Sansa Clip Plus Constantly Turns off

[nguinn97]

I recently purchased a used Sansa Clip Plus from Amazon. It arrived yesterday, and I immediately installed Rockbox on it.

The problem was, the player didn't have much charge left in the battery, and I fear that it must have turned off before the operation could be completed properly. After the Clip lost power, I was unable to turn it on.

I plugged it in for a while and let it charge. Eventually, I was able to use a small paper clip to hit the reset button on the back of the player. This allowed it to turn on, and I was able to get it working.
I copied some music on to the internal storage and started experimenting with it. It appeared to work fine, and I explored the software while listening to hear the audio quality.

I have no idea if this is related, but I tried playing the Doom plugin and was unable to exit normally I had to reset the player. I'm not sure if that matters, but I figured I would include it.

This leads up to the current issue. I decided to charge the device until the battery was full. When I tried to use the device last night, it kept turning off a few seconds after I turned the player on. It doesn't matter what I do, the same thing happens. If I had to guess, I would say it takes about 5 seconds. It doesn't matter whether I am using the built in software or Rockbox. The same holds true for when I connect the player to my computer and try to copy files to it.

Oddly enough, if I constantly press the power button, the device will stay for a while longer. I have no idea why.

That's all the information I could think of. Please ask more if I have left something out. Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially because I'm not sure I can return it to Amazon because I tried to modify the software.

[saratoga]

There is no reset button on the clip plus.

If the player doesn't work I would send it back.

[nguinn97]

There actually is a small hole on the back of the player that resets the player. You have to use a small paper clip or something of that nature to hit it.

I would return it right away, but I'm not sure how to remove Rockbox without also removing the original firmware. When I remove Rockbox using the utility, the stock firmware becomes unbootable. I might still be able to return it, but I'm not entirely sure if I would be able to. I'd like to try to fix it first if there is a simple solution.

[[Saint]]

Dude...

There is no reset button such as you describe on this device.

The small hole in the backing, is the microphone.

You just jammed a paper clip into the microphone of your device based on an assumption, the fact that it does act as a "reset" switch is almost certainly it freaking out at you jamming a paper clip into bits where paper clips are not supposed to go (unsurprisingly, they don't like that). No wonder it is acting weird.

I'm terribly sorry for you dude.


[Saint]

[nguinn97]

I guess I just wasted my money.  This is embarrassing.

I just assumed it had a reset button because I have seen them before on other devices. I'm pretty sure that I read it somewhere. Maybe it was just someone making the same mistake or talking about one of the other Sansa clip players. I guess I should be more careful next time.

At least I know what the issue is now. Do you think I could still fix it somehow? Could I possibly open up the device and put the microphone back in place? I have a soldering iron if that helps at all. Since I obviously can't return it now I have nothing to lose.

[[Saint]]

Obviously without being able to examine the device myself and check the electrical integrity thereof, I can only speculate.

My guess would be that the microphone is still in place, almost certainly damaged beyond repair, but still in place. The reset was likely triggered by accidentally bridging a couple of PCB traces, which may or may not have damaged hardware further down the line.

The "good" thing is, that the mic would be relatively easy to replace, even for someone with limited or no experience, and they are cheap - also, an exact part match is not necessary here. In fact, you could likely just remove it or bridge it and have the player be none the wiser.

And, yes, you're quite right. There's nothing to lose here at all really.


[Saint]