Repair of fried players - maybe possible

[HorstIriver]

I have just written a reply to your other post regarding USB-cases for using 1.8" drives as external USB drives. It is possible that your drive is damaged as well. But I have read almost all threads about fried players, and in most cases the hard drive survived. It is because the hard drive is not fed directly by the charger or the battery. There is a DC-DC-converter between those power sources and the drive. And if you plug the wrong charger, most probably this DC-DC-converter will die first, protecting the hard drive. But, as always, there is no guarantee that your hard drive survived undamaged. Trying it in a different iriver, or in an external case, will be necessary. Good luck, I hope you'll find a way to save your photos.

This is a link for directions how to replace the hard drive:

http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=18911

Horst

[Gadgetfreak]

Well...I took my ihp-140 into www.sortek.ca. The player had died due to using the wrong car charger....They told me that the only repair they could do was to replace the logic board. A week later they told me that their source no longer manufactures the board. Can anyone point me in the right direction? They wouldn't replace any chips on the board.
Please help.

Thanks,

Gadgetfreak

[EpicAdventurer]

Hi HorstIriver - Its EpicAdventurer again. I was finally able to take my iRiver apart and look inside. I could see nothing "melted" or "blackened" like some of the pictures in this thread. In fact, everything looked just fine. I have an Ohmmeter but I'm not sure I understand how to use it properly. One thing I noticed is that the battery plug needed to be reseated. I was hoping as I put it back together that it was as simple as that. I plugged in the Ac adapter, got a green light but that's about it. The battery seems to get a charge but the unit still does not power up. And my PC does'nt recognize it when I connect it to the USB port - which makes sense if the unit isn't turning on. Any thoughts?

[Gadgetfreak]

Still looking to find the ihp-140 main or logic board. Does anyone know where I can get one?

TIA
Gadgetfreak

[Cka3ka]

HELLLLPPPP MEEEEEEE please? ok so here comes the fun, Broke the Ihp120 (as it seems many of you have).... it had rockbox on it... and yea its fried to bits.....i wasnt told it was broken and it wasnt i who fried it, so i kept messing with the reset button until TADA it turned on... now here's the catch, the HD works, i conneceted it to my comp with just the usb port as usual, rockbox will not boot no matter what i do, and the iriver firmware boots corrupted, like i boot up, most buttons dont work, there are funky lines on the screen but i can still see most of it.. i figure a resistor or capacitor have gone... any ideas? i would love to do it myself but i lack all tools necesarry... (soldering iron, torx5 screw driver, the abillity to not mess things up, etc...) and help would be appreciated... =-)

-- edit
got an iron off my friend... now where would i get the parts i need o.O
----
newer edit:
ok why is everyone ignoring me =-(.... but yea, heres the update, i found a T5 screw driver... i opened it up and theres a nice big scorch mark on the sticker thats on the Processor.... =-\ also, theres a funny looking capacitor that has a not too great welding job right below where the wires from the mic are taped down.... ill have pictures by the end of this week....

[DukeZed]

This guy I have been in contact with, his english isn't too good, but he says he plugged his Nokia charger in and it doesn't work anymore, doesn't charge etc. I thought he meant it was dead and said I wasn't interested in it since it seemed to be dead, now he replied with the following:
"but you know the item is not completelly dead, then i put charger the player starts, logo screen lits on, but nothing elese happens, and bottom of the player starts warming slowly. no idea its good sign or bad. "
Any ideas which component this vague description suggests is buggered up in the h120?

[ivankgrant]

Originally Posted by DukeZed

This guy I have been in contact with, his english isn't too good, but he says he plugged his Nokia charger in and it doesn't work anymore, doesn't charge etc. I thought he meant it was dead and said I wasn't interested in it since it seemed to be dead, now he replied with the following:
"but you know the item is not completelly dead, then i put charger the player starts, logo screen lits on, but nothing elese happens, and bottom of the player starts warming slowly. no idea its good sign or bad. "
Any ideas which component this vague description suggests is buggered up in the h120?

My 140 suffers with exact same problem. Trouble started when supplied power charger died. I plugged some dodgy multi-voltage charger into my H140 and this is where things started to go wrong.

I found since that iRiver power supply had a break in a cable - invisible but could feel it under the finger. I cut cable open, reconnectred internal wire and unit works again. But now H140 would only turn on with reset switch, play music for a short while and freeze. Bottom of the player would get hot so I presume this is to blame. I had unit opened (with dental implant screw driver - I work in dentistry) and whilst everything looks fine, one little square black bugger at the bottom of the main circuit board gets very hot. I'll try and post image of it and might try to remove it to see if this helps.

