Is it possible to repair the "Computer" (ICU)

[Marc Boucher]

Huw wrote:
"Can you run down all the tests and observations you have made so far in
one email when you are at your keyboard again? And keep the year and model 
and engine code in the thread as well..."

Good idea and I'll do this tonight, as well as the cranking test and pull 
the codes, and then the output tests one more time.

Ironically, the same week that the Audi died, my 55inch plasma tv died. 
Completely uneconomical to fix as the individual boards start at $300 and go 
up to $700 for the (Y-Sus, X-Sus, or logic board).  I've found some places 
that sell the parts for almost 1/10th of that.  Problem is they're usually 
in the states and don't ship to Canada.  So I'll be ordering replacement 
boards in the next few days and shipping to an intermediate company that 
re-ships to Canada.

Point being, there's a few commonalities between the TV and Car situation. 
In both, if I had a handful of parts to swap in/out, that would be the 
quickest route to resolution.  In both cases, its not an economical repair 
if done by an "authorized repair/dealer", but it can become economical since 
the parts are starting to become available at relatively low costs if you 
shop around.

So in both cases, I'd like to order a slew of parts (tv and car) just to 
have for the immediate repair, and/or future problems.  Why all at once? 
Because the biggest hassle and cost is the dual shipping and customs, etc.. 
So hopefully by this weekend I can have a shopping list of TV and Car parts, 
vendors to get them from, and place orders for an assortment of car and tv 
components.

Now, on the other hand, if there was a simple capacitor known to blow in the 
ICU's, I'd crack it open and check it right away.  Unfortunately there was 
no such luck on the plasma.  Many people report the capacitors on their 
power supply as bulging and that's the cause of their problem.  But there 
was no simple 'component level' repair that was apparent on the plasma.

One final note on the car, before I write later:  I'd recently discovered 
the on-board diagnostics available through the climate control.  You can 
monitor anything from battery voltage to various temperature sensors.  At 
the point at which the car shut off (and wouldn't restart) I was running it 
in diagnostics mode, flipping between the various codes to see what they 
showed (for example ''11" shows battery voltage).   This could just be 
coincidence, but could it also be possible that the diagnostics mode somehow 
overloaded the ICU ?


MC