irivier H300 series battery replacement

[rossic]

A while ago, while playing with WPS files, my H340 became rather strange.  I was guessing it was something related to files on the disk, and did a check disk and defrag (after reading that it was supposedly not a problem for the player).  After that I had some strange USB connection and battery issues.

I decided to do a clean install of the player's firmware, and format the HD with the original firmware's format function.  Despite those measures, the player still had a short battery life, and will not charge to full (even if the iriver firmware says it is "Complete").  My usb connection will occasionally be lost during use as well.  If it's plugged in to AC, the frequency of loss of connection is greatly reduced.  

I have reinstalled Rockbox and the problem persists.  The player is definitely still useable, but, for example, after charging all night, and using the record feature for about 20 minutes (granted, at pretty high gain) and being powered on for about 90 minutes drains the battery to the point where the warning comes up about the low battery.

Batteries are known to die out over time, so I can't say for sure what this is due to.  Just the timing of the problem really points to defragmenting.  

Anyone have any similar symptoms?  I'm guessing a fix is probably not going to happen, but if we can find out why this happened, less players may be affected.

[XavierGr]

Looks like a busted battery to me. Did this happen gradually or was it overnight?
If you are lucky you can just buy a new battery and get away with it.
New H300 batteries are cheap and not so hard to replace.

On the other hand it might be a faulty chip, that is responsible for all the immediate power drain.
Does the player gets hot in the interval that you use it?

If I was you I would just try to fix it with a new battery.

[rossic]

Unfortunately, it did not happen gradually.  It was basically the next day that I noticed things starting to get goofy.  The player doesn't get hot, so hopefully my CPU is ok.  I hadn't even thought of that!

In any case, I didn't realize that batteries were so easy to come by!  I'll try to hold out a little longer, and when I really get fed up with the low battery life, I'll break down and get one.  Thanks!

[rossic]

After looking into replacing the battery, and reading up on Mysticriver, I am about half willing to go through with it.  Mysticriver has ancient info regarding it, so I wanted to get a more up to date poll.

Have you ever changed your H300 battery?  What did you use?  Where did you get it?  Are you satisfied with the replacement?

https://eshop.macsales.com/ has cheap iPod batteries.  Does anyone have experience with that site?  

Thanks in advance

[theone]

just don't buy a dirt-cheap one...I had the exact same problem as you, a new battery solved it...however that new battery gave up on me when it started ballooning and pressing against the hard drive.

[petur]

hmmm... seems I ordered a similar one.... can't do anything about it now, it's already on its way.  

[dmd]

Wonder if these could be any better: http://cgi.ebay.com/Cameron-Sino-iRiver-H-Series-Battery-1600mAh_W0QQitemZ280063566132QQihZ018QQcategoryZ118262QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Capacity: 1600mAh
Voltage: 3.7V
Material: Li-ion

Says it's for H series in general. Does it really matter if it's Li-ion?

[Beany]

I've seen the info on MysticRiver about changing batteries for High capacity 2100 or 2200 first generation iPod units - but i can't find any of the bleeding things anywhere.

Mind you I'm also trying to find info on getting a better hard drive as well that draws less current.

Does anyone have any [more up to date] info on this subject, or know a good place to look? I'm not shy about pulling things apart, and I know you have to swap the positive/negative terminals on iPod batteries etc, it's just a case of finding a supplier for the battery, and for the hard drive.

Any thoughts people?

[westkc3]

I replaced my H120 battery with one of the 2200 mah bats I purchased off eBay for $13 BIN.  I came with a couple handy plastic tools.  My play time is 4X what is was with the original bat.  Do a search on eBay  UP325385A4H which is 1st or 2nd gen iPod replacement.  I see two sources there now.