Try changing the RCA's. That may solve it.

 

RCAs are ran with systematic precision not to touch, be near any EMI source or accidentally cut in any way. Never mind the fact that they are ran completely outside of any wiring duct, so for now, I will rule those out..

try shorting from the chassis of the headunit to the shell of the RCA with a wire, if the noise goes away or drastically reduces then you have the pico plague.

..sigh.. I figured..

Also, I was going over the install. I have a 5200BT and a P99RS stacked right on top of each other and with the Camry, there is NO metal to ground the chassis to. I think I also might try grounding the chassis as well.. (While I am testing the RCAs out..)

 

try shorting from the chassis of the headunit to the shell of the RCA with a wire, if the noise goes away or drastically reduces then you have the pico plague.

 

sounds like the pico..........

 

I had this happen with my 880... turned out to be amp ground related, and was remedied by adding an extra bat to auto chassis ground...
Not saying this is your case -but the same symptoms as yours with alt whine...

I discovered this by actually disconnecting the rca's and then powering the unit up and the noise showed up with NO music or noise possibilities from the disconnected rca's...

It was a pita, to find -but it did not appear to be a Pico fuse issue...
Then my head unit was stolen -and I didn't have to worry about it!

I was going do the pico fuse "fix" just not to worry about it again.

 

I am going to check the damn pico fuse thing first as Chad suggested, it is one of those "What was pioneer thinking?" things, just to get out of the way.

Next, I am going to ground the HU chassis (both the 99 and 5200)

If I still get noise, Ill address moving the ground, or possibly running it back to the battery.. I would rather not, but.

 

I'm pretty sure the P99 doesn't have a Pico fuse. I searched on here before getting my P01 (the two may be different though). From what I remember, they replaced it with something that would reset after cycling the power like other companies currently use.

Also, from what I understand, you shouldn't be having Pico fuse issues if you don't ground out or "hot swap" the RCA's, which you shouldn't be doing anyways. So if you haven't done that, I would be looking other places for the problem.

 

Alright, this is F'n weird.. Just got back from a 30 min drive running errunds..
Not one OUNCE of noise, complete silence.. Played multiple tracks, various types of music to test.. Ran over a real bumpy road (test to see if anything was loose anywhere)
Nothing.. absolutely noiseless.. clean as a whistle.. Damn.

So why would running the system for 3+ hours create a alt whine issue, but the next day, it is completely gone.. ??

I am lost with this one.. Still going to ground the chassis of the HUs.. but I am lost here.

Anyone?

 

i had a problem with noise just like you are describing. i tried EVERYTHING. finally narrowed it down to when i hit my dash a certain way the noise would be gone then reappear. the problem was i was usin a wiring harness and the pin for the ground didn't go in the factory plug correctly. i ran a jumper wire bypassing the factory pin ground and boom noise gone.

 

It doesn't sound like a PICO to me actually... They usually blow when you are hot-swapping RCA's, sounds like you were just driving.

I have had similar issues with bad electronics. I once got alt whine in a system that had no previous whine, it slowly got worse, then one day I heard a POP and smelled burned up amp. My Phoneix Gold Xenon amp blew up. I replaced it and no more alt whine. Could be that one of your amps has a loose solder joint that gets loose when it heats up after long use. Probably not but it is a possibility.

Try process of elimination (Eliminatus Calculatus as Dr. Suess would say) and..with the car off... unplug all your amps, then slowly add one amp at a time (again turning off the car) see where the noise comes in... try to narrow it down at least.

 

Yea, but this falls into that catagory of "Gee, Doctor, I WAS feeling like this yesterday, but now I am ok.. What is wrong with me"
Again.. no noise.. I could unplug amps all day now and nothing would happen. I am starting to wonder about what is going on when the metal in the car heats up? Does it change any of the resistance for the grounds?

I have to say, I have done this many times before, this is a first. I wish the problem was still there so i could trace it down, but no..

 

the pico fuse issue happens when there is current on the shield, not necessarily while hot-swapping.

 

The p99rs does not have any pico fuses

 

if the problem went away and won't come back... cross your fingers and forget it???

The real test will be the next time you go on a 3 hour tour (think gilligan). I am thinking still solder joint in an amp that gets hot and loosens up... I base this on absolutely no facts...

