Another Columbus Unit Failure Post

[laszlo_]

Hi all, first post on the forum. I recently picked up a 3.6 Superb Estate and I'm rather enjoying it. When I bought it knew it had a faulty head unit, and was always going to take a look at it. I know they are a very common failure point so thought I'd document my 2024 experience with it. Whilst I don't have any experience with OEM head-units (outside of 3rd party Chinese ones), I do with PC electronics, I'll try to pull the unit sometime this week and test the various parts. 

 

I'll attached a video below, it either does this in a loop, or just stays on the Skoda loading screen; which I'd assume is possibly some sort of CPU/motherboard failure but I am holding in hope that it could just be a faulty drive. I'd certainly take and appreciate any suggestions/tips from someone more experienced though. 😅

 

-Laszlo

 

 

[WaveyDavey]

I had this same issue at the end of last year and a reinstall of the firmware sorted it. 
 

A fellow member supplied me with the file and I burnt it to a CD and installed. 
 

If you search for the “Columbus Sales & Repair” thread you should get someone along to help you out. 
 

(Bear in mind the creator of that thread is no longer a member but someone else should be able to help you once you post a reply on that thread). 
 

 

 

[laszlo_]

On 27/02/2024 at 23:43, WaveyDavey said:

I had this same issue at the end of last year and a reinstall of the firmware sorted it. 
 

A fellow member supplied me with the file and I burnt it to a CD and installed. 
 

If you search for the “Columbus Sales & Repair” thread you should get someone along to help you out. 
 

(Bear in mind the creator of that thread is no longer a member but someone else should be able to help you once you post a reply on that thread). 
 

 

 

I had read quite a few of that fellas threads/posts and had noticed he hadn't posted in 2 years. Clearly he knew his stuff.  There's so many points of failure on these I had no idea where to start on it. 

However unit will not even boot to the point where I can open the disc drive. (but I haven't even tested to check if it's empty yet 🤦‍♂️)

 

I'll have a good read tonight and get some DVD-RW's ordered. Thank god I ordered a writable external drive last week then! 😁

[WaveyDavey]

39 minutes ago, laszlo_ said:

I had read quite a few of that fellas threads/posts and had noticed he hadn't posted in 2 years. Clearly he knew his stuff.  There's so many points of failure on these I had no idea where to start on it. 

However unit will not even boot to the point where I can open the disc drive. (but I haven't even tested to check if it's empty yet 🤦‍♂️)

 

I'll have a good read tonight and get some DVD-RW's ordered. Thank god I ordered a writable external drive last week then! 😁

You need to use a CD-R for the firmware not a DVD. 
 

If you post on that thread I’m sure one of the other guys who helped myself will help you out. 
 

My unit had also got to the stage where it wasn’t booting at all but you have to use a particular set of buttons pressed together to get the unit to stop trying to boot and to update the firmware instead. (This is different to the buttons you can press together to reboot the unit manually). 👍🏼

[laszlo_]

Managed to have a look at it the other day, boots into the BIOS/Software loader so looks like it is a software issue. I've ordered some CD-RW's from Amazon so I'll try to install the software on Friday. We move.

[WaveyDavey]

Just now, laszlo_ said:

Managed to have a look at it the other day, boots into the BIOS/Software loader so looks like it is a software issue. I've ordered some CD-RW's from Amazon so I'll try to install the software on Friday. We move.

I’m not 100% but I think you are better with CD-R rather than CD-RW as the units can be a bit picky on what media they like. 
 

And make sure you have the correct firmware version for your unit to burn to the CD-R as different age units will run different versions of FW. 

[laszlo_]

Gave it a go earlier. Windows 10 & 11 refused to recognise the blank disc for me so had to write it with a Mac. Downloaded 5238 from a link on the forum, burned it to the disc, loaded it into the headunit, initialised all well and good but I am now presented with this screen. I am assuming it's not liking the disc as I've had nothing but problems with them. 

[laszlo_]

Yeah, it's definitely either the CD or the copy of 5238 I downloaded. Found a copy of 5382 (which I know will probably not be compatible) and it booted up the installed straight away; albeit to an error message but it is working with the installation cds.

1 hour ago, laszlo_ said:

Gave it a go earlier. Windows 10 & 11 refused to recognise the blank disc for me so had to write it with a Mac. Downloaded 5238 from a link on the forum, burned it to the disc, loaded it into the headunit, initialised all well and good but I am now presented with this screen. I am assuming it's not liking the disc as I've had nothing but problems with them. 

 

[laszlo_]

On 08/03/2024 at 18:35, laszlo_ said:

Yeah, it's definitely either the CD or the copy of 5238 I downloaded. Found a copy of 5382 (which I know will probably not be compatible) and it booted up the installed straight away; albeit to an error message but it is working with the installation cds.

 

It is done. Plugged in VCDS and gave the unit a scan. It was running 6270. One (albeit Russian) forum search later, and it working again on 6276 perfectly. £5 on some CD's + trial and error, all sorted, can't complain!

[WaveyDavey]

9 hours ago, laszlo_ said:

It is done. Plugged in VCDS and gave the unit a scan. It was running 6270. One (albeit Russian) forum search later, and it working again on 6276 perfectly. £5 on some CD's + trial and error, all sorted, can't complain!

Glad you got it sorted in the end. 
 

They are notoriously temperamental with the discs you use and the speed they are written at. You have to use good quality discs and make sure you write to them at the slowest speed possible to give the best chance of success.