gigabeat f40 battery problem

[george99]

just got a used gigabeat f40.  i didn't expect it to work perfectly but i just want to check in here to see if this i am dealing with a serious problem.

i plan on replacing the battery and the hard drive soon.

as of now the battery holds charge for about 10 minutes, obviously the battery is shot. the issue i am having is that no music shows up on the gigabeat when not connected to the computer. when connected to the computer as an external drive the music i transferred to it shows up correctly. can this  be caused by the battery issue or is there a more serious problem here?

[LambdaCalculus]

Check to see if the file view is set to anything other than "All" or "Supported". You can press and hold the MENU button to bring up the quickscreen to see this setting.

[george99]

version 2.02 is installed on this player. i tried twice to install the most recent version of RB. the installation process went through fine, but it still says version 2.02 on the player.

[LambdaCalculus]

Did you install the bootloader as well? It sounds like you're still going into the Gigabeat OF, which shouldn't be happening if you installed Rockbox fully.

[george99]

yes i installed the bootloader from the rockbox utility and then the current version of rockbox.

still no luck, same thing happens.


Post Merge: February 02, 2011, 09:53:02 AMsolved.

i never completed a full power off by sliding the battery button off and on.

rockbox 3.7.1. now loads fine.

this player may be new so it might take a while for the battery to charge properly.


Post Merge: February 03, 2011, 05:42:06 AMnow i'm getting some weird battery behavior.

it does seem to be running down a bit fast, about halfway discharged in 3 hours.

then it will suddenly increase battery life from 27 to 41.?

[Chronon]

The voltage delivered by the battery can fluctuate depending on what sort of load it is trying to drive.

Your battery sounds like it is near the end of its life. 
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/GigabeatRuntime

[george99]

i had everything working fine for months and i just had to tinker with it by getting a new battery. at first the screen didn't work, but the machine powered on and i could see the drive mount on my computer. now, neither battery works at all and it won't power on.

ideas?

[Chronon]

Check connections internally.  Maybe the LCD cable got dislodged?  There could be a stray short somewhere too.  It would explain inability to power on.

[george99]

thanks for the ideas. the battery actually works, i had the hold button set to on.

the screen does not work now, however. i looked closely at the connector and it looks like it is hardwired to the machine at both ends. wonder what i did to mess up the cable/connection.

to bad because this player sounds excellent. i bought it on recommendations from this forum.

[george99]

ok i googled around a bit and found someone had a similar problem where they had inadvertently turned off the backlight setting.

the suggested fix was to look at the screen in sunlight. i tried it and i can barely make out the scroll bar highlighting text, so it is working, but i can't really make out the text.

so does this mean that i also turned off the backlight? or could there also be another explanation for what is going on.

[Chronon]

Try setting backlight timeout to 5.
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-gigabeatfx/rockbox-buildch11.html#x14-32400011.3.2
http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-gigabeatfx/rockbox-buildap3.html#x17-374000C

[george99]

tried it, no luck

also tried pressing the A button right after powerup and no change.
 
i have speech turned on so i can navigate the menus, but still no screen lighting

[george99]

what does it mean when the screen can be seen barely in bright light and everything else works. is this a software problem or is it a hardware problem?

[Chronon]

It seems like a hardware problem to me.  To investigate further you can remove Rockbox and see if the original firmware is able to enable the backlight.