 

Doubtful.. I am running (3) class D amps, and when I got home after beating on it for 3 hours, they were not even warm to the touch (I love the Zed stuff)

You mentioned driving home from the airport. Did you leave your car at the airport for an extended time? If so, possibly your battery became discharged. Then when you started the car, the alternator was working overtime to restore charge to the battery. I have noticed an increase in noise after long engine off tuning sessions with my own car. Once the battery is recharged, the noise goes away. Just a thought.

I was at the airport for 2 hours, then left.. I did think about this though.. I MIGHT try a HO alt in the near future *IF* my fixes of grounding the HUs chassis and moving the AMP ground to car chassis directly rather than the sheet metal.

As far as I know when reading the serrvice manual, it don't have pico fuse(I might be wrong)....
If your Pioneer equipments working voltage are below 11V, it will have noise... Suggest to have a check on the voltage....

Been running at 14.1 to 13.8 voltage all the time.. so good there..

 

You mentioned driving home from the airport. Did you leave your car at the airport for an extended time? If so, possibly your battery became discharged. Then when you started the car, the alternator was working overtime to restore charge to the battery. I have noticed an increase in noise after long engine off tuning sessions with my own car. Once the battery is recharged, the noise goes away. Just a thought.

 

As far as I know when reading the serrvice manual, it don't have pico fuse(I might be wrong)....
If your Pioneer equipments working voltage are below 11V, it will have noise... Suggest to have a check on the voltage....

 

You measured the voltage when you got this problem?
From my experience, not much people will do this including me... It took me 3 months and changing 1 battery(the old still good) to know this...
No intention to flame you by any means, just want to know....

 

Yep.. 14.1v

 

You can try grounding the deck chassis (if you haven't already)... I think Pioneer even suggest this -or it was marked on an installer check list that I saw in a thread somewere.
Run a 14g or 16g wire from bat to a good ground on the back of the HU.
You can run one outside for a quick test to see if it remedies anything... and then bring it on through the firewall and finish it (if it works)...
It did NOT change anything for me though -(just one more step in the process of elimination).

 

Alerady done, see above.. like you, I noticed nothing, but all for good..

 

I think what you can do now is, foget what causes it and enjoy the deck....

 

besides moving/adding the grounds, yep..

 

Or get the multimeter ready and wait for the fellow come back....

 

I had exactly the same issue with my install in a previous car.

Using a P99RS (UK spec) with 3 amps and I would get intermittent alt whine.

Was a lot worse when turning the headlights on but I couldn't trace the fault.

Tried everything from re routing the power and RCA cables, to various ground alternatives.

When I swapped cars I half expected the problem to travel with me but it hasn't.

However I noticed that when I was positioning tweets before final securing, I got exactly the same noises if the speaker cables became slightly loose or not joined properly.

As I had a few joins in the speaker cable in the last car I figured that this may well have been the trouble.

I know not why, but now the install in the new car has no joined cables and well made connections - all is well.

Might just be worth tracing and checking speaker cables, or even simply disconnecting them individually from the amps to try and see if you have a dodgy connection in there.

 

Being a various owner of Pioneer HUs(from DEH-2300, 5700, 7700, 9600, DEX-P9 combo), only the pico fuse blown and low voltage will cause the whine, most of the time... If everything were done right in the first place.

 

I'll agree with Twonks I've had speaker wires ground and do it, and had them do it when there was no apparent ground just a connection issue. Grounding a speaker can ground the common of the amp, which is kind of ground, but if fully grounded it can cause a loop. The only ground you can have in the signal is the HU that grounds the shields...and those don't work if the pico is toast. So far no issues with my 880 HU and I have swapped amps but I always ground the amp first in and last out, so the amp is never without ground, and of course never do it key on. Note that an amp fault can blow the pico too, some amps will also blow pico if the amp ground is faulty it depends on the amp design.

 

Yea.. it happened again, but only for about 2 mins.. I am really thinking something is touching ground somewhere just by the way it sounds.
I verified, the 99 does not have a pico fuse, so that is out. but by the intermittant nature of the sound, I want to say something is either touching ground or is loose. I am going to check all connections tonight, then pull out the HU tomorrow and check.
But the whine is far from consistant.. went a few days with nothing, came back for about 10mins until I hit some bumps in the road then it disappeared..

 

Well, when it comes in, check the voltage.... On the HU's main power supply...

 

Does the whine's pitch actually cycle as you rev the engine, or does it just oscillate on it's own?

 

Best way to describe.

Changes pitch with engine, intermittent, sometime there (twice so far) sometimes not (mostly) sound like its coming through a bad cell connection.

 

How about a video for it?