iPod Touch troubles

[spleenharvester]

Have acquired a faulty iPod Touch 2G 8GB from a friend for £10. Not bad, huh.

No cable so can't try anything just yet, but it basically just turned off one day and hasn't shown life since.

Contacts are very dirty, both charge port and headphone jack, but water damage indicator isn't lit.

What do I use to clean the contacts with, and what can I try aside from the usual charge/reset trick?

[spleenharvester]

Got another here now, a Nano 3rd Gen, my dad's.

Hasn't turned on in a few years or so, suddenly sprang into life. Now it seems to be working fine except the battery won't charge. It shows fully charged when it syncs, then low battery when unplugged.

Any ideas?

EDIT: Now it just flashes "Connect to power" repeatedly. New battery for both methinks.

[niceguyrichy]

yep, certainly the slightly older iPods would just die when the battery decided it had had enough
i had a couple of Mini's that went that way; fine-ish one day, refuse to work at all the next

[spleenharvester]

Gonna replace the battery on the Nano this weekend. Hopefully all will go to plan haha.

[Bezza]

Contact cleaner from Halfords, using a cotton bud would be the best bet for cleaning up the other one. You can also get electric motor cleaner from model shops which is quite powerful!

I'm sure if you google, there's a hard reset option for the touch too. My iPod classic crashes all the time and you just have to push the right combo of buttons to get it going again. Once there's a good charge on the Touch (which might need to wait until the contacts are cleaned), it might hard reset and spring back to life.

[spleenharvester]

Have got some IPA here, problem now is I can't get the mainboard out to douse it in IPA, screws are stripped. May just apply with a cotton bud but i can't see a way of getting it into the slot with it.

EDIT: soaked the thing in it anyway 'cause I'm nothing lost if I can't even replace the battery. Not amazingly hopeful but it's worth a try.

[Bezza]

I assume you're having trouble cleaning the bit where the charger plugs in as it's too narrow to get anything in there? If so, perhaps try dousing the plug part and inserting and removing repeatedly. Just don't let anyone catch you doing it!

[spleenharvester]

No luck unfortunately. :(

Ah well it was only £10, I can write it off I guess.

The Ipod Nano is still awaiting a battery, which should have been here like 4 days ago.

[sibeer]

Could the touch not also need a battery?

[spleenharvester]

If it does I can't replace it due to the screws that won't budge.

[benzeman]

If it needs a new battery try this for info? http://www.apple.com/uk/batteries/replacements.html

[spleenharvester]

Way out of warranty unfortunately, but thankyou anyway mate. :)

[skunkmunkey]

word of warning on the ipod touch battery. Its a pig to solder back on. I killed 2 ipods before I got the knack. I do have a 16gb 2g in pieces at home. Its possible it could be saved I just havent got he time or patience to do it. It has a new screen and battery but I damaged the battery contacts with my heavy handed soldering. Yours for postage if you want it.

[spleenharvester]

Sorry, didn't see the above - my soldering skills are awful but cheers!

Anyway - I've been given another by a family member. Completely dead, when I plugged it into my computer it wasn't recognised but "Ipod Photos" or some similar folder appeared in my pictures (empty).

Plugged it into my laptop and it froze, had to put Last Known Good config on.

Battery was apparently very good before it died. Any ideas?

[spleenharvester]

Developments.

Got my multimeter out today. Plugged Ipod in, tested various components round the motherboard, all seems okay. But the battery reads in at 0.02V regardless of being plugged in or not.

Does this basically confirm a dead battery?

Seems extraordinarily low even for a battery that's not been used in a while.

EDIT: Got the bastard apart at last, found a screwdriver small enough :lol: The components leading up to the battery charge area are all fine. Ordered a new battery.

EDIT 2: Closer inspection and testing, getting 5V readings from many parts round the board but nothing past the voltage regulation area of the board, very blackened/corroded/dirty round there, think I'm gonna take some IPA and a toothbrush to it later.

It's supposed to be reading 0.4V on the battery test point, but is reading 0.02V, so must be alive to some extent.

[spleenharvester]

Changed the battery, powered on, it was great... for like 3 seconds until a giant bloody spark came out of nowhere and burnt a huge hole through one of the ribbon cables. :p

I guess that's the end of that.