Bose radio issues. No sound when cold. Randomly powers off for a few seconds.

[blackelky]

You guys have more patience than me. I would've ripped it out and set it on fire by now

 

[Burban22]

Disassembled it and the main board looks fine. I know late 90s and early 2000’s were known to have solider failures due to switching to lead free solider. Anywho it’s not to bad to disassemble just wish I found an obvious issue or knew where to look lol

 

[Burban22]

Pulled oem radio and will keep in house warm while rest of the burb is cold overnight

40F degrees this am. Kept radio in house. Hooked up in cold suburban and works just fine so it’s definitely the radio acting up when it gets cold. Rules out the Bose amp under the console or anything else.

 

[Jimmyy]

Since its out i would hit the larger solder joints with an iron. That ROHS stuff is hard to work with.

 

[Fless]

Since its out i would hit the larger solder joints with an iron. That ROHS stuff is hard to work with.

^^^ This. With a magnifying glass I would inspect every possible solder joint on the underside of the board, looking for cracked or weak solder joints and reflowing any suspect ones. Use leaded solder.

You could also reinstall the warm, working radio without the case panels and use an inverted can of "air" to chill components one by one as it's playing sound to see when it quits. That might help you pinpoint the culprit.

 

[Burban22]

This summer I reflowed all the large soldier joints and where all the pins connect to the board. I’m amateur at best. I just held my soldering iron on the joint until it liquified then moved on to the next.

Only other thing I’m capable of is busting out the heat gun and trying to evenly heat the board up to 300F?

Although I may kill it since it’s easy to overheat a part and fry a chip.

 

[TollKeeper]

I have seen youtube videos about people just putting the devices/boards/whatever in a oven at a certain temp for a certain amount of time, and it does all the joints. I have not done it thou.

 

[Nashoba]

How old is your battery? How is the charge? All the electronics suffer when the battery is not charged and up to *****?

 

[Jimmyy]

This summer I reflowed all the large soldier joints and where all the pins connect to the board. I’m amateur at best. I just held my soldering iron on the joint until it liquified then moved on to the next.

Only other thing I’m capable of is busting out the heat gun and trying to evenly heat the board up to 300F?

Although I may kill it since it’s easy to overheat a part and fry a chip.

That should be all you need to do for cold soldier joints. Capacitors are the next mostly to fail item, but I don't know if they are heat sensitive. From your pictures they look ok. But I am using my phone to view them.

 

[Jimmyy]

The surface mount capacitors are the ones that benefit from time in the oven. Please don't do this on my word. I'm just an A-hole who likes to drink beer and type smart on my phone.

 

[Macks2DrTahoe]

Wow looks like you are having fun doing some great troubleshooting. I still recommend going with a nice upgraded touch screen audio system. With your apparent technical capability you could go simple and just replace the head unit (HU) (cost from about $125 and up) or go for a full replacement (HU, speakers, amp(s) and wiring). Google '2003 suburban aftermarket radio images' to see what it can look like. Plenty of help on the forum but from reading your posts I don't think you need it. Great pics

 

[Burban22]

Wow looks like you are having fun doing some great troubleshooting. I still recommend going with a nice upgraded touch screen audio system. With your apparent technical capability you could go simple and just replace the head unit (HU) (cost from about $125 and up) or go for a full replacement (HU, speakers, amp(s) and wiring). Google '2003 suburban aftermarket radio images' to see what it can look like. Plenty of help on the forum but from reading your posts I don't think you need it. Great pics

Yeah it’s starting to piss me off now. Got a random locked message yesterday, cycled key and it’s back to normal.

Ugg, I may tear the damn thing down one last time so it’s just the main board in the metal shell, I can get it stripped down but can’t really remove it from the metal box shell. Bust out the heat gun and warm up the board until I see solider liquify. Apparently 222C aka 430F is the magic temperature.

I’ll either fix it or kill it!

 

[Doubeleive]

I am no rocket scientist but I have seen these coil/transformer/choke things be a issue before, I would inspect it real good and maybe try to reflow the legs on the board, they change temperature while they are on so if there was anything prone to getting a poor connection when cold this might be it.
look at it up close with a magnifying glass on all sides and feel it to see if it is loose at all, look under the board where it sits also

 

[Burban22]

I’m getting pretty good pulling this out of the dash and removing the guts to get to the main board.

I got the main and small power board HOT. Like Brooke shields 1980s hot.

I used my heat gun on medium - high heat. 600F to 800F on medium low fan and went as evenly around bottom of board until my infrared temp gun read 380 - 420F I then flipped the board over and heated the top to same temp. I had to be careful with the fan speed because it would blow over the small brown capacitors. I didn’t see the solder liquefy but I figured high 300s low 400s should be hot enough to fix any joints that don’t function when cold.

I let the whole thing cool down 10 minutes, reassembled and the good news is it still works.

I’ll have to wait for another cold morning to see if I actually fixed no sound when cold

 

[Burban22]

@Doubeleive Thanks for the tip. I had reflowed those leg connections last time I had it out but unfortunately no improvement. Hopefully by heating the main and power boards up fixed it.

 

[Burban22]

42F this am and radio works fine!
Door chimes and sound

I’ll have to wait for a really cold 20F or below morning and test but before it wouldn’t work at temps below 50F.

 

[Burban22]

Have had a few 30F mornings and radio has been working fine. Calling it fixed!

Still have some odd issues like the radio will just randomly reboot. I'll be listening to radio and it just powers off then comes back on.

Still get these codes (probably due to the random radio power cycle)
U1000 Class 2 Data Link Malfuction
U1167 Lost communications with Rear Seat Audio/Rear HVAC

 

[Burban22]

I performed the reheat Hail Mary on the rear seat audio circuit boards as well. I only heated up the bottom of the boards not the front. Didn’t want to melt the RSA display. Got both boards to 380F - 420F.

Rear seat audio has always worked, but thought it would get rid of the RSA disconnect code, but no change guessing this code is coming up because the dash radio randomly loses power reboots once in a while.

 

[Burban22]

20F this am and no sound no chimes but radio powers on and can change stations. Back to its old problems.

Oh well.

 

[Sandaman]

20F this am and no sound no chimes but radio powers on and can change stations. Back to its old problems.

Oh well.

Having similar issues and I live in the middle east.

Nothing works as there is no audio from the radio, even though i replaced amp and radio. Worked for a while then sub stopped working, then completely stopped working (after i left the battery off for a bit). all i hear is low static like a thud noise once instead of chimes when i open the door.

Also recently the driver door controls stopped working for a while then worked when I turned off and on again. Now recently started getting service airbag light. I just bought it recently and already spent too much in repairs (brake booster, used transfer-case, 1 ball joint plus a lower arm, rod ends and the joints and some bushes). service 4WD showing up now and then when hot i think as it goes away after ive switched off the vehicle for a bit. Think i got scammed.