It's still probably worth it for one main reason - reliability. As these cars get older these drives will start to fail and end up bricking a whole lot of cars. Perfect example, look at the thread posted just a few minutes ago about a slow AV load. I've been seeing posts like that more and more both here and on FB.

Also, while yes IDE is transfer rate limited another big advantage over a mechanical drive is the 0 seek time which in general really makes things faster overall, decreases loading times, etc.

I'm going to put an SSD in my car as well, being an 07 its seriously a miracle the thing hasn't failed yet.
IDE SSDs / adapters are not even that expensive either, some I found:


Also an update on AV unit, I'm pretty sure the one I have been playing with, being from an 09 does not have the GT-R stuff on it. I haven't found related files on it yet but I could just be missing them. Anyways, I'm pretty sure if I had a 10+ unit on hand I could pretty easily unlock them now. The interesting thing is that the 2009 GT-R has what appears to be a nearly identical unit. (25915 jf39c)
The unit i'm playing with is 25915 1nc5a, and I also found at least 2 other similar units (25915 jj59a) and (25915 jk63c). It's possible one of those or maybe a later build date unit will have the GT-R stuff on it. I might try to get my hands on a newer pre 2010 system and hope that it's on there.

Anyways, it does seem like from what we have seen that all the 2010+ nav units contain the GT-R MFD screens on them. If I didn't already have my Pi setup I would probably look into upgrading my whole system, but it doesn't make much sense to sink that cost now. I'd like to see one of you guys with the 2010 + Tech cars get it working now that we know how to get console access

Oh, also I'm creating a doc with a list of commands we have found and what they do, so i'll post that soon as well. There are some cool things in there.

 

Great work iCrap!
When my local scrapyard gets a 2010+ G37 with nav, I will grab it and dig into it.

Also, as you go through this, I think it might be helpful to add the software version.
For example, my 2011 G37 is running X1U62025

 

Good idea, here is more detailed version info from the one I have.

 

Nav or not to Nav - Nav apparently has the pretty GT-R stuff, but non-Nav I can probably splice in a Pi to the screen. Wonder if any versions of the GT-R did Carplay so I can get Google Maps on there.

 

Yeah, nav will most likely have the GT-R stuff, but non nav is RGBS and the Pi can be used. The GT-R had an identical system aside from the MFD, so no carplay. the Pi can do Carplay / android auto as well as the fancy gauges, so IMO its the better option all around.

 

I'm leaning that way - if I can't eventually solve the GVIF issue I'll pursue downgrading to non-Nav.

 

Feel free to shoot me a message with more details about what you're trying to solve. I have thoughts and might be able to help you find a solution.

 

So I cloned the drive to an SSD, and it boots, but it actually seems slightly slower to fully boot up. Also, the nav just straight up won't load now (it shows the map screen with a black map). So it's as if it can't access those files.

The HU does recognize the new drive though:






Then I tried to run "init drive" and there is now a warning on the nav screen saying "HDD System not functioning, please contact your dealer" (it goes away after i reboot)
Still need to play with that more.


The other interesting thing is that none of the drives are locking anymore after disabling the security in the console, so I guess that did actually save.

I'm actually using a MSATA to IDE adapter, so that could be a problem. Might want an actual IDE SSD.

 

I know forum member Elco had issues getting the US-spec HDD to work on a SSD. Granted this was back in 2015, so I'm not sure if any progress has been made on that front. From 2015.

 

Yeah I saw that, but reading his post I got the impression that it won't even boot. So I did seem to get farther than that.

 

It might be waiting on timing based on measured performance of the HDD (IE software bodge to avoid dealing with interrupts), and the SSD being ready too fast is getting the instruction set out of loop.

 

SSD can work, but why?
you want start system faster?
0,5 sec faster on start maybe great, but dont think so

if you want to work with ssd you need to know about ID in hdd )

 

System start faster + reliability. A hard drive will fail eventually.

What do you mean by ID in hdd?

 

I think he will live longer than a car, it is built for harsh operating conditions

 

I'm still looking for