[AudioCats]

Help..........please

So I got my first Ipod. It is broken... well I bought it as a broken one, intending to do a CF conversion to it. From the described sympton (alternating battery ! sign and a sick ipod icon), I guessed it could be a hard drive or a battery, when I bought it. Neither problem would have bothered me, I wouldn't be using the harddrive anyway and battery replacement is simple.

Now I finally got it, it does show those symptons, initially, but somehow it charges fine, showing a full charge sign after a couple of hours. After it is fully charged, none of those two symptons show up anymore, instead it just won't recognize any user input, only respond to the "hold" switch. I can flip the switch then it will recognize it as something (turns on the back light). None of the click wheel functions work, I can't even reboot it or turn it off.

At this point I wonder whether the hard drive is the cause; the battery is definitly fine. Has anybody seen similar problem(s) before? is it the logic board? click wheel? HD?

Thanks!

 

[darkfury18]

Well, best bet would be to check out the click wheel and the cable and go from there.

When it turns on after you toggle the hold switch, does it load up normally (to the menu screen)? If it does, the HD is probably fine.

 

[diredesire]

What generation is it?

Look up the diagnostic menu trick on google or something. You'll need to reset it manually and get into the diagnostic screen (which is a key combination).

Then you can scroll through and then figure it all out.

 

[joneeboi]

How's the connection for the click wheel's ribbon cable? Which generation are we talking about here? IIRC, you were looking at a nano and a touch. Which one did you end up getting? Make sure the ribbon cable is in fully (maybe throw in a piece of paper as a shim), then proceed to replacing that if need be.

 

[AudioCats]

Thanks guys.

It is a 5G 30gB. ribbon cable is good.

I am not sure it is the click wheel, since none of the click switches, which are on the logic board, has any response either. I can't even reboot it by holding menu+select.

I think it still might be the harddrive, I somehow got to a screen telling me to use iTune to restore (or something like that), when it was alternating between "!battery" and "sick ipod". then, somehow, it got to the menu screen, and none of clicking switches respond anymore.

 

[joneeboi]

Worst case is that the logic board is shot. I have two iPods right now with unresponsive logic boards while everything else is fine. The only lame thing is that the 5G logic board is about 100 USD to replace, give or take depending on where you're shopping. It almost seems not worth it when you've already replaced the hard drive and battery (and possibly the logic board) which brings the total cost of buying a broken iPod higher than buying a used 80GB 5.5G. Seems to me like the logic board is broken and not the hard drive. At least on other iPods, you can get to the diagnostic screen without the hard drive in it. Maybe it's different with the 5G. My 3G had hard drive problems, and I could never get to the Menu screen. Once I replaced the faulty hard drive connector, I got it to get to the screen. Again, could be different with the 5G. Have you restored the firmware?

 

[AudioCats]

Have not done the firmware thing. I will play with it a little more, if it turns out to be the logic board, I might have to sell it as parts on ebay. I guess I should not have bought a broke one as my first ipod

If that is the case, I will go for a vision W or cowon D2 instead (have to have flash card capability, the harddrive idea makes me nervous). I guess they should all sound the same if I tap the signal directly from the DAC, and go to external capacitors.

 

[joneeboi]

One would think so, but the Vision:W doesn't have any kind of easy method to do that and the D2's line out only works in video mode. I tried looking at my old Vision:M from the inside and I couldn't even track the signal from the dock.

If you can somehow figure it out, all the power to you. I just wouldn't rely on it to replace a working iPod.

 

[AudioCats]

my situation is I don't care about the headphone amp at all. I can always cut the headphone out wiring and use the jack for DAC signal output. I think the D2's DAC chip is already all figured out in your DIYMod thread, no? The DAC will always be on, so taking signal from it should always work.

But I haven't given up on this ipod yet

 

[joneeboi]

I show where to route the wires, but Punnisher, the one who instigated the investigation, found that the mod didn't work either on audio or video mode. I haven't heard back from him, so maybe you want to send him a PM.