Hi Everyone, 

 

I own a 2009 59 Superb Elegegance 140 Tdi PD 

Really impressed with it, apart from Columbus radio/nav. Worked totally fine then out of the blue just kept switching on and off. I have tried burning .iso files with new firmware on it to no avail. Problem i have is it just keeps turning on and off and its frustrating to say the least. Other people mention motherboard but surely this should be a recall by skoda as these units are still in circulation. 

I would love to get it working again hopefully without costing hundreds.

Any advice would be great

p.s. i have already tried soft reset which did not work.

 

Dave

Hi Dave,

Have you tried calling Skoda Uk customer services? They may be able to offer some advice. The worst that can happen is they ask you to buy a new unit :think:

John

When you put the disc into the Columbus to upgrade / downgrade the firmware, what actually happens?

Are you straight copy burning the ISO file to DVD or using software to burn the contents if the ISO file to DVD (e.g. Nero for Windows users)?

Read this thread and Ned's response (post #5) as well as discussion about burning firmware to DVD (if applicable).

Ive emailed skoda and also questioned the units as they should never pack in after a few years....I'm waiting to hear back. I used disk utility on my Mac to burn the iso file onto it. When I put it in drive it just shuts down and powers back up repeating over and over and disk appears to not do anything :-s

Have you looked at my post about the same thing?

ill have a look now

Rang Skoda uk and they said take it to a dealer and pay for diagnostics and go from there....looking to fix myself as could run into thousands. My tom tom lasted longer than this expensive option on the car. 

Columbus has a mechanical 2.5" laptop type hard drive inside, and just like a PC/Laptop these can and do fail.  it is possible to replace the hard drive, its just very time consuming.

If you do replace it there is a great guide on the Australian VW forum and they stuck a larger SSD in place if the standard drive.

You can repartition the new larger drive to split the three partitions in different percentages to the standard to account for the larger drive capacity.

http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/forums/f78/rns-510-hdd-replacement-ssd-swap-diy-60984.html

I have replaced with a 64 GB SSD drive and now screen is blank and disk i copied of mac does not load, disk goes in but does not appear to do much. at a loose end now and just want a radio that works....these units are so so unreliable :(

Assuming the SSD upgrade was OK, then if you don't get messages describing the firmware load process as described in the excellent guide... http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/298284-guide-upgrading-columbus-firmware-and-maps/

...then I would suspect the firmware disk you have created.

 

I'm a Windows person and so my knowledge of Apple is very limited but I use the freeware utility 'imgburn' to create the DVD (it is NOT copied to the DVD).

 

Can you tell us something about the level of your Columbus? As it will no longer start have a look at the labels on the case and copy or photograph the details to this forum.

Then we can advise a firmware level to install - you didn't say what level you tried.

We'll done for the swap to an SSD.

Have you read the web article linked to in the tutorial about the SSD swap about changing the partition percentage?

Worth a read and consideration.

As above, have you burned the ISO to disc using Disk Utility or copied it?

I use Mac and have had no problems with firmware.

Hi guys.

Any result with the columbus?

I have the same issue on my 2009 Superb Elegance.

Suddenly it stopped working.

I went to Skoda dealer for test and they said it's the antenna on the roof and asked 250 to replace it.

I've asked an electrician about it, and said it should work if I disconnect the antenna cable from the back.

It does the same without antenna.

 

Any ideeas?

As said above, it's either a software update needed, sometimes the hard drive fails, or it can be the motherboard. On a 2009 car if it's the original unit then I guess it has a small speaker - i button on the top right? If so then there's only a possibility of a software fix really as the old units like that are becoming more and more fragile and I wouldn't consider trying a hardware fix.

Okay. Thanks