iAudio X5L Bricked?

[Romanian]

Hey all,

I had an iAudio X5L with RockBox, and it was amazing. About two weeks ago, it stopped playing audio. Just stopped. It turns on and I can navigate and do everything normally, but it just doesn't play music. It takes slightly longer to load the track, and then a hell of a long time for it to show up "Next" at the bottom of the screen, if that means anything. At first I thought it was something with the firmware, but I formatted the 30GB drive I have, and it didn't help any. I also have a 20GB drive, but that didn't work either. From there I deduced that it's either a hardware problem or a bootloader/flashmem problem. I think I may eliminate that the cause is from a hardware problem, because once every about 20 boots, the audio works (but then I can't change the volume). If anybody has any clue as to what my problem is, I would greatly appreciate some help.

Thanks in advance,
Romanian


PS
My apologies if this belongs in the iAudio section.

[LinusN]

Install the original iAudio firmware and see if it works. Then you can tell if it's a hardware or a software problem.

[chaebi]

I have a similar problem.
I once opened my iaudio x5 and exchanged the part with the headphone plug since I accidentally broke it. It then used to work fine for a while but now i just have no sound most of the time I boot Rockbox or the of.

In my case it sometimes helps if I gently hit my player with the bottom against something solid while the player is switched off and then boot again.

I think it may has something to do with a loose connection somewhere
(maybe the headphone plug part which has some sort of pin connections),
I intend to open my player again in order to check this and tie the bolts but they are already pretty damaged so i dont know if i succed with this...

On the other hand, i have not experienced any gui delay or unability to change the volume so it my be not the same cause.

[Romanian]

The thing is that I cannot reinstall the original firmware. I place the *.bin file in a folder named ".FIRMWARE" in the player, plug it in, and nothing happens. (This is what the instructions tell me to do.) Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing to reinstall the firmware?

[chaebi]

charge the player  completly and plug it in

[LinusN]

Remember that it has to be off before you attach the charger. Also, the folder is called "FIRMWARE", not ".FIRMWARE".

[Romanian]

Yes, I have done all of these. Placed it in IAUDIO/FiRMWARE, and nothing happens. It's fully charged, it's off before I attach the charger, etc etc. Well, my U3 should be coming soon. I guess that'll fill the void for a while.

Anything else that I may possibly be doing incorrectly? I have the FIRMWARE folder in the root of the audio device.


PS
It goes straight to "charging" when I plug it in.

[LinusN]

Perhaps the firmware file, or even the filesystem, is corrupt? Have you run scandisk? If not, do it, and then transfer the firmware file again. Also make sure that the firmware file is for your specific model. For example, the X5 and X5V are different.

[Romanian]

I'm not sure what you mean by running scandisk. (Also, I'm in Ubuntu, so if there are specific commands for this or something, that'd help.) Needless to say, I'm pretty noobish at the entire computer scene in general, so if more specific help could be given, I'd appreciate it.

PS
The X5_v had no other effect.


I've run "sudo fsck -a /dev/sdb1" and it seemed to have added a lot of files to my IAUDIO device. It also said that some errors were fixed, or something to that extent. Now I'm just trying to get it to mount. The X5_v again did nothing, and I'll try the X5.

[LinusN]

From where did you download the original firmware file? Please tell me exactly which file you downloaded.

[Romanian]

Please tell me exactly which file you downloaded.

http://www.cowonamerica.com/download/iaudio_x5_jsfw.html

The second link. I clicked on the button which says "Download". The round one.


I've run fsck and tried using both firmware versions, and nothing's happened. I assume it's dead?