iPod 5G 30Gb Black out / No response

[pierrop]

(Sorry for my poor English  )

Hello!
First of all I've been a very satisfied user of RockBox since almost 3,5 years; that thing is simply amazing!

I run it on a 5G 30GB iPod since late 2006 and had absolutely no problems with it! But now, I'm stuck with a problem that I can't really identify as a hardware of software problem...I looked at these two different forums but I can't see anything like mine.

There is two issues: first, when I'm in the "playback window...? Window where the song is played..." the iPod stops responding, but the song continues to play and everything on the screen is freezed (even with a fully charged battery). That problem appeared 1 month ago when I was using a very old release of RockBox (1.***) and is still there even if I updated with the latest release. So when it happens (in a random time, as it plays..) I have to hard reboot the iPod to get back to the bootloader.
I found a kind of solution : when I start a song, I get back to the playlist and the iPod continues to play well (not very nice since I had to interact with my iPod to change song).

Second, another problem appeared since two days (deteriorating...). Even if I return to the playlist to let Rockbox play my song without freezing, the iPod randomly just black out (shutdown suddenly).

The thing is I can boot to original Apple OS and everything works fine. I can mount it to PC without any problems (everything seems usual outside Rockbox). No HDD clunking or stuff like that. Absolutely nothing special.
1) However the problem appeared in a old version of Rockbox and is still there in the new release (so I guess it would be a battery problem maybe?)
2) No problem happend when it is plugged in my car adapter (charging/transmitter)

I don't know what to do. I love my 5G Rockbox so much

Do you have any ideas? Feel absolutely free to ask me question since I probably didn't give you enough details. I will respond back the best I can do.

Thanks a lot and keep up your incredible work!

[Llorean]

If you've had the player for three and a half years without replacing the battery, you should absolutely replace it. It's likely to be the cause of some of your problems, and even if the battery is not a problem now, it soon will be.

[pierrop]

Thanks a lot for your answer!

It confirms my hypothesis that the battery could be the problem. In fact, It has never been changed since I bought it. So I guess It's time!

Thanks again.