Lifetime of iriver h120 flash buffer?

[littlenick]

Hi,
I got a iriver h120 (bought from ebay) and I wonder if it pays to spend lots of money on CF-mod (I'd rather buy a big CF card), when someday maybe the player's buffer dies on me?
Is it possible to repair a broken flash memory in this player?

[AlexP]

You mean the RAM I assume?  It is unlikely to go any time soon (but of course you never know).  It is not user replaceable in any sensible way (it is a chip soldered to the board).

[littlenick]

I just thought about the maybe 100 000 write (or is it less?) cycles that are supposed to go with flash devices?
Hopping between folders and several hours of audion playback easily gives me a hundred and more write cycles per day,
so maybe 1000 days of use and an unknown amount uf use in the past -> maybe three years till it breaks?

[saratoga]

I just thought about the maybe 100 000 write (or is it less?) cycles that are supposed to go with flash devices?
Hopping between folders and several hours of audion playback easily gives me a hundred and more write cycles per day,
so maybe 1000 days of use and an unknown amount uf use in the past -> maybe three years till it breaks?

Playing audio doesn't involve writing anything at all. 

[Chronon]

Also RAM isn't flash.  What buffer are you talking about?

[littlenick]

You caught me again!
I don't know what kind of memory the buffer in my h120 is.
I used to think it is flash - getting filled up and overwritten every 15 minutes or so when the hdd spins up during audio playback.

[AlexP]

It is the same type as in your PC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_random_access_memory