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Simple Fix To iPod Madness?
doce writes "After chunking my seemingly dead iPod off my balcony while reviewing a rubberized case, the darned thing started working again, though not quite perfectly. After taking it apart, I managed to fix it properly just by reseating the hard drive cable. Could this be the cause of all the click-of-death "sad iPod" failures users are seeing?"
I've always been good at slapping CRT computer monitors back into functionality, but not TVs. Besides requiring the right amount of inertia in your swing, you must hit it in the center of the forward portion, the most flexible plastic near the glass; sometimes on the side, sometimes on the top. Importantly, your hand must be relaxed, and your palm should land a picosecond before your fingers...
Procrastination -- because good things come to those who wait.
I've had my (4th gen) iPod reach click-of-death stage twice, and both times I've been able to resurrect it by opening the case, and reseating the drive cable. The second time, it seemed to me that the problem was actually the zif socket at the drive end of the cable, which was displaced on one side by about .5mm.
I think the key to knowing whether this is the problem is to put your iPod into test mode, and look at the smart data. If you see lots of retracts, but no reallocs, then (my hypothesis is that) the hard drive isn't dying, it's just being reset a lot (which involves retracting the heads, and hence the audible click), due to transfer errors as a result of the flaky cable connection.
4 weeks? I took my iPod in and they replaced it on the spot. And it only takes Apple a few days turnaround any time I need a Mac serviced.
Add a small dab of hot glue to the connector next time to keep it from popping open. It won't (shouldn't) damage the plastic, and if you ever have a need to open the connector, the glue can be peeled off with a small amount of force. I used to repair point of sale debit machines, which are constantly being dropped, thrown, punched, etc. Often it's a case of cables popping out or battery leads snapping from an acute case of inertia.
While Apple QC has been better in he past, and hopefully will be better again in the future, it still isn't even close to the PC industry average. Their failure rate was the best for desktops, and 3rd from the best for laptops, according to the latest relevant Consumer Reports iirc.
Apple users just perceive their products as premium items, and thus complain louder when they break. And Apple's general newsworthiness magnifies those complaints until random snafus like some people getting stuck in Apple's newest elevator for 45 minutes make it onto Slashdot as articles, and random greedy lawyers start class action suits against Apple without bothering to sign up any actual clients on whose behalf to file those suits.
Perhaps your machine had trouble with the hard drive cable but its hardly a common problem with ibooks. After all, you had this machine well over 15 months without this problem becoming known in the mac community. Further, both the drive and the motherboard are mounted directly against the frame. Where is there room for movement? i'm not saying that you didn't have it, but its not common.
You can't blame the tech for not simply accepting your diagnosis. Also, you can't blame him that he's quoting the highest number he can come up with - better than surprising you with it later.
finally, its quite well known that applecare is a good idea on those machines. if you machine was a lemon and it took more than two replacements to fix it, you'd be staring at a macbook right now.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
My old Zen Xtra once died due to 'stiction'. This is when the read head gets too close to the platter and sticks to it preventing the HDD from working. The eventual solution was to give it a good hearty whack as it was attempting to spin up, freeing the head and bringing the player back to life.