"No Signal" on main screen

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Fisher99

Well-known member
Joined
May 12, 2019
Messages
424
I was driving home today and all of a sudden the main screen (nav/radio/etc) went dark. In very faint red letters it says "No Signal". Any ideas?
 
I believe that the power and video feed for the screen come out of the iDrive NBT box, conveniently located under the rear seat bench. At least on YouTube, it appears to be as simple as gripping the front edge of the seat bench and tugging it upwards to remove it and take a peek at the connectors. It sounds like the display is still getting power from the box, but not video

Hopefully it is just an iDrive NBT computer crash, and it comes back normally next time that you turn on the car.....
 
Well, you are prophetic! I had turned the car on/off multiple times, but then gave up and came in to Google the problem. Found a multi-page thread of BMW owners (but non-i3) reporting this problem, dating back to 2013. No actual answers. For some, their dealers updated SW and flashed code, but problem would come back. Some dealers replaced the CIC (not sure what that is) but problem came back. Some dealers replaced the head unit but those people didn't report back to say whether or not the problem returned.

In any case, after Googling for 20 minutes or so, I went back out and turned the car on, and the screen lit up. So, I guess we'll see if this happens again or whether it was a fluke. This is the first time I've seen it in my almost 2 months ownership of the car. I just sent an email to the previous owner to see if he had ever experienced it, but haven't heard back yet.
 
Hi vreihen

I just encountered the same problem, however it rebooted itself within 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, so I do hope you're right

Anyway thanks for your post !

Best Regards Allan
 
Unless you lock the car after turning it off, it doesn't go to 'sleep' for about 10-minutes or so (don't remember the exact time). Then, lots more things get turned off, and then need to reboot once you turn the car back on.
 
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