Car Stereos: Sound?, grand am gt, blown fuse

Question
I was having a male friend put my 2004 alpine cd deck into my 2000 grand am GT, that was recently in a 1999 Grand am SE. After having everything hooked up the cd player was working and then there was a bass/humming sound coming from my car speakers but the volume was turned down low. This happened when he had his hand on the bottom of the deck. While he was going to slide the deck in he had turned the car off and when we went to check if it was working, there was nothing. So we decided to reinstall my original factory cd deck and now there is no sound but the deck lights up as normal. It will not eject cds it is lifeless. I don't know anything about this stuff... can you give me some ideas? Thank you- Jessi
my valid email address is jessi@carlsonwinona.com , for some reason its not working above.

Answer
Hi Jessi,

There are two power wires going into decks.  One of them is the constant 12V wire, which provides power all of the time.  The other is the 12V accessory.  This one only has 12V power running on it when the car is on.  Having the lights come on but the deck be lifeless would suggest to me that one of these wires has gone bad (probably a blown fuse), while the other is continuing to work.  If I had to guess, I'd say the accessory (red) wire is working, and the constant is bad.

Check the fuses under the dash and under the hood.  You'll likely find your culprit there.

Justin