I'm having a bit of a strange issue. I'll be driving along, listening to music, and my radio will reset on it's own. The music shuts off, and the display (along with the radio buttons backlight if it's dark and my lights are on) shuts off and comes back on, showing the "Mazda RX-8" message as if I had just turned the key on. There's also an audible buzz that comes from the speakers as it's resetting, then once the display comes back on, it stops buzzing and all goes back to normal. Sometimes, instead of going off and coming right back on, the display will flicker on and off a couple times before it comes back for good. I'm getting the same buzzing when I turn my key on as well. I'm thinking there's a loose power wire or a short...?

Nothing else in the car is affected. No warning lights, no gauge malfunctions. Hell, the A/C even keeps blowing when it does it.

I had an iSimple iPod adapter installed by Best Buy in December, but I haven't had any problems until a couple days ago, so I don't think it could be the cause...

Any ideas? I'll try to get a video of it today as well to help show what it's doing. Sometimes it doesn't do it at all for a day or two so I'll cross my fingers that it decides to do it today

Thanks in advance.

 

You've got a short. Trace wires... hopefully it's not internal.

 

Thanks for the response, and I plan to. What should I look for? How would I recognize the short if I found it?

 

I'd start by pulling the radio out and looking for a cut, frayed, crimped, or otherwise just not right looking wire.

 

Update:
The music and display completely shut off on me today. I pulled the radio out and tugged on the main wiring harness for the radio and it flickered some. I pulled it in different directions and the radio came back on eventually but would shut off once I let go. I inspected all the wires but don't see any kinks or damage...I'm not sure where to go from here. I have at least narrowed it down to the main wiring harness, the one pictured, and at least it's not internal. Any ideas?

 

It only powers back on if I pull straight out on that loom with it plugged into the radio

 

It's probably the pins in the connector not making contact at times. Either that or the wire isn't making good contact to the pin itself before it goes into the connector.

These can be tricky if you don't have the right tools, so I don't really want to tell you how far you could go with this.

See if you can carefully(and I mean carefully) narrow it down to one wire. Plug it back up and when not working, see if you can lightly tug on one wire at a time to narrow it down.

I'll look at the wiring diagram and see which is the power wire(s) and ground. It has to be one of those.

 

Alright Thanks

 

I went through all the wires one by one and nothing happens when I move any of them, the only time it comes on is when I move them all to the left at the same time. So I still can't tell which wire it is.

 

My display lights started acting up after I had work done on my car,,,the engine light was on and they first replaced the o2sensor then 2 solenoids,,,never had a problem until this,,,,now the display is going off and coming back on randomly,,,I actually told the guy that worked on my car cuz the display didn;t come on the first day when he did the o2 sensor and I had to come back for the solenoids,,,he said he didn;t know what was wrong,,I told him never had a problem til now,,I think the red lights behind the center radio area are also off,,will check tonight,,the other nite they weren't working,,,so the temp,clock display is off and on and also thinking the radio center lights are out,,,any ideas???

 

Mine turned out that my connector for the wiring harness wasn't making a good connection to the back of the radio. I fixed it by hammering a screw into the crack on the driver's side of the main connector to make it tighter