Backlight of Death?

[Riolist]

Hi everyone, new guy here. I've seen a few posts mentioning a Clix suddenly going dead with only the backlight coming on. In all the threads I could find the only solution seems to be to RMA it. My question is has anyone ever recovered from this state, or is it the end of the road if this happens to a Clix?

The reason i'm asking is because I bought a Clix off ebay that has this problem and i'm wondering if there's any chance at all that I could get it working again.

Thanks for your help.

[ShyAnne]

Originally Posted by Riolist

The reason i'm asking is because I bought a Clix off ebay that has this problem and i'm wondering if there's any chance at all that I could get it working again.

Did it arrive that way from the EBay shop? If so check their return policy rather than an iriver RMA. But if the EBay shop informed you of the problem before the sale, or sold the player "as is" then you're stuck with it.

If the second thing applies, then the problem with an RMA from iriver is they won't honor it as a free warranty repair if you didn't buy the player from an authorized dealer or bought it "as is" from a reseller. They would fix it but you would have to pay for the repair.

[Riolist]

Originally Posted by ShyAnne

Did it arrive that way from the EBay shop? If so check their return policy rather than an iriver RMA. But if the EBay shop informed you of the problem before the sale, or sold the player "as is" then you're stuck with it.

If the second thing applies, then the problem with an RMA from iriver is they won't honor it as a free warranty repair if you didn't buy the player from an authorized dealer or bought it "as is" from a reseller. They would fix it but you would have to pay for the repair.

No, I bought it that way knowingly, the seller was completely upfront about it. It was an as-is purchase, but because of that it was ridiculously cheap (less than $20 shipped). I know that RMA isn't an option, that's why I was wondering if anyone has seen a Clix recover from that state, either spontaneously or using some kind of recovery procedure.

[clieos]

It is most likely one of either two situations: 1) The screen cracked - almost impossible to fix without paying large sum of money in replacing the screen. 2) Loose connection - more likely, and can be fixed by reconnecting the internal socket back together. It can be fixed by opening the player up carefully yourself, or send back the iriver (or The iriver Store) for a relatively cheap repair fee.

["haxx0"]

If the problem is the screen, that would mean people could still play music or listen to radio with their clixes. Was their clixes really 'up and running'?

[Riolist]

Well, it hasn't arrived yet so I don't know if it's a cracked screen or not but I doubt it since I think that's obvious enough that the seller would have mentioned it. The description seemed to match what i've read here about the backlight being the only thing on the player that works.

[proneto911]

that realy sucks that you have the blacklight busted and all

[Riolist]

I think i've identified the problem. I believe it's due to physical damage to the diplay flex cable. The end of the flex cable that plugs into the circuit board has two branches. One branch is attached to the back of the display with adhesive, the other smaller branch which has the circuit board connector is free, but has very little play in relation to the branch stuck on the back of the display. It's a very tight fit to plug it into the circuit board. If it's flexed too much the cable can literally rip at the junction of the free and fixed branches, breaking the connections that bridge them. I believe that people who experience the spontaneous failure of their display without ever having opened their player have damaged ribbon cables from the time of manufacture. I'm attempting to repair the ripped connections, but it isn't easy. I"ll keep you posted.

[BiGRED84]

also to inform everyone, iriver wont do anything for you if the player is out of warrenty, not even if you pay them.

[mixin]

So iRiver will take your money but not do anything to the player?

[BiGRED84]

well, if i dont have a warrenty, they wont do anything, i have always thought that in the case of needing reapirs i would pay a sum for labor shipping and the parts, but they will not do that, they reffered me to the iriver store, but the iriver store it seems dosent do reapirs aymore