iRiver iHP-140 Burnt Out

[w i l l]

I accidentally plugged the wrong voltage charger into my iHP 140 , aaaaaaaaaargh!

Now the unit doesn't turn on. I know its hard to say but does anyone have any idea on what/which component is likely to have gone wrong. I thought that maybe it might be a case of replacing the battery... I bought the right size Torx keys to get into to it, but now the hard drive is in the way and it looks like I need some kind of star key to remove that.

Any ideas or help much appreciated!

Thanks

[Domonoky]

hi,
 wrong charger is really bad on a h120.  Especially Inverted polarity. It then depends on what you have done with the wrong charger inserted. If you turned it on with the wrong charger, it will be completly dead, normally the cpu will be burned. So only the harddrive will be usable.
If you didnt turned it on, it could be that only the charger/power chip is destroyed, which could be repairable..

whish you luck  

[w i l l]

Do you have any advice on how to fix it? - i'm not really an electronics expert. Do you know of any iRiver specialists that i could contact or is it worth selling it in a faulty condition to someone who could fix it?

This is annoying as the actual casing/outside etc is in perfect condition. Its never been out of this room.

[AlexP]

You might try www.misticriver.net for info as well.

[Gradie]

I've got an iHP-140 as well and had exactly the same problem some years ago. I replaced it with an H10 20GB and have just discovered Rockbox, which is fantastic!

Anyway, to the point. As above, my 140 was charged with a variable charger that had been switched to an incorrect voltage (I believe 12V) for a number of hours. To the best of my knowledge the player was never turned on while the charger was plugged in, though this is a possibility. Present condition is no response from any button presses, but I do get a green light when I plug in the charger from the H10.

I have a replacement battery due in the next couple of days that I had hoped might solve the problem, though it now sounds as if it may be more serious than this. I've tried the misticriver forum but I haven't been able to get on it for the last couple of days (could not connect to remote server).

Any suggestions that you have for things to try if the replacement battery doesn't work will be greatly appreciated. This was a fantastic player before I trashed it. I received no response from iRiver when I enquired about a repair at the time.

Thanks,
Gradie

Edit: I've just seen the repair section of the forum so apologies for this being in the wrong place.

[Febs]

LinusN once posted on Mistic River describing exactly what components are typically damaged by using the wrong voltage charger.  If you search at Mistic River for his posts, you can probably find that one easily enough.  But you are correct in that there is likely to be much more damaged than the battery.

[Gradie]

I'll keep trying the misticriver forums, still can't get on them at present.

http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=44799 was recommended in another post, but as yet I don't know what it says!

[Febs]

I found a couple of the things he wrote on this issue:

When you connect a higher voltage charger, you not only fry the charging circuits. You fry the CPU and flash as well, beyond repair. The only option is to replace the player.

* * *

There is a mistake in the design that makes the 1.8V regulator output a far too high voltage, because the capacitors that sets the voltage level are broken by the high charger voltage.

[Gradie]

Given those comments, and the lack of improvement having just fitted a new battery, I'd guess the player was indeed dead. Even though I replaced it I'm sad: just diggingit out again has reminded me how much I loved this player. I'll pull the hdd I guess, and get one of those adapter to see if the datas salvageable (it's been 3 years or so, so it could be interesting!).

Is anything else inside the casing useful to me or anyone? Or is there still hope??

[Davide-NYC]

PM sent.