I decided to open up my Archos 605 30G and have a look around. Unfortunately the screen wouldn't detach so I could only get a good look at the back, the battery and harddrive.

The drive is a Hitachi HTC368030H5CE00 (Travelstar C3K80) which is 1.8" and spins at 3600rpm. It seems to have a so called ZIF connector, I couldn't work out how to detach it and didn't want to risk breaking it.

The battery is soldered to the mainboard and has no distinctive markings, so not easy to replace.

Although I couldn't remove the screen to have a peek at the onboard chipset, I believe it is a Texas Instruments TMS320DM6446or DM6443 (DaVinci), these combine an ARM9 core for running the system and a DSP chip for superb video, audio and image processing (The DM stands for 'Digital Media')

Note when opening that you need a 1mm philips screwdriver and the screw near the headphone socket is slightly bigger than the others and the one at the top of the pull-out "stand" on the back is even longer, so don't get them mixed up.

The battery is on top of the harddrive


The battery removed (notice it is soldered to the mainboard)


The harddrive removed


A close-up of the drive (a bit shaky, sorry)


Here's a picture of the philips screwdriver I used compared to a usb connector

cooool. i wish the battery were more easily replaceable. i hate knowing that this device could possibly only have a lifespan of 3 years.

looks like there is reall not real protection of the HD is that the same layout as the 80 gb and 160 gb were the battery is on the back of the HD?

No, the HD and battery are flipped around on the higher models:

http://www.pbase.com/archos/inbox

The battery pack feels almost "padded", but it can't offer much protection to the Hard-drive, I do wonder if in fact it is the cause of crashes with the heat generated directly onto the drive.

I thought the battery was under the drive in the higher capacity models (40Gb+)?
(Which would mean a cooler drive but more prone to knocks.)


edit
thanks jh1, that clears it up!

Thanks, that was very interesting to look inside !

Yeah why would they want to flip them around if it causes more heat?

Everything has been designed to keep the unit as slim as possible. Since the 30G drive is as small as the battery, it is possible to fit them both into the same recess. On the other had, the laptop drives in the higher model can only fit on top of everything else. While it is preferable to allow cooling for the heat producer, we don't know if the 1.8" drive really produces significant heat like the laptop drives. Batteries also heat up during charge cycles, so there is a benefit to locating it on the outside as well.

Ok now I see.

Hmm, a small hard drive and a big battery pack, yet I can only squeeze 4h45min hours of video out of it.

Sure hope the 2.5inch hard drive models have bigger battery packs.

This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but from that article it sounds like the hard drive could be upgraded to a faster model or replaced if necessary. I imagine the battery would wear out abou the same time, but for those of us who usually have the machine plugged in, the hd is definitely more important.

On the cooling side, I'm working on a quick and easy fan shroud attachment. I'll post pics when I can.

My 605 30GB has a seagate 1.8" drive. Also, to take the screen off, you have to remove two screws that hold the bottom of the switch panel on. However, if yours is like mine, you will find that the shielding for the display is soldered to the board, rendering the ribbon cable socket essentially worthless.

I hope somebody mentioned before, but the 4gb/30gb 605 is 5mm thinner than the 80gb/160gb 605. it's impossible to upgrade a 30gb to a larger one, unless you have Bollo (the mighty boosh) for familiar.

Also i want some pics from the DaVinci chip. And pls check if everyone has the same chip rev.

Thx.

To bring up an old topic but...

They make 1.8" HDD's as large as 160 gigs. There are places on ebay to buy 60-80 gig 1.8" HDD's for less then $100. UNless they did something tricky with the connector it should be easy to pull the ribbon cable and intall it on a new HDD. I'm sure they went with a 2.5" drive on the larger models because of price. It's amazing we aren't seeing more runtime out of the smaller models because a 2.5" drive uses about 2.5 watts for energy efficient models (I've seen as high as 4 watts) while the smaller 1.8" models uses much less, about half. ~1.2-1.4 watts at startup or during seeking.

Ahhh... just read about the problems with the Archos booting with the non-original drive even after Ghosting.

maybe the thicker ones have better batteries?