[binkgle]

i have a 15gig 3g ipod, so it is well out of the one year warranty that came with it, and i didn't buy applecare

over the past month its battery life has plummetted. I could charge it fully overnight just to only be able to use it for 1-2 hours the next day, and this is with lame vbr mp3s (-aps, lame 3.90.3 [and yes, i am reencoding my library with 3.97b1 -v2 --vbr-new, it just isn't on the ipod yet]).

could i take the ipod to the local apple store for a replacement? would they even replace such an old ipod with a new one? maybe they'd have some pre-The iPod models in the back, unsold..........

 

[grasshpr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by binkgle i have a 15gig 3g ipod, so it is well out of the one year warranty that came with it, and i didn't buy applecare over the past month its battery life has plummetted. I could charge it fully overnight just to only be able to use it for 1-2 hours the next day, and this is with lame vbr mp3s (-aps, lame 3.90.3 [and yes, i am reencoding my library with 3.97b1 -v2 --vbr-new, it just isn't on the ipod yet]). could i take the ipod to the local apple store for a replacement? would they even replace such an old ipod with a new one? maybe they'd have some pre-The iPod models in the back, unsold..........

Its doubtful you can get it replaced at the store. Even if they will replace it, they will stick you a refurbed version.

However, you can get a battery replacement kit online and replace it yourself. I've done it for my 3G ipod with minimal hassle. I've also noticed that the battery life is improved about an hour or so with the replacement battery.

 

[Phil Ramsay]

I just got a replacement battery / kit for my 3rd gen 20 gb.

Well worth the time and money!

My run-time went from about 1 Hr 40 Min to 9 Hr overnight.

I found the iPod case tricky to open, the rest was simple.

 

[Jmmmmm]

Before doing anything drastic, try defragging the harddrive. Make sure to keep it ventilated, though, the harddrive doesn't have a very good cooling system (I don't know if it actually makes a difference, but it doesn't hurt to be careful). If you can't/don't want to do that, then reformat it and start from scratch. (I don't know if that deletes the ipod OS, though, so check into that if you're going to do it.)

I've heard the fragmented drives can really kill your battery life.

 

[hekoman]

I have a 1G ipod and my battery life is still excellent. When I first got it about 6 months ago the battery was only lasting me about 4-5 hours. I completly wiped the HDD and reformated that player and the battery life went up for some reason. I am now getting about 7 hours a charge on mine.

I have heard this phenomenon from other people that have the older ipods also. So I would suggest reformating the HDD with the apple ipod updater utility and reload all of you music back on before you got a replacement battery.

 

[markopolo]

Another vote for resetting/reformatting your iPod. I discovered this exact same phenomenon by accident on my 4G 20GB after I reformatted mine just the other day (for different reasons) and immediately got a 25-30% boost in battery performance. I'm surprised I never heard of this technique before now.

 

[RB26DETT]

i just need to use the ipod updater to reformat the ipod?

 

[PodMan]

it's well worth a try to take it back to the store. It probably depends on the manager and the stock they have but I my friend's coworker got her 3G ipod replaced recently due to battery problem with a new monochrome 4G ipod that they still had in stock. The warranty period had passed already too.

if that doesn't work, then there are always new battery kits available. Not that hard to change the battery and there are videos available to show you exactly how to open the ipod.

 

[binkgle]

i have been complteely reripping my library withe ac and foobar, so i will be reformatting the ipod soon anyway to hold all the new mp3s. i will try to take it to the local apple store, though. should i aim to go before or after christmas?

 

[markopolo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RB26DETT i just need to use the ipod updater to reformat the ipod?

Correct. It will reset everything to factory defaults, and you'll have to reload all your music.

 

[mrarroyo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by markopolo Correct. It will reset everything to factory defaults, and you'll have to reload all your music.

Oops, that will take some time for me. I sure as heck do not want to reload 50 gb of music. I guess I will wait untill it goes below 4 hours.