Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Hardware => Topic started by: Twilight in Zero on October 25, 2007, 01:29:19 PM

Title: iPod always thinks it's charging...
Post by: Twilight in Zero on October 25, 2007, 01:29:19 PM
Yes, it's me again. My iPod's not dead this time, though it has died several times since my old post. The core reason: the iPod always thinks it's charging, even when it's not, and thus won't shut down. Due to irresponsibility on my part in forgetting to plug it in, it ends up draining itself to dead. Whenever that happens, I plug it in to drain it all the way down (it will keep trying to start up, and fail miserably), and toss it in my drawer for a couple of nights. After that, I'm able to charge it up with the "Please wait. Very low battery" screen.

For a little bit, it seems that the problem has fixed itself, but it magically reappears after a few hours, every time. It's getting really annoying to have my battery draining all the time, and to have this problem coming back all the time. Switching to Apple OS lessens its drain a bit, but not enough. And forcing a reboot does nothing for it either.

I'd appreciate any help on this subject. Thanks! :)
Title: Re: iPod always thinks it's charging...
Post by: Chronon on October 25, 2007, 02:27:07 PM
It sounds like it might be hardware related.   :(

I could imagine that something has gone buggy in the charging circuit so that it always reports a charging state.  I have doubts that something of this nature can be addressed from the software side of things.
Title: Re: iPod always thinks it's charging...
Post by: Twilight in Zero on October 25, 2007, 04:27:32 PM
Is there anything I can do about it? My warranty's gone; it was fulfilled already. The iPod I have now is a remanufactured one from Circuit City.
Title: Re: iPod always thinks it's charging...
Post by: Chronon on October 25, 2007, 04:58:35 PM
A crude, dirty hack would be to install a switch so that you could break the circuit and force the unit off.  Of course this would probably also make you lose your RTC settings (i.e. you would have to reset the time every time you started the unit).  This is also not the preferred way to make the system shut down and I would be worried about possible data or file system corruption depending upon what state the machine is in when you switch the power off.

Sorry, I'm not a hardware engineer and I don't know too many particulars about this situation.  Hopefully someone can offer some better advice.   :-\