the Philips Carin system and works perfectly until you try to go anywhere near Bolton, when it goes into meltdown and won't work at all for some reason. Just tells you to make constant U turns.

wammers said:

Mine is the Philips Carin system and works perfectly until you try to go anywhere near Bolton when it goes into meltdown and just tells you to make constant U turns.

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Good advice. You should listen to it! GTFO!

That's a Bolton glitch not sat nav

wammers said:

Mine is the Philips Carin system and works perfectly until you try to go anywhere near Bolton, when it goes into meltdown and won't work at all for some reason. Just tells you to make constant U turns.

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I used to have an office in Bolton, but that was before SatNav, I found maps worked fine.

Datatek said:

I used to have an office in Bolton, but that was before SatNav, I found maps worked fine.

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Maps are so last year.

wammers said:

Maps are so last year.

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But they don't go blank when you need them

martyuk said:

If it's the white screen of death issue, then I believe there is a guy out in Eastern Europe who can repair them... I'm not sure exactly what the fault is, but believe it's something to do with corrupted memory ( I presume an EEPROM that's being written to when power is cut or something like that) - but don't know what the fix is - whether it needs firmware reloading, or replacement parts.

I started looking into it awhile ago, as I have a spare (dead) drive here and stripped it down to see if I could get an idea of the components on the board etc - but it ended up getting swamped by work and other projects.

Click to expand...

i had the same thing too. when i got mine the sat nav was blank screen, after some research i determined it was the sat nav computer (drive) in the boot. bought a replacement from an early L322, looked exactly the same, it booted up with the land rover screen but no dice. the firmware is different and wont drive the sat nav.

i ended up getting a replacement off ebay in the USA plugged in and worked fine. I had tried the chap in eastern europe also with my dead, he tried to flash it over but no dice, he didnt charge me anything, which was nice. he doesnt have the software for the P38 version.

the long and the short of it is, the flash memory *is* volatile on the system. if the battery is disconnected before teh sat nav powers down and the light on the drive in the boot isnt out, it will wipe the flash memory.

I have a laminated card set on my battery cover with a big warning triangle saying do not discconect battery unless Sat Nav is powered down. I know it but other people may not.

it would be good if someone has the data cable and to use a working drive to image the eprom ! they wont make money to retire to BVI, but it would be a good source to keep the OEM equipment working

Datatek said:

But they don't go blank when you need them

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It does not go blank, but for some reason in Bolton it goes tits up, ok everywhere else.