Amp Suddenly Stopped Working

[gcs118]

Quick question guys...all I did was turn the key to the 'on' position and the stereo won't work at all now. HU, speakers and amp are all Pioneer. Front left speaker was acting up, but why would that cause amp to go out? Power light on amp won't come on. Checked every fuse in the car, on the amp (2 on the outside, internal one maybe but I'd have to take it apart), and inline fuse. I don't really want to drive home for 4 hours in silence....any ideas? Thanks guys.

PS - Sometimes when turning car off or on, the speakers would pop/crackle. Any way to prevent this, as it never happened with stock set up?

 

[Breeegz]

Did you check the remote wire (usually blue and in between power and ground)?

I suggest using a multimeter, check DC voltage (between that and ground) and you chould come up with near 12 volts, this engages a relay inside the amp to turn it on. If you have no 12 volts this would cause your problem. While you have your multimeter out I'd check the power for s**** and giggles... and we'll go from there.

audio mods back me up...

 

[gcs118]

All of the wires that connect to the amp are in place and look good. Unfortunately because I'm at school I don't have my head unit keys to look at the back of that (maybe I unknowingly kicked a wire and it pulled out?), and I also don't have my multimeter here. I'll take a look today at the only wires above the pedals to be 100% sure I didn't accidentally kick/pull them out, but I'm almost positive it just happened when I put the key in position and then just opened the passenger door for someone. I do appreciate the suggestions so far, it gives me a starting point for when I get home if I can't fix it here.

 

[Breeegz]

Well, if you REALLY wanted to get behind your HU, you could "build" a set of keys with a wire hanger... where there is a will there is a way...

Let us know when you find more info...

 

[gcs118]

lol I'm not gonna risk messing anything up, plus I don't have time to do that even. Only reason I had time to check the wiring before work was cuz my class let out 30 minutes early. I'm gonna hopefully take it somewhere or examine it closer this weekend, I'll see what turns out of it...

 

[gcs118]

Alright well I finally found a place to drop off my car while I was at work, and picked it up during my 10 minute break. Apparently the RCAs are the culprit. This surprises me because they've been fine and I didn't think they could really just quit working so well. The guy said he had to jiggle them to make them work. I guess I'll be buying new RCAs this weekend, which sucks cuz the good ones are expensive as hell. By the way...any way to test to see if it is the RCAs and not the connections/inputs on the HU?

 

[Breeegz]

If you wanted to check out your cables, you could hook your current RCA's up to a different source (like a buddies car, or a TV out to a stereo in), though that would mean taking them out, thus more work than it's worth. If your buddy got it working again I don't see why you'd do this... maybe I'm misunderstanding.

If you wanted to check out your HU, you could hook it up to an ocilloscope, although chances are that you don't have access to one, and they get rather expensive... or take it to an authorized repair shop and have it bench tested.

this is how RCA's "could" stop working all-of-a-sudden

This is a breakdown of RCA's (or more exactly, Coaxial Cable, but RCA's are similar in structure) The outside shielding is grounded to both the amp and your headunit and the center conductor is what carries the signal. If there is a place where your RCA's are pinched (I.E. door slamming on it) it could damage the shielding, or even mess up the center conductor. Something like this could take time and then happen all of a sudden. But more likely, your RCA's weren't properly plugged into your amp, if you friend just "had to jiggle them to make them work" then I would suspect the latter rather than the former.

If you still feel like you need another set of RCA's I suggest opting for the cheapest RCA's made for car audio. From what it sounds like, your application isn't pushing the limits of sound quality, and cables will not improve the limitations set by your electronics.

 

[gcs118]

He had to jiggle the RCAs at the back of the HU, not at the amp. He said he tried different RCAs and they worked just fine, but mine you had to jiggle a bit to make them work. I'm going to look for pinches/stresses anywhere along the line to be 100% sure that it is the cables. I do know for a fact that the problem lies somewhere in the RCAs...thank you for your info very much, it will be useful if I don't solve this quickly.

 

[theice]

on your initial post, you said your amp power light didn't come on. An RCA issue wouldn't have anything to do with the amp not firing up.

 

[gcs118]

Well I have some more things, and yet I still have no idea why the amp doesn't work. With a multimeter, the power, ground and remote wire along with all fuses are in fine working order. The amp will still not come on though. I pulled out the head unit, put the RCAs in snugly, and everything worked fine. I started the car later, and nothing has worked ever since then, not even when playing with the cables. Does anyone have any idea what might be happening here? The amp power light will not come on, which I figure it should even if the RCAs were bad...maybe the amp is just f-ed up?