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BECKER SYSTEM CD

pat bryant

New member
Dear All,

Almost Easter and time to unwrap "my little racing car" again.
I have a 2004 986 Boxster with a Becker Cascade radio/cd. I know this device will take voice commands and has satnav capability but I bought it without any system CD, which it asks for when I try to access 'higher functions' The CF (compact flash) chip is labelled Traffic pro/Cascade Version 2.0 the radio is a Model BE7946 manufactured 2006 (so an aftermarket fit). Anybody got a spare CD?
Also the screen is a bit dim (for me) is it fixable? These units seem to be very expensive even when old and I just wonder what your thoughts are about dumping and getting an up to date, if ordinary, car radio; I have a TomTom.

Written on this Feast of Valentine,

Pat
 
I have swapped out my CD23 setup for a modern Alpine head unit with Bluetoothj, USB, etc. If yours isn't the optical one with the separate amp then it is a simple job. With mine I took it to a place where they fitted a new mini-loom between the head unit and where the amp used to be and put the Microphone on to of the steering column (£180).
The only issue I have is that I need to fit a new amp to power the rear-mounted Bose sub/speaker unit, it is only running the front speakers and is a bit thin, but they have fitted all the wires ready to fit the amp once I get off my 'arris and get a job
 
Hi Pat,

I don't come on here very often and am a bit rusty with my Beckers but I have ran / updated quite a few of them over the years.

Firstly congrats on a great headunit, they really where the pinnacle headunits of their time and I still run one in my 993.

In terms of system software you have an early version. The final official version was 5-1. The beauty of that version is it allows you to run >2GB CF cards. You need >2GB CF cards to be able to run later maps. In fact you can run BMW maps without a problem once you can read larger CF Cards.

The update process is pretty striaghtforward in that you simply insert a system CDROM into the unit and it automatically updates from that.

nb you will need a system CD every time you disconnect power from the unit to reload voice commands etc....

As a bonus however Becker introduced an unofficial upgrade when they released a special Mexico unit a few years ago. That came with a V6-0 software that works fine with the cascade. The benefit of this is that you can load the system software onto the CF card so you then no longer need a system CDROM at all, even after a power reset.

In summary I run V6-0 system software off a 4GB CF Card with 2015 BMW maps without any problems at all.

There are various places you can download the relevant software off the internet but if I'm honest you need to be pretty software literate as Becker has copy protection on the CF Cards. You can easily get around this if your comfortable HEX editing a drive header but most people are not. The easiest way to do it then is the official way ie contact becker to buy a V6 Software CD and (I think) Navteq who will have the latest map CF cards available.

ps I used to do this for a lot of people but to be honest its more trouble than its worth to me now but I hope the above info helps ;-)
 
Thanks chaps,

And Jon for the really comprehensive description of 'Beckers'. I notice that I would need to spend about £200 to be properly up to date and, for the moment at least, I would just like to find an old CD to play with the various/numerous functions that this device offers once it has the rest of its' brain; also to make sure it does really work properly.
Thanks again for taking time to respond,

Best, Pat
 

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