Archos broken after blizzard?

[TheUnknownCylon]

Hi folks!

Yesterday a snow storm/blizzard suprised me while listening music on my 605 Wifi. I continued listening without care.

Later that day I wanted to listen some music in the train back to home. The problem: the archos did not turn on.

Now I can't get it on anyway:

• The power on button does not respond in any way
• The Archos will turn on when I put it in the minidock (charching)
• The charching led is green, never starts blinking anyway.
• When the Archos turns on I can see the Archos splashscreen for 3 or 4 seconds. Sometimes the HDD led will blink some red, sometimes it does not.
  Then, after the 3 or 4 seconds, the player is turned off.

I know that it was not a good idea to have that thing in the blizzard, but now I'm in trouble.

I've some serious questions:

• Can I turn my Archos back on?
• Is this a guarantee matter? ( I think not but... you never know )
• If not, can I grab the disc and plug it into my notebook ( I want my music and BSG back anyway )

Is there someone with good advice?
Thanks in return!

Remco

[cosmicnut]

Electronics don't like the cold or the wet. Add the two together and it can be a disaster...

It sounds like the battery AND hdd could be dead...

The archos hard drives are standard laptop 2.5" drives. You can't plug them into a desktop directly. You can either get a 2.5" to 3.5" converter or a USB to HDD adaptor that can take 2.5" disks.
The converter is cheaper but the USB-HDD is more usefull.

[BlythS]

It may have just failed to go into suspend properly when you put it away for the day and then it rans its battery down completely dead. These devices don't like having their batteries run completely dead - it may take a couple of attempts at charging to get it to take enough charge to turn on properly and then it will take a full charge (they are designed to be turned on when charging).

Electronics may not like the cold, but the cold shouldn't kill them. Water can though and if the player got really cold and was then taken into a warm moist environment there could be condensation to deal with. But as long as you didn't actually let the player get snow all over it, it should be able to survive a little cold weather - from what little you've said, it doesn't sound like it should void the warranty.

If all else fails, as cosmicnut has suggested, grab a USB laptop drive case for it - you can pick them up at discount pc/electronics stores or on eBay for $10-$15 and they are great. I have re-used a couple of old laptop drives to store music and keep my laptop's drive uncluttered.

[TheUnknownCylon]

It may have just failed to go into suspend properly when you put it away for the day and then it rans its battery down completely dead. These devices don't like having their batteries run completely dead - it may take a couple of attempts at charging to get it to take enough charge to turn on properly and then it will take a full charge (they are designed to be turned on when charging).

Electronics may not like the cold, but the cold shouldn't kill them. Water can though and if the player got really cold and was then taken into a warm moist environment there could be condensation to deal with. But as long as you didn't actually let the player get snow all over it, it should be able to survive a little cold weather - from what little you've said, it doesn't sound like it should void the warranty.

If all else fails, as cosmicnut has suggested, grab a USB laptop drive case for it - you can pick them up at discount pc/electronics stores or on eBay for $10-$15 and they are great. I have re-used a couple of old laptop drives to store music and keep my laptop's drive uncluttered.

Thanks for your reply (both). It was not really cold, like the cold in Finland or Russia. Maybe 5 degrees C below 0.

Yesterday I charged the battery the whole day, resulting in a longer startup time (Now it turns off after a couple of seconds more). The screen is bright and clear as usual and besides the early shutdown I can not hear or see unusual things.

When I open the case and remove the HDD (temporarily), does this affect warranty?

I'll try recharge it today again and I'll post the result (I'm not very optimistic, but you never know).

[MarkT]

Yes, if you open the case your warranty is gone.

5 degrees below zero is a pretty extreme temperature to be trying to run a HD and a LiPo battery so it isn't too surprising you've got problems.

[BlythS]

Yes, if you open the case your warranty is gone.

5 degrees below zero is a pretty extreme temperature to be trying to run a HD and a LiPo battery so it isn't too surprising you've got problems.

MarkT - did you notice he said degrees C?
That is not an extreme temperature - it's a few degrees below the freezing point - warm spring skiing weather here in Canada .
LiIon batteries stored at 0 degrees C last longer than when stored at higher temperatures (see batteryuniversity.com) - so I highly doubt that it will damage them. It will certainly reduce their performance since it increases the internal resistance, but it should not damage them.

[cosmicnut]

You may still get problems though, not just from the battery.
You have to think about the mechanics in the hard drive, the pixels in the LCD, the thermal properties of the solder, the possibility of condensation build up (these aren't vacuum sealed products). Cold can do a lot of damage to electronic equipment, especially below 0C.
Now I'm not saying its always a killer. But if the cold makes the spring on the hard drive head brittle and you use it, it could snap and destroy the drive.
Mancufacturers give an operating temperature for a reason. Go below that and they won't honour warantees.

[BlythS]

All interesting points - in theory.
From a practical standpoint though - the unit did not fail while out in the cold - it was not exposed to cold for an extended period of time - and it wasn't that cold - so let's rule out brittleness and thermal properties of solder. Also keep in mind that the device was not left in the cold overnight, it was in use - so it was generating its own heat, and was likely in a coat pocket as well, so it's unlikely that the unit itself got very cold at all. Condensation is still a slight possibility, but most of the other extremes would not come into play. I'd still say the most likely culprit was a deep discharge of the battery due to it not suspending properly (known issue) that has damaged the battery.

[iamapirate]

leave it in an airing cupboard or somewhere mildly warm for a day or so and wait for it to dry out completely.
I have a similar problem, it's somewhere on the 2nd page of threads - cant be bothered to link. Just look for me as the topic author.

Josh

[TheUnknownCylon]

Here is the link to the topic anyway: http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=19119

Seems like it's the melt causing me trouble. I don't believe it's killed by the cold (I always travel with my notebook, never had diskproblems with it).

How long did you wait before your Archos was able to turn on (does it turn on anyway??)
After two days charging it was able to startup 10 seconds, after that it failed. I stopped charging for a day and it's going offline within 4 seconds again.

Unfortunately: warranty expired three weeks ago.

[TheUnknownCylon]

Last week I got my Archos back. It was repaired by Archos without any charge.

They replaced the motherboard. I've not lost any files on the Archos.
Thanks Archos, and thanks to MP3shop.nl (only bad thing: it was lost in their shop, it took a while before they found it!!)