problem with my AJB

[vinz69]

I've an archos jukebox studio 20 and when I connect the AJB to my PC via USB,if I don't connect my AJB to my charger,the AJB stop after a little time even if my battery is charged...

Somebody can help me?
thanks

[LinusN]

Your batteries may be worn out. Try replacing them.

[vinz69]

but i can heart music for a long time without charging my batteries.Maybe I must change an option in my AJB???

thanks

[LinusN]

When you listen to music, the hard drive spins down after filling the MP3 buffer. When connected to USB, the drive often spins all the time, draining the batteries much faster.

[ironyengine]

Does the AJBR still charge over USB?  I had an FM Recorder that finally gave up the ghost, and I could keep it on a USB cable all night without running out of battery unless I was using the disk constantly.  When the disk wasn't in use, the battery charged and I would often have a full battery even after having it connected all night.  Now I have an AJBR and it seems to behave the same way as described above.  Was something changed in the firmware, or something? 

[LinusN]

Only the FM and V2 recorders can charge via USB.

[ironyengine]

That settles that then... now if only I could figure out why this thing can charge all day and still go completely dead after 15-60 minutes of use.  I'm starting to lose faith in the Archos product.

[LinusN]

Again, have you tried to replace the batteries?

[ironyengine]

Yep.  The original set was "fully charged" (then "charging" again, then fully charged) after about 2 hours so I decided they were suspect and swapped in brand new ones.  The current set sometimes goes ~8 hours, sometimes 15 minutes.  I'm pretty sure it's some kind of loose connection inside, but I'm wary of opening up because I'm not the most confident in my soldering abilities. 

Oh yeah, and the few times that it does seem to be fully charged up, leaving it connected to the USB (with the AC adapter plugged in, even) depletes the power to about 1/2 within an hour or so.  Good stuff.

[ironyengine]

So the soldering joints in this Recorder are actually unfazed by either of the irons I have in the house... has anyone thought about offering Archos repair beyond what the warranty will cover?  At this point I am starting to think it would be much nicer just to send the unit, replacement LCD and some paypalage to someone in order to make the headaches go away.

Rockbox or not, this is likely to be my last Archos purchase if I can't get it working again. 

[LinusN]

I could repair it for you, but I guess you don't live near Sweden, thus the shipping would cost a fortune.

[ironyengine]

I could repair it for you, but I guess you don't live near Sweden, thus the shipping would cost a fortune.

Hah, yes that would be a bit much I think.  Thanks for the offer, but I guess I've got to stumble through this on my own.  Then hopefully once I get the LCD screen on my JBR fixed I can figure out why the hard drive keeps macking clicking noises whenever I access it / write to it / turn the device on.  And then I can try replacing the DC charge port on my FM Recorder.  And then I will solder all three devices to my skin so as to never be without them again...

[ironyengine]

Bingo!

My friend and I sat down with a brand new soldering gun and fixed the beast up today, replaced the lcd screen and all.  I think everything that could've gone wrong did, but persistence (mostly my friend's) proved it out in the end, all parts are working and the hard drive isn't throwing up errors.  Got the batteries charged up almost all the way now, in fact. 

Let this be testimony to the quality of reference material on this site, without it we would have been lost for sure.

Salut, rockbox!

[Sherv]

Haha, good to see you here, Irony

In a quest to fix my AJBR DC port, I was able to solder it out, but putting in a replacement one (from my old AJB) was impossible, so now I have a DC-less AJBR Time to start looking at an mp3 player that will take my 80 gig HD