Deck randomly stops giving power to speakers

rakess · 10-20-2008, 08:08 PM

Hello,
I just recently installed a new speaker / sub in my car and well everything was working find today until the sound from the speakers randomly stopped working.
So I ran some tests and this is what I found:
Speakers stop working but the sub still plays, means sound is delivered to the sub but not the speakers and that the input is not the problem.
If i turn the deck off and back on, and restart playing music it will play through the speakers for a while and then shut off.
The sound is not just quiet, if music is playing it will make a little popping sound making me think that its trying to make a connection but failing.

My speculation is that:
The connections from the wires --> speakers may be faulty, but the thing is I have my sub's REM (remote) cable going tethered to one of the speaker cables, so power is going through it (at least 12 V).
I thought maybe a fuse or whatnot was blown at first, but if one was blown I wouldn't see why it would still play music for a bit anyways.

Speculation and help is quite appreciated, for now I am just going to let it sit t'il tomorrow and see what happens.

Ps: Will the sub/amp draw power from the deck when it is only connected by two RCA cables and the REM cable? Because that may be my answer.
Thank you.

pancit175 · 10-21-2008, 07:36 PM

Do you still have the factory radio, or an aftermarket radio?

The most likely thing that is happening is that one or more speaker lines are grounding out on the chasis from either behind the radio or at the speaker terminals. Aftermarket radios have a protect mode it's internal amp automatically goes into once a speaker line grounds out to protect the radio from the wire grounding out. It may be difficult to find out if it is an intermittant problem, but while the car is at rest and if it does happen you can test the speaker lines using a digital multimeter to test for continuity between ground and the speaker wire.

rakess · 10-21-2008, 08:29 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by pancit175

Do you still have the factory radio, or an aftermarket radio?

The most likely thing that is happening is that one or more speaker lines are grounding out on the chasis from either behind the radio or at the speaker terminals. Aftermarket radios have a protect mode it's internal amp automatically goes into once a speaker line grounds out to protect the radio from the wire grounding out. It may be difficult to find out if it is an intermittant problem, but while the car is at rest and if it does happen you can test the speaker lines using a digital multimeter to test for continuity between ground and the speaker wire.

Thank you very much for your reply.
I am guessing it is a cable thats behind the radio but today, I arrived at home, parked and just before the music was working for about 30 seconds no stop (before it would be more like 1-5 seconds, stop, wait a bit, it plays again). And so I thought it was okay, and I opened the door and it stopped playing, so I was like, no it cant be the door. Out of some frustration and habit I pulled the door back pretty hard, and the music restarted playing and ran through a whole song no matter what the volume. I am hoping I moved a cable a bit by doing this but if it starts not working again, I will check the cables behind the radio as this is most probably the source of the problem.
Thank you once again!
[edit] the speakers stop working if I open my driver side door too fast, but if I slam it back, it'l play again.
Since when does hitting things make them work? XD

pancit175 · 10-23-2008, 06:32 PM

Like I mentioned, its a grounding issues of the speaker wires. It is not a safe condition for the source unit. And it is going into protection. So it sounds like you either have to fix the wiring behind the door to the speaker, or you have to change out the speaker wires from the speaker to the deck to completely eliminate the possiblity of the speaker wire causing the problem outside of the terminals it meets the speaker or deck.