iPod Photo Freezing at random!?!(Long)

[Donut]

This is long but I want to make sure to cover all my bases!

I last couple days my iPod photo, 60GB running the latest Rockbox 3.1 has been, well dying. and what happens is that it'll be playing music and either on its own, or when I go to change songs, or go back to the menu it'll freeze. and when it freezes a white line (almost like a line of dead pixels) shows up vertically on random spots on the screen, but only ever 1 line, or at most a cluster or 2 or 3 tightly together. the back-light turns off and I think it died like the battery, but no matter how long I leave it it stays like that (ie screen doesn't fade away like would be expected)
Thing that really baffles me is that the battery is suddenly dead when it does this, and it shouldn't be, I'll be doing a battery benchmark and it goes down at a constant rate from like 90 down to 70 and then freezes and stops taking records at 69, and then is suddenly dead! even when I reboot it doesn't work often, I try to reboot into rockbox and it keeps freezing/dying before I can do anything! yesterday I managed to get into the Apple OS and it ran for quite a few more hours!
Here's the last reading from the last 2 benchmarks:
1: -
01:56:03,  06963,     063%,     06:23,         3836,     -,  -,  -
01:57:03,  07023,     063%,     06:23,         3835,     -,  -,  -
01:58:03,  07083,     062%,     06:17,         3834,     -,  -,  -
01:59:03,  07143,     062%,     06:17,         3834,     -,  -,  -
02:00:03,  07203,     062%,     06:17,         3832,     -,  -,  -

2:-,  -,  -
00:13:01,  00781,     065%,     06:35,         3845,     -,  -,  -
00:14:01,  00841,     064%,     06:29,         3842,     -,  -,  -
00:15:01,  00901,     064%,     06:29,         3840,     -,  -,  -

notice neither of them say "shutting down" and a reason like they should.

Note: I have installed ZeroSlackr iPod linux with Loader 2.5 as well, I don't know if that boot loader or os has any problems with Rockbox, so I thought I should mention it just in case.

Almost forgot, it might have to do with my VBR MP3's, I have found many threads talking about that, but no solution that I can find on them, and the symptoms aren't the same.

[saratoga]

I last couple days my iPod photo, 60GB running the latest Rockbox 3.1

We haven't supported 3.1 in many years.  Are you sure thats what you're running?

[Donut]

it says 3.10 (I don't know if that 0 makes a difference or not) I did install it with the Rockbox Utility

[saratoga]

it says 3.10 (I don't know if that 0 makes a difference or not) I did install it with the Rockbox Utility

Yes, 10 is 9 versions higher then 1.  Anyway, its probably a good idea to restore the player in iTunes and then install rockbox using the rockbox bootloader.  The ipodlinux stuff has been unmaintained for a long time now.  Its possible its too far out of sync with modern rockbox.

If that doesn't work, its also possible theres some problem with the voltage readout or regulation.  If the voltage level drops too low, the player will simply power off to avoid damage to the hardware.  Its possible one of the regulators rockbox depends on is failing causing a sudden loss in power.  On my old 3G, after about 6 years I had a similar problem where the voltage dropout detection would kick in and kill the player at random even through the battery was charged.  Probably one too many battery replacements or charger voltage spikes for it.

[Donut]

Actually that just reminded me.
When I try to run the iPod Linux, whenever I try to load a program in it it freezes, restarts and wont boot iPod Linux anymore (corrupted it somehow).
If I try to boot into Rockbox or even the Apple OS it says the batter is dead, in the red, even though I just took it off the charger not even 5 minutes to try Zeroslackr (which by the way is still a sported version of iLinux that is trying to pick up where they left off pretty well)

Do you think that my be what is killing it? Could I have fried a chip on the circuit board?
It wouldn't be the battery itself after that would it?

[saratoga]

Zeroslackr (which by the way is still a sported version of iLinux that is trying to pick up where they left off pretty well)

The last download for that project is from 2008, and the last code commit is from early 2009.  That is really old, and while it might still work, we've changed a lot since then so I wouldn't count on it.

[Donut]

Still could I have fried something on the main board with that by mistake by running that?

also can I still use Loader 2 as a boot loader? I really like that it's a menu that I can chose out of, and add restart sleep and diskmode to.

[saratoga]

also can I still use Loader 2 as a boot loader? I really like that it's a menu that I can chose out of, and add restart sleep and diskmode to.

I'm not sure, but I think our policy is that if you have questions about loader2, you should go ask the loader2 people about it.