[ghporter]

That's what it did. My son had it plugged into the AC adaptor because he hadn't charged it for a while, and was playing it when it just quit during a song.

I know that it's still under warranty, but I would like to know if this has happened to anyone else and what (if any) cause was determined.

My own iPod has decided it wants to be used EVERY DAY or the battery goes dead, and it's newer than my son's. If updating and/or restoring it doesn't help, I think TWO iPods are going back. Is that bad luck or what?

[Macpilot]

Most

[Macpilot]

Most iPod troubles are due to dropping the iPod. This causes the hard drive to go out of alignment and therefore require more juice to spin the drive. More juice than the battery is designed to provide. This, then, appears as a battery issue.

The way to test whether you have a bad battery or a bad hard drive is to use the Repeat One and the Repeat All settings. Do two different battery tests. You fully charge the iPod and restore it before these tests, and you turn off shuffle and backlight.

The first test: Repeat All. If the iPod plays for many hours on this setting, then your hard drive and battery are fine.

The second test: Repeat One. If the iPod plays for a very short time, it is either the hard drive or battery. In this case, do the Repeat All again. If the iPod does not last long, then you have a bad battery.

Hopefully that makes sense!

Basically, the Repeat All will isolate the hard drive, because it has to keep spinning the drive to find all the songs, whereas the Repeat One caches the current song and does not require the spinning of the disk.

Good luck with your iPod. For best results, don't drop the iPod, get AppleCare, and restore the iPod every month or so.

[ghporter]

Thanks for the input. Neither of these iPods has been dropped more than 6 inches onto a cushion; my wife's iBook has done more falling than either iPod and it's working fine. I had thought that maybe the battery connector in my son's iPod had worked loose or something, given that it seemed to be completely stone dead.

Well I went online to set up warranty repair of my son's iPod and as I was finishing up I tried the buttons one more time---and it turned on and is working! I guess it just needed a day off! I'm going to test the battery on my own iPod today, as I've charged the bejeebers out of it overnight so if it's charging at all it's FULLY charged.