computer died, 2018 M3

[psyrob]

Well, my screen went blank, dark, black as the deepest abyss and nothing could restart it. Was charging at a public charger and found the screen dead when I returned to the car, but I think that was just a coincidence. Was able to drive the car home, but no blinkers, no info on screen. Service took me as a walk-in and says the computer is non-responsive, they can't tell why, but unable to get it to boot up or come back to life. Replacing my 2.0 with a 3.0 computer. 1700 plus taxes. I have a 2018 model, 81,000 miles on it. Have only otherwise had to replace the 12V battery about 10K miles ago. And Tesla Service Center in Burbank was super responsive, kept me up to date every step of the way, and getting it done in one day. Pretty pleased about that, not some much about this unexpected bill, but I think I am seeing on the forums that the computer can die after 4-5 years. Anyway, not complaining, just posting FYI about my experience and to give the $ involved for others to compare.

 

[Watts_Up]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

So now you have a new CPU, and you can run the lastest FSD version.
I guess, you were not able to keep the older CPU?

When your 12 V battery died, did you got any warning?

Note: My laptop died last weekend too. It just booted and crashed.
Looking inside I noticed that the paste between my CPU and the radiator on top of it was dry.
I just put some new thermal paste and my laptop works again.

Sometime it can be just one component, this is very typical on TV with big display.
Using a thermal camera help a lot to localise a problem. There are tons on videos on Youtube.

In the case of a Tesla computer, it s difficult to test it outside of the car
as you need some wiring harnesses and cooling system.

 

[psyrob]

Right about difficult to test the computer, I saw some posts that said take the car to a 3rd party shop to see if they can fix the circuit board or get a used computer, but the cost of seeking that out and the time it would take to do so didn't work for me. I didn't pay for FSD, so I don't know about the CPU but maybe this will give me the option to upgrade to FSD in the future

 

[Tronguy]

At one point in time, it turned out that Tesla's software folks were logging data to the hard-wired (as in, soldered to the circuit board) flash drive in the computer. All well and good, but it turned out that the amount of spare storage was limited. The result of this was that a certain number of blocks of flash were being written over and over and over again.

A block in a flash drive does not last forever; they have a limited life time. The flash drive manufacturers know this and play a game called, "wear leveling" where, when a particular block has a higher usage than other blocks, then the firmware in the flash drive swaps a less-used block for a more-used block and continues on. This is not actually noticed by the higher level operating systems; it's kind of a double-indirection game. In addition, the better grades of flash keep spare sectors around for this purpose and swap them into the mix as they go.

But all good things come to an end, and beating on one particular spot on a nearly full flash device is a recipe for failure. This happened to a number of Tesla computers, oh, about three years ago. Two things happened, once it became clear what was going on:

• Tesla's software guys pushed out a load that Stopped Doing That Extreme (well, in retrospect, extreme) logging, thus saving a largish number of computers from immanent death.
• A few enterprising techies figured out what device it was. People would dismount their (failing) computers and send them to one of these guys. The techie would remove the part, carefully (it can be done: I'm an engineer on these kinds of things, trust me), extract the data from it, program an identical but new device with that same data, mount the new device in the computer, verify operation, and send it back. Ta-da! Working computer, cheaper than a new one.

So, an oldish computer from the time frame in question with lots of miles? Next question.. Of course, hardware can fail for any number of reasons, flash memory included. But this particular fault comes to mind.

But you've got a HW3 computer! Now you can run FSD if you've got $15k wearing a hole in your pocket..

 

[Watts_Up]

But you've got a HW3 computer! Now you can run FSD if you've got $15k wearing a hole in your pocket..

In fact the upgrade to 3.0 should have cost $1,500 ?
Maybe the OP needed to take a subscription ($199/m or $99/m if the car had EAP) to get that price instead of $1,800 ?

