USB connection in MY09 V8V

[Merlin V8V]

Hi All

Firstly Seasons greetings and good wishes for a wonderful 2011!

Santa was kind enough to get me a 4 GB Aston USB memory stick for Christmas and even though I used an iPod in the car I just transferred some music to the USB stick and plugged it in the outlet in the centre console but the display continues to say "connect USB". USB are usually plug and play and thinking an AM stick should work no problem in an AM but seems I am wrong.

Am I missing something or does a setting need to change? Or maybe it’s a call to the Dealer as obviously it’s still in warranty.

Your thoughts and experiences would be most welcomed.

Kind regards

Jason

[steveatesh]

Hi Jason and seasons greetings. I have a little experience on this - my first USB memory stick (although not AM brand) just wouldn't register at all on my MY2010 V8. I then purchased a 4gig Sandisk and transferred over a load of music at high quality sampling rate (I think 320kbs rings a bell). The car recognised the stick when i plugged it in and plays the music. However - theres always a but isn't there - what I found was that when I leave the stick in the socket when I park the car very often it would not be recognised next time I used the car. All I would get was the legend "....loading".
I tried pulling out the stick and putting it back in but in the main it would still not load (although occasionally did!)
However (again) the next time I use the car the USB stick would be recognised straightaway. It seems to me to be a software problem in the car audio system - sometimes the stick is recognised and sometimes not.
My dealer reported it to AM but had not heard anything like it from other customers (probably most people use an Ipod but the USB is supposed to give better reproduction apparently).

They did give me advice - what I do now each time I park up is to remove the stick from it's socket - next time I use the car it seems to recognise it straightaway rather than being hit and miss.

Not sure that will help you in your own case other than to say you are not alone, but I'd say keep trying, if it still fails back to dealer - maybe the more people who report this will mean AM might put a little into researching a fix!

[mikey k]

Is it a Genuine AM memory stick?
I've had to reformat sticks to FAT or FAT32 on some cars

[Merlin V8V]

Steve - Many thanks. It' useful and I'll give it a try.

Mikey - yes it's a genuine AM memory stick.

Update - I've tried a different stick and have the "loading" message too. Still nothing happens but it feels like a step in the right direction for some reason lol.

Kind regards

Jason

[Jay_Davis]

I've been using a 4 gig PNY stick with no problems at all and I leave it in all the time.

So there's only 5 things that could be causing problems:
1. Problem with your car itself
2. Hardware compatibility issue with the stick you are using
3. Filesystem format on the USB stick is not compatible
4. The way files are stored on your stick (filenames too long, directories too deep, etc)
5. Some incompatibility with how your mp3 files are encoded

Start ruling them out and eventually you'll find your issue.

[drcarrera]

Resurrecting this thread as I've just got a MY11 V8V and have exactly the same problem as steveatesh!

USB pen drive works perfectly ... until I leave the car. When I get back, the car doesn't see the drive any more. Turning off the ignition, removing the drive, turning the ignition on and re-inserting does the trick, but I really don't want to have to do this evertime I get in the car!

Has anyone found a definitive solution for this - e.g. a specific make of USB drive, arranging the files in a certain way, formatting with certain parameters etc?

Chris

Edited by drcarrera on Wednesday 27th April 17:31

[steveatesh]

I raised the issue with a visiting AM technician a few weeks ago (he was at my local dealers seeing willing owners for an hour each or so, chatting about AM in general and owners cars in particular - time well spent!). He was very interested in it and made lots of notes to take back to Gaydon.

I'd planned on emailing my dealer next week for an update and I will add your experiences, especially the new car. I'll get back to you if I hear anything from them useful.

[drcarrera]

steveatesh said:

I raised the issue with a visiting AM technician a few weeks ago (he was at my local dealers seeing willing owners for an hour each or so, chatting about AM in general and owners cars in particular - time well spent!). He was very interested in it and made lots of notes to take back to Gaydon.

I'd planned on emailing my dealer next week for an update and I will add your experiences, especially the new car. I'll get back to you if I hear anything from them useful.

Thanks. It's a MY11 but getting on for a year old, so not brand new, although it sounds like they haven't fixed anything since!

I'd be interested to hear from Jay if he did anything particular for it to work all the time. Perhaps it's the brand of USB stick?

[Jay_Davis]

This behavior rules out a lot of things, since it can read and play the files.

The car must leave some power on the connection all the time because it does notice if I take the USB drive out and put it back in while the car is off. So I'm guessing its a hardware issue where the USB drives you are using which cause it to malfunction while in this lower power off state. Try some different USB drives.

I've been using these PNY 4 gig sticks without a problem:
http://www3.pny.com/4GB-New-Attacheacute-USB-20-Fl...

Note: You can find them cheaper than that list price they show on their web site.

I'm sure many others will work too.

[drcarrera]

Thanks Jay.

I've tried three different makes so far, all with the same result, so I'll look at getting a PTY one and try that. I wonder if it's only 100% compatible with certain controller chipsets.

Chris

[mikey k]

Check the formatting
I've had trouble with FAT32 formatted sticks in the past
Reformatted to FAT worked fine!

[drcarrera]

Found an old USB hard disk - and that works perfectly! 16 Gig and small enough to fit in the cubby so that'll do if all else fails!

Chris

[mikey k]

I suspect that will be FAT formatted

[drcarrera]

mikey k said:

I suspect that will be FAT formatted

Naa - Fat32. Not much point in having a 16 Gig disk and only using 2Gig of it!

[Jay_Davis]

I hope it doesn't melt in there.

Perhaps other people that have used various brand USB drives successfully could post them so you would have a wider list to choose from.

[watchrabbit]

I used to have an iPod inside, gave up because of the lousy search, I like to browse my own folders.
Put an hard disk inside, the Samsung S1. They are 1.8", so power is no issue, and are cheap for the megabyte. Have now 120gb inside :-). Sometimes it"ll show loading for 30 secs but that's it! Suits me fine...

[alpinepass]

I had a similar problem in my older V8V with a retro-fit kit and it was indeed solved by using FAT format and limiting the "nesting" to two levels,i.e. only one sub-folder otherwise the system gets lost (or I do!!). You can load more than 2GB just not at the same time. It gets a bit confused if you take the USB device out while still powered and it takes a few seconds after removing the ignition key to power down, so wait before taking the USB device out......

[Highrisedrifter]

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread but I thought i'd post here rather than create ANOTHER new thread on the same topic. I know some forums detest thread necromancy.

I have a Western Digital 320gig HDD formatted to FAT32 full of .mp3 tracks. I used to use it in my Audi and had no issues whatsoever in drawing power from the car's USB connection. The same can't be said for my Jag where I have to use a hateful iPod Classic 160gig with its rubbish file structure.

Can the USB interface on the MY08 Vantage power a HDD and will it be able to cope with a few levels of nesting?

Currently I have my HDD set to Artist > Album > Track and I have to say the USB file structure is far and away better than an iPod file structure for ease of use so ideally i'd like to keep it.

[JohnG1]

Nesting - yes.
Power hard drive - don't know. I believe not, my blackberry does not charge when being used as a USB drive.

[KarlFranz]

I have a Western Digital 250gb drive hooked up to the USB port on the Dension Gateway 500 MOST interface in my V8V and it powers it just fine. I would suspect that the Aston kit should work as well.