SWMBO has IIRC a 5th generation 30Gb video ipod, anout 2 years old; it's
just completely dead for no apparent reason. If you try connecting it
into a PC USB port the PC reports it's malfunctioned; it won't take any
charge if plugged directly into a charger. Have tried all the
'resetting' tips etc on Apple's support site etc.

So what next?

1. Attempt a diy repair; ie buy component(s) (which?) from somewhere
(where?) and fit them myself?

2. Send it away somewhere (where?) for repairs

3. Bin the bloody thing and buy a new one?

Any experience and advice welcome...
David

Lobster wrote:
SWMBO has IIRC a 5th generation 30Gb video ipod, anout 2 years old; it's
just completely dead for no apparent reason. If you try connecting it
into a PC USB port the PC reports it's malfunctioned; it won't take any
charge if plugged directly into a charger. Have tried all the
'resetting' tips etc on Apple's support site etc.

So what next?

1. Attempt a diy repair; ie buy component(s) (which?) from somewhere
(where?) and fit them myself?

2. Send it away somewhere (where?) for repairs

3. Bin the bloody thing and buy a new one?

Any experience and advice welcome...
David
you can buy batteries from Maplins complete with fitting instructions(I
doubt if that will fix it though), I doubt if any thing else is
available apart from a Apple repairer
I had mine repaired buy Apple by a local repair shop
or try these
http://www.ukipodrepairs.com/ipod_5g.php

--
Kevin R
Reply address works

In article ,
Lobster wrote:
SWMBO has IIRC a 5th generation 30Gb video ipod, anout 2 years old; it's
just completely dead for no apparent reason. If you try connecting it
into a PC USB port the PC reports it's malfunctioned; it won't take any
charge if plugged directly into a charger. Have tried all the
'resetting' tips etc on Apple's support site etc.

So what next?

1. Attempt a diy repair; ie buy component(s) (which?) from somewhere
(where?) and fit them myself?

Not sure if you've seen http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPod/iPo...ation-Video/95

Might help - they also have parts for sale http://www.ifixit.com/Products/iPod-Video/95

Not sure it'd be all that economic to fix though.

2. Send it away somewhere (where?) for repairs

I've a feeling apple had some sort of fixed rate repair service - might be
worth giving applecare a ring to enquire.


3. Bin the bloody thing and buy a new one?

Unfotunately, this might be the most cost effective option

Darren

On Sep 16, 8:28*pm, Lobster wrote:
SWMBO has IIRC a 5th generation 30Gb video ipod, anout 2 years old; it's
just completely dead for no apparent reason. *If you try connecting it
into a PC USB port the PC reports it's malfunctioned; it won't take any
charge if plugged directly into a charger. *Have tried all the
'resetting' tips etc on Apple's support site etc.

So what next?

1. Attempt a diy repair; ie buy component(s) (which?) from somewhere
(where?) and fit them myself?

2. Send it away somewhere (where?) for repairs

3. Bin the bloody thing and buy a new one?

Any experience and advice welcome...
David


Need to start by finding out what's at fault. You could measure the v
across the battery while its on the charger (and while its off it) to
see if the batt's receiving power, but I suspect its not a dead
battery - if it was it would generally run direct off the charger.

Unfortunately electronics troubleshooting is neither easy nor simple.
But you can check the basics, like charger output, battery function
etc


NT

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:20:52 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Need to start by finding out what's at fault. You could measure the v
across the battery while its on the charger (and while its off it) to
see if the batt's receiving power, but I suspect its not a dead
battery - if it was it would generally run direct off the charger.

Depends, my iPAQ threw a wobbly and wouldn't switch on, no normal
indication of charging, wouldn't work when connected to the charger, tried
soft and hard resets but it would just sit and make a quiet "click" every
few seconds.

It has a Li ion battery, these have "smarts" inside them as you really
don't want to overcharge 'em or discharge them too fast. Li fires are not
nice and with current battery technology virtually impossible to put out
as the oxygen required is already in the battery.

Anyway I just left it "on charge" and several hours later it spontaneously
sprang back into life. I let it charge fully according to the display and
started using it again, next day it "died" again so I just left it "on
charge" again and it came back. Since then it has worked fine,
9months.(*)

I suspect either the "smarts" got confused about the charge state of the
battery or maybe the protection circuit got triggered and letting it
"charge" then cycle a few times has reset one or both.

Maybe the OP can try just leaving it "on charge" for a day or three and
seeing what happens.

(*) I used to power/charge it from a generic PDA holder in the car. I
suspect that was the root cause of the problem as the battery would get
rather hot with that. I don't do that now only use HP supplied mains
charger or USB sync stand or a TomTom supplied car device intended for the
Li battery in a bluetooth TomTom GPS Rx.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Not sure if this is relevant but...

A colleague had a Creative MP3 player with the same problem. He tried
charging it from a USB port for days but nothing happened. Finally he
tried charging with a mains charger and the thing started up almost
immediately! Do you have a mains charger you could try with your iPod?

Andy.



Lobster wrote:
SWMBO has IIRC a 5th generation 30Gb video ipod, anout 2 years old; it's
just completely dead for no apparent reason. If you try connecting it
into a PC USB port the PC reports it's malfunctioned; it won't take any
charge if plugged directly into a charger. Have tried all the
'resetting' tips etc on Apple's support site etc.

So what next?