I am now forced to use Creative Zen Vision M player which is fine but nothing beats H1xx for sound quality and ease of use. I got used to file music in folders, and hate the idea of Zen/iPod navigation. Not to mention the ability to plug H1xx to any windows machine without extra software...

[DukeZed]

Well since I needed a remote and ac adaptor (which I didn't have for my old h140 - charging it was an absolute pain in the backside) which was bundled in with the faulty h120, I got myself the h120 for little more than a remote and ac adaptor cost and will soon be able to open the bugger up and do some testing, once it arrives.

[DukeZed]

Apparently this one was a Nokia charger victim. Not sure how long it was left attached to the charger. No noticeable burns to any chips, powers on with green light after plugging in ac adaptor (play button does not work), shows 'H-100 Series v 1.33E start', but does not go any further, no sounds of the harddrive spinning up nor a red hd access light, pressing on the daughterboard and changing the hd to another known to work didn't help. Between the ac adaptor socket and the SST flash chip there is a 'square' made of of 4 chips, one in each corner. The 6U and 4U ones in the top left and bottom right of the 'square' I notice are getting hot. One or both of them anyway, it's hard to tell with just the fingertip. When they get hot is it that they are resisting the current and it's just turning into heat at that point? Should I remove the caps, or is the harddrive chip before those caps and would likely be dead already?

Edit: Ok, I've been having a look at the board, and on the BQ chip on the bottom row of 5 connections, the left most one seems shorter than the others, in fact it looks like it has a black line just under the middle, so it is split into 2/3 top and 1/3 bottom showing silver in the daylight, where the others are 100% silver/reflective. Should I expect it to get hotter than the others when charged? If the battery is too deep discharged or the player has been left too long on a shelf, would the BQ chip be the only option via the ac adaptor to power the iriver, and the play button wouldn't work? (And has anyone tried requesting a sample off Texas Instruments yet?)

Edit 2: Charged it right back up after it showed 'low battery'. It seems the ac adaptor will cause it to start up at 'iriver' screen with 1 red led, before going to the 'version screen' above with no red leds. Taking it out causes it to drop to a faded out 'version screen', before the player eventually realises and closes down because of the low battery. After charging, the player still doesn't respond to the 'play' button. However the reset button can be used to switch it on. But it gets an 'iriver' screen with the red led coming on, and then the 'iriver' screen comes back again (where you expect the 'version screen' and the red led is on repeatedly along with the periodic and frequent noise of the harddrive spinning or attempting to spin up (high whirr sound repeating - but none of the 'trundling' sound afterwards as though it is reading something). Only way to close it is to put hold slider on and reset. Using the ac adaptor again at this point after supposedly charging the battery up for the last 4 hours, the player will still fade the 'version screen' image almost right out but not completely once the ac adaptor is taken out, and requires the hold+reset trick to close it down.

[Rach]

Wow this is great to read. Ok guys, i have the iRiver H340,
recently ' killed it ' as it were. It was by accident plugged in the the wrong charger for not even 5 seconds or so, the screen went white - and that was all.
After trying to power it up on its own ( got only a white screen ) and by external battery pack after this charger mishap. Still the white screen and after about a minute on external battery.....the unit was real warm in hand and getting warmer and the smell of over heating. Took a chance of plugging it in to the correct charger for a minute and same ..........real warm and over heat smell.

So now it is currently in pieces. Here are some pics of front and back PCB
There seems to be 14 of those black cube caps with the white bar on one side. 6 on the back, 8 on the front.

Near the yellow plastic piece ( on first thumbnail pic - the back shot ) which is where the power connects, the 8 pin 4 sided chip above it seems messed up. Which part is that ? Is it worth looking closely ?

We do not own an Ohmmeter tho

We were able to easily salvage the HDD and use it in another device

But if the H340 is pretty simple to repair then its worth a go.

Much Appreciated for the help

[kmfvjfhreu]

Looking at a mates iriver for him he has used the wrong charger and fried IC U27 have read other posts but need to clarify whether chip is LTC3405 OR LTC3440i.in this model.

Thanks

Andy

Its ok looking at data sheets obviously the 3440 is the one.

[dbr1]

Originally Posted by HorstIriver

Your player is fine, else it wouldn't have worked without the cap. I bet that the charger chip is bad. .... I know that replacing SMD components is not easy... you need a solder iron fine like the tip of a pencil, a big magnifying glass mounted at your table, and a steady hand.


