iPod classic tech advice

[prshah]

Hi all,

I apologise in advance for a thread that has no connection with Ubuntu Forums, but I don't want to add another username/password set to my burgeoning list of forums. So I decided to trawl for expert comments here in the Community Center.

Background:
I have an iPod Classic 30GB (no idea what gen, etc). It came to me totally dead. No display, response, not even when connecting USB cable to the computer. I opened it up, and the battery looked bulgy to me, so I thought that it would be a battery problem (rightly, as it turns out).

So I bought a couple of el-cheapo iPod batteries. I replaced the bad battery, and the unit started up. I tested various stuff for about 5mins and everything seemed OK. The replacement battery came to me almost drained, and so I put it for charging. About 15 minutes later, the iPod was dead again.

The replacement battery looked just fine (no bulging, burning, blackening, etc). However, the unit remained dead. So I put in the other replacement battery, and again everything started working. However, when I kept it for charging, the same thing happened again; the iPod died.

So, here are the questions:
a) The upper part of the click wheel (menu button) gets rather hot when charging.. can this be because of the battery?
b) Do I try again with better batteries?
c) Can it be related to a cable fault in the USB cable?
d) Can the now-dead replacement batteries be "revived" someway?
e) I dread any suggestions that the logic board is at fault. Any way to confirm?
f) Any suggestions?
g) Can any kind soul with an existing membership on Apple's forums post a thread with these details and link to it for reading?

Cheers,

[Spr0k3t]

I can guarantee this issue is a dead logic board. I've done a few repairs to ipods just like this one which required replacing the board. The batteries you have should still work in other ipods though. My recommendation instead of replacing the logic board, you could get a better mp3 player for about the same price with more features. Most 4th gen boards cost about $60-70USD. You can get a new 16GB for less than that. I purchased a Sansa Fuze 4GB model and added a 32GB MicroSD card for just $58

Need help identifying that ipod (I think it may be a 4th gen from your description): http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1353

On a side note, I hate apple.

[prshah]

I can guarantee this issue is a dead logic board.
On a side note, I hate apple.

Cheers, thanks for your advice.

I don't want to turn this into a hate/love apple thread, but I love Apple's products, hate their policies. That said, I don't own any Apple products; rather out of my price reach.