[sorted out] my sansa Clip+ has just died

[TOTAL]

I bought it today. Tried the original fw for a while and installed stable rockbox. all worked fine except for occasional panic errors.

the last one happened when I set bookmarking on stop to unique.

I got a message, firmware missing or something. Form now on I could not instal rockbox, even after uninstalling.

After another original firmware update, to get rid of rb bootloader files, the device updated and died.

From now on, it does not show in explorer, does not swich on, plugged or unpugged.

Seems like I have destroyed its hardware

Any advice now other than have it serviced?

PS. Are these symptoms of "bricking" or can there be other reason, independent of messing with firmware? Maybe it is not Rockbox, that casused the fault?

Anything I could say to the servicemen increase the chance of getting guarantee repair?

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EDIT: Thanks, everyone. The clip has been working flawlessly for some time, not a single crash. It must have been faulty USB port.

[MasterFen]

There is a way to unbrick your Clip+ but it will involve opening it up and doing a bit of soldering for the most part, check the http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaAMSUnbrick article.

[TOTAL]

Thank you for your answer. I think I will send it for repair. Hopefully warranty will not be questioned.

Can it be Rockbox, that dumbed the unit?

There are no similar reports on this forum.  So maybe it is just bad luck?

[MasterFen]

From the looks of what you did I'm not sure, it isn't something you should stop using Rockbox for though. Probably a fluke.

[[Saint]]

Just to be clear, the unbricking technique doesn't require soldering at all.

Sticking a soldering iron anywhere near those tiny pitch pads is actually the last thing I would recommend doing while trying to recover this player.

You simply need something conductive that can bridge the connection, this can pretty much be anything small enough to do the job that will carry a current. Like the tip of a precision flat-blade screwdriver, tweezers, a paperclip, a loop of wire.... etc.

Just don't solder it in place

The *last* thing you'd want to do is solder those pads closed indefinitely.


[St.]

[MasterFen]

Sorry, I was just following what the wiki article said.

[TOTAL]

A strange thing has happened. I took to device back to the shop to have them send it to the service, and to be sure the shop assistant connected it to his laptop.

It works! It also switches on now, only woith left button, because of the remains of Rockbox. And it does connect to my computer.

I suspect that one of the front usb ports is unreliable, possibly causing strain to the circuit. Just in case, I connect it to a different one, at the back. One of my pendrives has died recently, so it seems more than probable.


Now I am facing a dilemma: how far to move on with Sansa tweaking or back. Please correct my reasoning if necessary.

1. Back to original mode (in itself, safest but not satisfactory: no bookmarks). I really need them. Still, possible by updating the sansa system. Will it clean the boot record?

2. Then, try to instal Rockbox again, maybe an earlier version, like 3.7.1? It is said by some to be more stable.

3. Then avoid messing with the option which seemed to have caused the fatal hangup - or does it seem to a be a coincidence?

PS.
to Solder would be like to press reset permanently
But still, I would not open the device during warranty period. Now I discover, how fantastic piece of hardware my sony nwz-b143 was: strong battery, dedicated reset and record button, standard usb plug, logical menu, greatly placed heavy duty transport buttons. If it only had bookmarks or accepted Rockbox...

[[Saint]]

Sorry, I was just following what the wiki article said.

No, you were following what you thought it said..

to Solder would be like to press reset permanently

No, it would mean that you can only, and forever more...expose the firmware partition...giving you a lovely little ~16MB flash drive instead of a DAP.


[St.]