iDrive stopped working randomly help plz :(

[Killaduce]

Hi there 😭
I’m new to this forum as you can tell lol :P

So my problem is that I was driving to get cigarettes late last night, and everything was fine.. I get to the gas station, park my car etc etc.. but when I hopped back in to leave right away I realized my car wasn’t making any chime sounds like it usually does.. and then I power it on, and get an “SOS” error in my dash behind the wheel, and my iDrive is black and won’t turn on... I live in canada so US model I’m guessing? 2007 530xi N52

So I know a few local bmw owners/friends.. and here’s what they told me to do so far..

Hold mute and eject at the same time to reboot the iDrive (didn’t work) and btw I don’t have nav

Locate the module in the trunk under the spare tire but there’s nothing there.. only the parking sensor module is what I saw or something like that? I took a pic of it anyway if u guys wanna see it..

Then my bro told me to check the fuse for the iDrive.. so apparently he said it’s fuse #64 so that’s in the trunk, but my diagram for the fuses is so confusing that it didn’t make sense.. but I swapped it(15v) anyway and nothing changed.. maybe it’s not actually fuse #64? Please someone help me this is my first car, and it has 234k on it as of now but runs beautifully I have put so much work and money into the car since I bought it late last year that I don’t wanna believe the iDrive has gone bad on me right now

Anyways, I read a lot of posts and nothing seemed to really help me so I’m hoping someone here can relate to this issue from the past and can help me?

Oh and FYI, my buddy has the same car as me but 530i not Xi, and his is an 04.. he got water in his trunk and his IDrive module got wet so he’s about to change that to fix HIS problem.. but he always gets an SOS On his dash... I ran some Carly tests and for some reason my car is in safety mode rn like what? Lmao anyways thx guys

[captainfreezy]

the SOS error leads me to think it’s a malfunction with the fiber optic loop. Do some searches in the forums on “fiber optic loop” or “SOS Malfunction” and you may find a solution

[Killaduce]

So I went to a friend who’s a mechanic and he tested each fuse one by one in the car with his little gadget and they’re all good.. so he unplugged the battery in the trunk for 5-10 mins then plugged it back on and voila! My iDrive started up again, the chime sounds are back too and the SOS error is gone.. could be a temp fix only tho so I’ll keep u guys updated