Need help with your iPod issues?

[Paulson]

I've been getting a few members here who are asking me different iPod questions and whatnot regarding service or just general questions.

If you have a question about your ipod or about components inside of it, how to replace items inside of it, or where to get parts for it, please post in this thread.

I have many spare parts available and can help with all iPod issues except for iPod shuffle's (simply because they suck and there's no real point in fixing them).

Now ask away!

Because of whiny members complaining that I'm making money (haha yeah right) off of doing this, I can't personally fix your ipod (unless you really want me to), however I can give you any advice or help necessary to fix your ipod and I can direct you to the places where you can get parts (because when I say I can get you something at cost I'm lying apparently).

 

[neutralizer]

Shameless advertising?

 

[Looney]

Have you OCed one yet?

 

[Paulson]

Eh if you call helping people diagnose problems or possibly helping people find solutions regarding them shameless advertising, then yeah, I guess I am.

 

[Baked]

I found my 60GB Video iPod's size too big. How do I shrink it to iPod Nano size?

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: Baked
I found my 60GB Video iPod's size too big. How do I shrink it to iPod Nano size?

Lets trade

I've got a 4Gb Nano that would do the trick

 

[torpid]

What are some possible causes of files getting corrupted on the iPod AND PC, but rarely the same files? I've been having this problem on and off for months. A song will play for 20 seconds, then skip. If I skip past the 20 second mark it plays. It happens over time randomly on the ipod. Sometimes on the PC files get corrupted too. When that happens, the song just won't play at all and the artwork is blank. I have to re-rip it.

Problem seems lessened by using lossless encoding.

 

[Ktulu]

Why wouldn't my computer recognize my 512mb Shuffle for about 4 months, but miraculously picked it up last month?

See here

 

[Paulson]

Do you set your ipod to auto update songs to it? Seems like the PC is corrupting the files (bad sectors or whatever it could be) and then it's trying to copy the bad version of the song to your iPod via the "automatically transfer songs to my pc" feature.

Either that or your iPod's hard drive could have bad sectors on it.

My advice would be to download a program called "disk checker". Google it, it's a small free program that you can download and then you choose the drive you want (choose the iPod's hard drive) and hit "scan". It'll check to see if there are any bad sectors on the hard disk. If there aren't any on the iPod itself, try checking the hard disk that you store your music on with the program.

 

[Pepsi90919]

red hot chili peppers shows up 4 times in my artists list. itunes does not reflect this. a restore did not fix it.

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: Ktulu
Why wouldn't my computer recognize my 512mb Shuffle for about 4 months, but miraculously picked it up last month?

See here

In my experience whenever you try to hook up a new iPod to a computer, the ipodhelper.exe file is retarded and wants to launch iTunes right away to get your iPod configured. Most of the time you have to try hooking it up multiple times or hooking it into different USB ports (which can be an incredibly big pain).

All iPod's I've dealt with have never been truly just plug in and you're ready to go devices, they take some finicking and finessing in order to get operating correctly.

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919
red hot chili peppers shows up 4 times in my artists list. itunes does not reflect this. a restore did not fix it.

Back up your music, go into my computer and format your ipod, then restore it and copy your music back.

 

[thehstrybean]

ANy way to get rid of scratches? I have a Zen Vision:M, but iPods have scratches, too...

 

[imported_Lucifer]

I had a 3rd generation 20gb iPod a while back. It worked fine, but if you put a lot of songs on it, the iPod would freeze all the time. When I scroll through the artists, it would freeze for a period of time. And the songs would skip a lot too. I reset the iPod and it solved the problem for a short period of time, then the same thing would happen.

Why would it do that?

 

[gnumantsc]

Why do apple ipods last only about 12 months then they die besides ****** manufacturing?

 

[aircooled]

Can I get a free one if I click on a link from a black guy avatar?

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: thehstrybean
ANy way to get rid of scratches? I have a Zen Vision:M, but iPods have scratches, too...

I bought some Ice Creme for my iPod video that I bought off of ebay, and it does work, however you end up spending nearly 2 hours trying to polish out the scratches (and you end up with an incredibly sore arm the next day)

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: Lucifer
I had a 3rd generation 20gb iPod a while back. It worked fine, but if you put a lot of songs on it, the iPod would freeze all the time. When I scroll through the artists, it would freeze for a period of time. And the songs would skip a lot too. I reset the iPod and it solved the problem for a short period of time, then the same thing would happen.

Why would it do that?

I'm willing to bet that the hard drive in the iPod has developed bad sectors on it. That seems to be the common symptoms when an iPod has bad sectors.

Download the program Disk Checker and run that on the ipod drive to see if you have bad sectors.

It'd probably cost $50 to $60 for a replacement 20Gb ipod hard drive, and with the 3rd gen ipod's they are incredibly easy to take apart. It'd be an easy job that you could probably do yourself.

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: gnumantsc
Why do apple ipods last only about 12 months then they die besides ****** manufacturing?

Hey if you want to blame anyone about ipod's dying, blame the hard drive manufacturers as well as the users.

Imagine what would happen if you dropped the hard drive in your main computer while it was running, I'm sure it would die just like the ipod's hard drives do.

Toshiba, Hitachi & Seagate are the main suppliers for hard drives, and if you take care of your iPod and don't drop it or shake the hell out of it, it'll last for a long time (had my 3rd gen 20GB ipod for 2 & 1/2 years with no problems and I used it daily).

 

[MisterJackson]

Do you have one of these?

 

[torpid]

Originally posted by: Paulson
Do you set your ipod to auto update songs to it? Seems like the PC is corrupting the files (bad sectors or whatever it could be) and then it's trying to copy the bad version of the song to your iPod via the "automatically transfer songs to my pc" feature.

Either that or your iPod's hard drive could have bad sectors on it.

My advice would be to download a program called "disk checker". Google it, it's a small free program that you can download and then you choose the drive you want (choose the iPod's hard drive) and hit "scan". It'll check to see if there are any bad sectors on the hard disk. If there aren't any on the iPod itself, try checking the hard disk that you store your music on with the program.

The key point here is that there will be different bad songs on the pc than on the ipod. The ipod song that skips is fine on the PC, and the PC song that is corrupted is fine on the ipod. I was thinking that the PC corrupted songs was due to some attempt to update the file to reflect play count from the ipod, but I never really figured it out.

I'll try disk checker but I did run the disk check tool that comes with XP on both drives with nothing found in error.

 

[Paulson]

The disk check tool that comes with windows XP sucks and wont tell you if the drive has any bad sectors (I've done it with multiple drives that have bad sectors and the windows utility wont inform me of them.

 

[Paulson]

Originally posted by: MisterJackson
Do you have one of these?

With all the PAB stalking and bashing you do I might ask the same thing of you.

 

[Greyd]

OOO! OOO! I got one. My 4g 30GB (?) Ipod does weird things when I'm runnning with it. It will freeze after approximately 30-40 minutes use of runnning. It sucks cause I don't want to stop running to mess with the Ipod. I try the hard reset,etc nothing works until I can plug it into a wall socket and "reboot" that way. Any ideas, suggestions? Thanks

 

[Paulson]

I would suggest running the Disk Checker program I've suggested in previous posts. Sounds like it lands on a specific song that's located on a section of bad sectors and freezes the ipod.

Otherwise it could be a mobo problem or a loose hard drive connector (pretty hard to imagine though because they're packed in there so tightly)