SanDisk e280 - nothing but noise

[basquiat]

Dear all,

my Sansa SanDisk e280 just plays nothing but heavy, distorted noises, loud ticks and pops all the time. I am not talking about the usual background noises the SanDisks are known to produce while "thinking", I am talking about nothing but noise, as the device outputs no music (not even distorted music) at all. Those strange sounds are also submitted while not playing anything, although at a lower rate, hence loud, randomized and heavy.

I tried Rockbox versions r18607 and r18656, with the very same result. The original firmware works, so the player seems not to be broken in any way. At the moment, there are only mp3-files loaded on the device, no other codes. UI works fine.

Are there any people encountering the same issue? Did I overlook something while installing (or do I miss some "special" settings)?

Any help is highly appreciated, since Rockbox is the way I want to go on that device!

Best regards,
Jens

[Llorean]

This question had nothing to do with how to install the software. Please, don't post such things in the Installation forum.

What did you use to encode the MP3s, and what sorts of tags do they have on them? (ApeV2, ID3v1, ID3v2?)

[basquiat]

Most MP3s were encoded using LAME, and have ID3v1 as well as ID3v2 tags. I also tried playing a FLAC, which resulted in the same noises. You can hear quite everything the device does on an electric level, it seems, just not music. :-(

Sorry for posting to the install section, seems I shot to fast without reading the friendly forum rules. My apologies.

[Llorean]

Does your device have an FM radio? If so, do you get audio from it?

Could you try loading a video to the device and seeing it the audio in that plays back correctly. And/or maybe a voice file.

[basquiat]

It has an FM device, but no sound besides distorted noises either. One other thing worth mentioning is that every activity, with a focus on display changes, causes really loud noises, in no way comparable to the original firmware, and doubtly "normal" on the Rockbox firmware, too. The device also seems to get pretty warm (not hot) while using Rockbox. It's really a strange behaviour over all.

[saratoga]

If you're getting electrical noise, then its probably broken.

[basquiat]

Ok, after playing around a bit, I think I found the show stopper. In the original firmware, Sansa offers a setting for "normal/high volume", where "normal" is sometimes to low for some type headphones, so it was set to "high". After setting this to "normal", Rockbox played my music the way it should.

I played around with some games, as the strange noises reappeared. I switched back to music and lowered the volume there, which got me rid of the noises again.

After all, it's still a bit strange behaviour, but controllable now.

Thanks for your help, guys, and thanks for Rockbox!

[saratoga]

The OF settings don't change anything in rockbox, so the High setting is irrelevant. 

[basquiat]

Well, after changing the volume settings back in the original firmware, things still work, so you are right and I'm a bit lost, since this was the only step I made form "does not work" to "works" at that moment.

ADDENDUM:

Noises reappeared again after playing "Minesweeper" for a while (the first time they reappeared I was playing "Xobox"), and I did not manage to get the device back to normal (undistorted) state. The original firmware still plays all music without a glitch, so I really think it's not a broken SanDisk, but a Rockbox issue here.

Sorry about the confusing infos here which most certainly are not a valueable help yet.

[Llorean]

It seems likely that if it were solely a Rockbox issue, we'd have many more reports of this. It doesn't sound like a minor issue.

I'd rather suggest that your player might have some hardware flaw that shows up because Rockbox does things a bit differently than the OF.

As it stands, though, nobody can really help you until we know more about the problem, and you're the only person who can investigate it at this time.

[basquiat]

I wouldn't define it a "minor" issue either, but as you said: if it was solely Rockbox to blame, reports should have already reached the devs by now. ;-)

So maybe it's really a hardware flaw which is only triggered in Rockbox code, or some other voodoo, but in any case it should not steal more of your time than it already has (thank you again). Bad luck for me, but on the other hand, running the original firmware is better than running nothing at all. Maybe it's Rockbox with my next device ...

[Khem]

I'm using an e280R (firmware 01.02.24A) and am encountering the same problems. All mp3s (mostly LAME-encoded) played in Rockbox (version r19017-081105) consist only of distorted noise, whereas they do play fine in the original firmware. In Rockbox, most files do have the time code etc. running properly while "playing", some other files (whole folders in fact) won't play at all. Additionally, Rockbox creates background noise for scrolling etc.

Changing the volume settings in the Sansa software however didn't help in my case.

I also noticed that I cannot view the BMP files from the "e200 Photos" folder (78 KB each), which Rockbox probably should be able to display (?).

[MajiKool Dragonâ„¢]

try an older build.  if you can find one...
i thought there was an archive, but all ive found was for old releases... and thats not what you need.

im not sure but maybe it has some thing to do with the use of the co-processor.

 

maybe not?


EDIT:     i am not having this problem. 

[AutobahnSHO]

Are you using a power connection?

I've noticed mine is quite noisy while it's plugged in-
Have Not tried power + OF to compare.

[Khem]

The power connection doesn't have anything to do with it ... unfortunately! I tried a couple of the older builds but they didn't solve the problem either. Hmmm ...