Fixing A Creative Zen(Time for the fun stuff! See last post)

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:59 pm

I'm getting a zen for free. I don't have it yet.

All I know is that it was dropped, and changes songs randomly in the middle of some songs, some possibly more than others.

Scratched hard drive?
Button pad moved over?

Where do I start?

sgtpepper · Post by **sgtpepper** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:43 pm

I'd guess scratched HD. I would buy one of those cheap Zunes to harvest the HD from, 80-100 bucks is cheaper than retail, so it'd be a good buy if you've got the cash...

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:51 pm

There's no way to fix a scratched HD?

Any alternative to buying another HD? And will any work, or do I need a specific kind?

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:24 pm

Ok, I got the zen. Pink! I sense I cool paint job in the future.

Here's what I've been told:

"The battery doesn't hold a charge longer than about an hour"

"It's been dropped numerous times"

"It's possessed. Every now and then it switches songs mid-song, and seems to favour *Some guy I've never heard of*."

I took it apart, and sure enough, the protection circuit of the battery was tripped. I opened up the casing, and there is apparently heat damage. There is a circle on both sides of the metal case where paint seems to have evaporated away or something. It read 3 volts, and has that mushy feel Lipos get when they die. The battery is most definitely in need or replacement. I'm thinking another Lipo or 3 AAAs. Of course, another Li-po would be easiest.

Now, the hard drive is a Seagate ST1, which has several built-in anti-scratch technologies:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/storag ... 1-5gb.html

Would something like a reformatting do the trick?

Also, it says it has a CF interface, if I was willing (I'm not willing) could I solder a CF card to the connector on the board?

Suggestions on battery and HD situation?

Post by **bicostp** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 3:35 pm

I think you should make up a CF adapter for it. A card will take less power and you won't have to worry about a spinning hard disk. Plus, if you made the card slot accessible from outside the case, you could carry extra cards around for more capacity, if you wanted to.

<a href="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 76">Here's a 2 gig Sandisk CF card for $36.</a> There's 8 gig CF II cards on Circuit City's website, but they cost about $150.
EDIT 2: <a href="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 76">here's a A-Data 4 gig for $40.</a>

Of course, a hard drive is cheaper per meg than CF cards...

How many milliamps was the stock battery good for? Would you be willing to use AAs instead of AAAs? They're bigger but have about double the capacity. (We use 2650mAh NiMh Duracells in our camera.)

Changing songs at random could be anything. Maybe when it was dropped, part of the OS got corrupted. maybe when it ran too hot something fried or bridged. All I know is that you might want to figure out what the problem is before you invest a bunch of time and effort into the Zen.

EDIT: On that product / review page, it looks like it just slides into a CF slot. Is it hardwired in the player?

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:14 pm

It connects via ribbon cable.

The computer doesn't recognize that it's attached, even with the drivers etc. installed. Apparently I should try recovery mode, which requires a battery. I may steal one temporarily to use.

And I was hoping for ideas < $10. Otherwise I'd do a CF mod or buy a new drive and battery, but I'd like to keep this as free as possible.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 4:57 pm

Kurt_ wrote:It connects via ribbon cable.

According to that site, it looks like the ribbon should have pis on it that plug into the hard drive, so you just unplug the ribbon from the drive. Are you sure its CF compatible? The pins might fit in a CF card, but it doesn't mean it'll work. Like a CF card will only work in 1st gen ipod mini, an adapter is required for other ipods. I found this out after I got 2 3rd gen ipods and a 4GB CF card.

But I traded one of the ipods for a GBA and got a small USB CF reader to put the card in, so it was ok.

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 5:52 pm

I'll check it out later. I wiped the firmware, but need a battery to do the firmware upgrade. So I took a Lipo and used it, but it's not one that I can charge, and is borderline "too low to use". I tried 3 AA Ni-MH, but for some reason those just plain didn't work. I'm attempting to charge it now (with the original 3V mushy battery), although I'm not sure if it's actually charging or not, as the firmware is messed up. It's on my wood stove in case something decided to explode.

Anyways, it did update the firmware, but apparently it's the wrong firmware? (It's not, and it says it updated it, but I guess it failed a little.) I need to get a working battery...

As for the drive, It probably is what you said. In that case all I need is a simple adapter, which you can buy standard, in order to get it to run on CF cards. But I think I'm going to just format it and see if that helps first.

I can probably borrow a friend's zen battery for a night.

Updates soon, I guess.

Is it possible to paint over the Buttons? I know they're touch sensitive, and you can't use an iPod with gloves, but this is a zen. A scratching reveals that the paint on top has a thin metal layer underneath.

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 9:56 am

Ok, I updated the firmware etc. etc.

Whenever it starts up, I get the error "Overheating, Shutting Down". It is NOT overheating.

So I did what I could: Reloaded 2 or 3 different firmware versions. Same thing.

After getting really annoyed, I decided to write down every letter (and #) on every IC on all of the zen's boards, looking for one that regulates temperature.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

MAJOR EDIT:

The problem is on the headphone/usb board. 100% guaranteed, as I used the one in my friend's zen and it works 100%.

There are only three ICs on this board:

U1: Not a standard chip package. Silver hexagon on top of a black hexagon, with no pins sticking out, and what appears to be 4 leads, or all-hidden leads and 4 mounting solder spots.

Labeled:

AAC
DET501
41

U2: Big chip with lots of smt components nearby, on a separate board attached to the headphone board. Appears to be pre-assembled.

Labeled:

TEA5767
VC5(S?)XT0
03
DPG04382

(All/any 0's may be O's)

U3: Teeny Tiny chip. 6 teeny tiny pins.

Labeled:

343

Post by **Skyone** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 3:45 pm

The TEA5767 is a FM receiver chip, so you can cross U2 off the list. U3 seems to be an op-amp of some type, possibly a MOSFET driver.

Good quality pictures would help.

Also, just a guess, but U1 might be a decoding chip for the AAC format. That might be the problem, as it might misread some songs' encoding, etc.

Again, pics!

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 3:51 pm

U1 is an Electro-Magnetic Audio Transducer.

U2 is an FM Radio Tuner, pre-assembled like I thought. Maybe it has a temperature shut-down range?

http://www.ortodoxism.ro/datasheets/philips/TEA5768.pdf

U3: I can't find anything on it. Help would be much appreciated. It might be B48, or 848. It's really tiny, but I think it says B48.

Post by **Skyone** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 4:19 pm

Read up. Pixpixpixpixpixpixpix!

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:02 pm

It was...erm...a tiny piece of solder. On the back of a tiny connector. On the opposite side from the one I was holding it from the whole time.

Bleh.

Post by **Skyone** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:05 pm

Feh.

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:53 pm

Now it's time to sand everything down with 1200 grit sandpaper to give it a murky look, get rid of the pink everywhere but the touchpad, and give the touchpad a light satin white coat. I tested it out, and even through a cotton shirt (1 layer, not 2), the touchpad could be used. In paper folds, 2 was fine, 4 was barely. A light coat should be fine.