Tesla FSD Subscribers Might Need $1500 in New Hardware

Tesla has rolled out Full Self-Driving on a subscription basis for $199 a month, but some owners may need to pay $1,500 for a new FSD computer in their cars.

www.autoweek.com

 

[KenC]

Yeah, I'd be bummed that they charged you for the chip update.

 

[psyrob]

At one point in time, it turned out that Tesla's software folks were logging data to the hard-wired (as in, soldered to the circuit board) flash drive in the computer. All well and good, but it turned out that the amount of spare storage was limited. The result of this was that a certain number of blocks of flash were being written over and over and over again.

A block in a flash drive does not last forever; they have a limited life time. The flash drive manufacturers know this and play a game called, "wear leveling" where, when a particular block has a higher usage than other blocks, then the firmware in the flash drive swaps a less-used block for a more-used block and continues on. This is not actually noticed by the higher level operating systems; it's kind of a double-indirection game. In addition, the better grades of flash keep spare sectors around for this purpose and swap them into the mix as they go.

But all good things come to an end, and beating on one particular spot on a nearly full flash device is a recipe for failure. This happened to a number of Tesla computers, oh, about three years ago. Two things happened, once it became clear what was going on:

• Tesla's software guys pushed out a load that Stopped Doing That Extreme (well, in retrospect, extreme) logging, thus saving a largish number of computers from immanent death.
• A few enterprising techies figured out what device it was. People would dismount their (failing) computers and send them to one of these guys. The techie would remove the part, carefully (it can be done: I'm an engineer on these kinds of things, trust me), extract the data from it, program an identical but new device with that same data, mount the new device in the computer, verify operation, and send it back. Ta-da! Working computer, cheaper than a new one.

So, an oldish computer from the time frame in question with lots of miles? Next question.. Of course, hardware can fail for any number of reasons, flash memory included. But this particular fault comes to mind.

But you've got a HW3 computer! Now you can run FSD if you've got $15k wearing a hole in your pocket..

Thanks for the detailed explanation, this makes alot of sense. I did have the oldish computer with lots of miles, so no surprise on it failing when it did. I am noticing the little changes the HW3 computer makes on the screen, just need a 15K scratcher lottery ticket and I'll be all in on FSD!

 

[psyrob]

In fact the upgrade to 3.0 should have cost $1,500 ?
Maybe the OP needed to take a subscription ($199/m or $99/m if the car had EAP) to get that price instead of $1,800 ?

Tesla FSD Subscribers Might Need $1500 in New Hardware

Tesla has rolled out Full Self-Driving on a subscription basis for $199 a month, but some owners may need to pay $1,500 for a new FSD computer in their cars.

www.autoweek.com

maybe, but I wasn't aware of all this, just needed the care fixed to get to work. The article you link to is 18 months ago, so maybe the price is now 1700 with inflation. I don't feel ripped off, just stinging a little from this "cost of ownership" repari

 

[psyrob]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

So now you have a new CPU, and you can run the lastest FSD version.
I guess, you were not able to keep the older CPU?

When your 12 V battery died, did you got any warning?

Note: My laptop died last weekend too. It just booted and crashed.
Looking inside I noticed that the paste between my CPU and the radiator on top of it was dry.
I just put some new thermal paste and my laptop works again.

Sometime it can be just one component, this is very typical on TV with big display.
Using a thermal camera help a lot to localise a problem. There are tons on videos on Youtube.

In the case of a Tesla computer, it s difficult to test it outside of the car
as you need some wiring harnesses and cooling system.

Just to your question about the 12 V dieing, one day I got a bunch cryptic warnings on my screen that noncritical systems were shutting down due to battery power being low, but also that is was safe to drive the car. Didn't waste any time going to the service center, they took me in at 7 pm and I got a text at 11:30 that night that the battery was swapped out.

 

[Resist]

When parts like this are super expensive to replace, it kind of defeats the point that EV's cost less to maintain. Seems like it forces us to keep buying a new EV just to have things covered under a warranty. Which again defeats the cost of ownership experience.