1. Attempt a diy repair; ie buy component(s) (which?) from somewhere
(where?) and fit them myself?

2. Send it away somewhere (where?) for repairs

3. Bin the bloody thing and buy a new one?

Any experience and advice welcome...
David

On 19/09/2008 08:10, M ............ wrote:

I have a load of language disks which SWMBO wanted on her ipod. She wants
them to play in the correct order so I had to relabel all the tracks from
the chaotic mess the manufacturer had made of it.

Were they audio CDs which you ripped yourself, or were they already on
..MP3 (or other) files on the discs.

When I imported into ITunes, they sometimes reverted to original names and
I couldnt find a method of changing other than a single entry at a time.

If they are .MP3 files you need an ID tag editor, rather than just
renaming the actual files.

e.g. http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

In uk.d-i-y, M ............ wrote:
When I imported into ITunes, they sometimes reverted to original names and
I couldnt find a method of changing other than a single entry at a time.
Surely there must be some way?

There is. Select all the tracks you want to change (using Shift+click or
Ctrl+click or by selecting an artist or album in the Browser (Ctrl+B).
Then right-click, Get Info (that's iTunes' weird name for "Properties"),
change whatever you want to change, then click OK.

--
Mike Barnes

In uk.d-i-y, M ............ wrote:
I have never seen audio CDs with such shambolic labelling. The authors
name was in combinations of Micheal/Michele/Michel and Thomas/Tomas, the
titles were all over the place and genre was random. The tracks were
numbered inconsistently, even sometimes within a single disc. What suddenly
strikes me is could they be pirated? The boxes look kosher and they came
from an Amazon marketplace supplier, would anybody pirate language disks?
Perhaps more likely they were migrated from other media in a unprofessional
way.

The problem isn't with the CDs, it's with the database (probably
somewhere on the Internet) that your PC application queried to get the
information.

--
Mike Barnes

"M ............" wrote in message
news
Following up to Andy Burns

Were they audio CDs which you ripped yourself, or were they already on
.MP3 (or other) files on the discs.

they were CDs in .cda format, I always buy CDs as they act as auto back
ups. I have never seen audio CDs with such shambolic labelling. The
authors
name was in combinations of Micheal/Michele/Michel and Thomas/Tomas, the
titles were all over the place and genre was random. The tracks were
numbered inconsistently, even sometimes within a single disc. What
suddenly
strikes me is could they be pirated? The boxes look kosher and they came
from an Amazon marketplace supplier, would anybody pirate language disks?
Perhaps more likely they were migrated from other media in a
unprofessional
way.

They may be arranged in a logical way for some application they sell.
Is there an executable to run on a PC included?

M ............ wrote:
Following up to Mike Barnes

There is. Select all the tracks you want to change (using Shift+click or
Ctrl+click or by selecting an artist or album in the Browser (Ctrl+B).
Then right-click, Get Info (that's iTunes' weird name for "Properties"),
change whatever you want to change, then click OK.

great, thanks very much. This proves diy not only knows all about diy it
knows all about everything :-)

The true spirit of DIY is to extract the knowledge of the specialist,
and make it available to people of ordinary intelligence and training,
but whose courage and skills are sufficient for the task in hand. ;-)

"An engineer is someone who can make for sixpence, what any damn fool
can make for a quid"


A late great head of a UK civil engineering firm expressed something
else in similar vein "The art of civil engineering is to understand that
the people who do the work, are unsophisticated, but relatively cheap:
To that end the jobs they do are broken down into simple sets of rules
and instructions, which, if more or less slavishly followed, allows a
great work of art or engineering to be constructed by monkeys".

"rules are for the guidance of wise men, and the obedience of fools" to
which I would add, and should be made by those who understand exactly
what the issues are".

Sadly, these days they are made by career politicians who have never
done an honest days work in their lives..

On 19/09/2008 09:06, M ............ wrote:

I have never seen audio CDs with such shambolic labelling.

CDs don't have *any* titles stored on them, most ripping software
calculates a quasi-unique ID number from the track count and durations,
then uses this to read titles from gracenote/cddb/musicbrainz etc.

Andy Burns wrote:
On 19/09/2008 09:06, M ............ wrote:

I have never seen audio CDs with such shambolic labelling.

CDs don't have *any* titles stored on them, most ripping software
calculates a quasi-unique ID number from the track count and durations,
then uses this to read titles from gracenote/cddb/musicbrainz etc.
not strictly true some have cd text which code the artist album and
track name so you get that info in your car cd player

--
Kevin R
Reply address works

In uk.d-i-y, Kevin wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
On 19/09/2008 09:06, M ............ wrote:

I have never seen audio CDs with such shambolic labelling.
CDs don't have *any* titles stored on them, most ripping software
calculates a quasi-unique ID number from the track count and
durations, then uses this to read titles from
gracenote/cddb/musicbrainz etc.
not strictly true some have cd text which code the artist album and
track name so you get that info in your car cd player

Bit if it's shambolic, it isn't CD text, IME.

--
Mike Barnes

Kevin wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
On 19/09/2008 09:06, M ............ wrote:

I have never seen audio CDs with such shambolic labelling.

CDs don't have *any* titles stored on them, most ripping software
calculates a quasi-unique ID number from the track count and
durations, then uses this to read titles from
gracenote/cddb/musicbrainz etc.
not strictly true some have cd text which code the artist album and
track name so you get that info in your car cd player

It's very rare.

Most have unique track and album numbers though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...Recording_Code

Andy