NO SOUND! Plz help

[jphebbie2]

HEy everyone,

So I have a 99 dodge dakota with a custom system that I installed 4 years ago. As of late, I have been having some weird problems with it. The sound keeps cutting out, but first off the setup:

Alpine HU w/ IPOD hokup, JL w3 10" powered by a 1000w sony amp (Max rating =1000w), I have a 100w RMS rated rockford fosgate 2 channel amp powering my front component speakers. The rear 6" stock speakers are running off the head unit amp. So Sub and front speakers are off RCA's, rear speakers are off HU amp.

It worked great and sounded awesome for the past 3 1/2 years but recently the entire system has been cutting out. The HU stays on and playing but there is absolutely no sound, no matter what source is playing. At first, it was only a few seconds and it would turn back on. As of late it hasn't made any sound at all. The past 5 hrs Ive driven, absolutely no sound. Volume doesn't affect the cut out, neither does car movement or bumps. I pulled up the bench seat to check out the amps and they are both powered up and properly connected. The rear speakers, connected to the HU dont work either. I am baffled at this problem, is it a ground issue? Has my HU **** the bed?? any help on this would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,

JP-

Click to read more...

 

[jphebbie2]

Oh and I am trying to sell this truck so a properly working custom sound system would really help my chances.

Thanks

JP-

 

[Team TH (Donny) 10+ year member]

From my personal experiences I have ran into the same problem with the following variables, though I'm sure there are many others out there...

-Loose/poor ground on HU

-Speaker Shortage

-Speaker Positive and Negative Contact

-HU failure

Its always good to check your ground to the HU make sure it is grounded securely. I typically bypass the use of the provided stock ground wire and ground it with 12 gauge wire no longer than 18" from HU. The shorter the better if at all possible. I have had speaker shortages that put my HU in a protect mode which can cause there to be no sound while HU seems to function fine. Also, I have had speaker wires (Pos & Neg) come in contact with each other both behind HU and at speaker. If you were to check your ground to HU and/or upgrade the ground wire you can take a look at your speaker wire connections since your behind HU and perhaps over time wires have moved or got close together or whatnot and caused HU to go into a protect mode (Because of a Pos & Neg connection) which would result the no sound your getting. Last from my experiences is that there is always a chance of components inside the HU going bad. I have seen this a few times which can do several different weird things before it finally gives out completely. No sound has been one of the things that have happened shorty before the HU quit on me. Well, hopefully I gave you decent amount of info from my experiences to help ya out. Anymore questions PM me and I will try my best to help you out. Good Luck!

 

[thevic24 5,000+ posts]

if the sound is cutting out of both amps and the hu's speaker outs, I would have to vote

for the HU taking a dump.

Is there any way for you to hook up an ipos or something directly to one of your amps and play it for a while?

 

[jphebbie2]

thevic, I just tried that with an RCA to mini and it worked fine, so i know its not the amps. I will check out whats going on behind the HU sometimes this weekend and see if I can find something in need of fixing. Donny, thanks for the quick concise answer. Is there any signal/notifier from the HU that it is in PROTECT mode? If a front speaker connected to an amp, then from the amp to the HU via RCA's, has a faulty ground, can that trip protect mode?? It seems unlikely to me. Wouldnt that faulty ground have to be directly connected to HU to trip protect mode? i.e only the rear speakers with a faulty ground could trip protect mode...

Thanks for your time guys

JP-

 

[Team TH (Donny) 10+ year member]

Well for your first question.. "Is there any signal/notifier from the HU that it is in PROTECT mode?" Yes and no.. For your HU no it will go into the protect and act like everything is fine but no sound/signal will be sent out. (I say no because it's 4 years old or older and I have only seen very recent models actually say PROTECT when at this state..) Your second question.. "If a front speaker connected to an amp, then from the amp to the HU via RCA's, has a faulty ground, can that trip protect mode??" From my understanding no.. Your amp would see this problem before it would reach the HU so if you had checked this amp and it isn't in protect and seems to function fine this isn't where the problem would be and if say the RCA's were bad just front speakers wouldn't work for that wouldn't create a problem other than just the front speakers not playing. Now for your last question and statement.. "Wouldnt that faulty ground have to be directly connected to HU to trip protect mode? i.e only the rear speakers with a faulty ground could trip protect mode..." Yes and yes. If back speakers are connected straight to HU thats where the potential ground/connection/short fault would be to create this protect mode. Once you check everything out and confirm no faults then the start of HU failure is what you would be looking at.

 

[jphebbie2]

Thanks for the answer, Ill check it out when I get a couple free hours this weekend. Thanks for all of your help, I should be able to get to the bottom of this when I get a chance to look at it.

JP-