Horst

I think this is my problem for why my H120 will not work- the battery over time would not charge fully, even after replacing it.

Now the unit is dead, won't start at all, even with the power cord plugged in, but the green light comes on when I plug in the cord.

1)Does that sound like the charger unit needs replacing?

2)Has anyone here actually been able to replace the charger unit at home? I am thinking of giving it a go.

[kuuan]

my H120 just died... I had it connected to the power supply and a computer and had been playing music for a few hours. The I unplugged it from the PC and if I remember correctly it went off right after that. Now it won't turn on any more, no any lights to see even if connected to the charger. reset doesn't change anything.

Has anybody a possible solution??
or did it..simply..die, is gone?

EDIT: it's working again. problem was that I use an adapter to plug it's AC unit which did not make contact. now it does again, it started charging and turns on again.

[Ricardo Dawkins]

Please, somebody can help me identify this part on my H320
Need I a new battery for H320 ?

Does someone have any solution for this ? Thanks for viewing.

[xyzzyzz2004]

hi HorstIriver , i have made a clix charger using a motorola 6.2V charger.. Since clix requires 5V, i used 2 germanium doides (forward biased) in series with it.. that reduces the voltage to 6.2 - 2*0.6 = 5V exact... My question is, is it safe to use such a thing?

[binskies10]

Thanks for all the help, I accidently fried mine, so now I have hope that it's not completely dead.

[Iriver (Greg)]

I beleive that i have also fried (or hopefully just partly fried) my player too.

I know this is an old thread but i would appreciate any help.

My ihp-140 displays th egreen charging ligh when the power supply is inserted but does not function. The unit (from the lowest 6-leg chip on the front side of the circuit board) becomes very hot and either the iriver logo is displayed for a short time (once the power is removed) or low battery is displayed and the player turns itself off.

Will replacing this chip (or removing it) fix my player?

[..::RaThek::..]

Greg what is the reading of this chip? Is it LTNP? Or maybe AZU 3AW ZD8L?

[Iriver (Greg)]

Thanks for replying RaThek.

It's the small 6 leg chip at the bottom of this photo:

http://www.rockbox.org/iriver/naked_front_large.jpg

It says TXQ on the photo (from Rockbox obviously) but nothing on mine.
I think i've recognised the chip from RS components and if i can't fit it myself i know someone who can. What do you reckon?

[riverpietro]

Happy to see that many Iriver users are not only the users, they also can maintain and fix their "loved ones".

So we can do it here in Finland also!
I managed to accidentally plug JVC camcorders (11VDC) charger into my IHP 100.
As far as I remember the polarity was the same, so this looks like a classic overvoltage issue.
After that accident the green charging led is lit when plugging in the correct, original charger, but that´s all. Does not turn on

Luckily I found this GREAT thread and even after looking through the replies, I still have to add my own here (sorry, folks if this is repeating)

My background is stricktly electronics, so I should be able to perform some repair tasks myself.

I have now opened the player, and could not see any visible damage (checked both HDD and display -sizes of the PCB), even when looking with a magnifying glass and a good light. Capacitors, IC:s and so on seem OK to me.
Also measured some voltages on the board and found 3,5V on two of the caps (107/6V3) near the battery connector.
This voltage rises to 4,8V when connecting the proper adapter, so it seems like that some charging is going on, but that´s still all... Nothing happens when trying to switch the IHP on.
Does not seem like that any of the caps are shorted or that the unit draws too much current since the voltage rises to 4.8V when plugging the adapter.
And as I told earlier, no visible damage found (or did I miss something)

So what should I look after to bring my great pal back from the dead´s side?
If there´s a list of the potentially risk components in this case, based on you guys experience?

Might there be a certain point into which I could directly feed the supply voltage (btw, is it 3,3V or what?) to see if the problem is with the "on-switching" circuitry?

Is there a schematic available somewhere?

All tips welcome!
-I´m just so pleased with this one that it would break my heart to go for the Ipod or Zen...

[snugglerscove]

Originally Posted by HorstIriver

........
Maybe some will try it... if the iriver is fried anyways, you can't make it worse, and 200$ are probably worth a few hours of tinkering

Will try this, mucho thanks for the info

[..::RaThek::..]

Maybe somebody knows where goes path from the 8th pin of LTNP? It's SoftStart/Shutdown. After pressing PowerOn nothing happens but if I give there 3.3V player starts and work untill I disconect it. HorstIriver what you think about it?