blazin's Journal: I broke it.

On Saturday, my wonderful wife bought me a 60GB iPod video (black) for our upcoming anniversary. Ok, I bought it, but it was her gift to me. So I take it home, plug it into the computer to get it all charged, etc. and it loads some podcasts I had previously grabbed.

So Sunday evening I was using the iPod (I had copied over about 4 hour long DJ mixes onto the ipod [more on this later]) as a stopwatch to time how long it took to level my Oblivion character's sneak ability. After I finished and then got my ass killed after leveling 29 times without saving (ARG!!!) I decided to see how long it took to level something else, like blade (I don't remember). Then I realized it was pointless so I wanted to delete the timer for the second one. So I get to the screen where I can delete it or cancel and the iPod stopped responding to anything. I tried to go through the reset procedure, the update procedure, everything, but nothing would work. So I left it sitting on the shelf, with the backlight on, hoping that the batteries would completely run out and I would be able to try again.

Backing up just a bit, I was using the iPod (with my 4 songs) earlier that day while I mowed, sprayed weeds and turned on the sprinklers (more on this later).

So I got all that done and everything was happy, and IIRC, I started ripping my CD collection into iTunes so I would have some stuff to listen to on my pretty new toy.

Back to the present, where my iPod is happily displaying a bright white screen with two options and the backlight on. So I figure I am screwed for the evening as far as the iPod goes, so I went back to Oblivion. Around 1am I decided that was enough Oblivion for then, plus I was ticked at not saving (and I did it again that evening where I lost 2 hours by not saving and then trying something stupid that resulted in a critical character to a quest going bugnuts and attacking everyone in site and eventually getting killed by town guards (more on that later too [*]).

So I get an email that someone has sent me a TV show I missed to my ReplayTV in the basement (unfortunately you have to accept shows on the actual Replay and not through the network), so I go to the basement to accept the transfer. That's when I notice my socks had become totally soaking wet. Each step I took resulted in wetter and wetter socks. This is not a good thing I said to myself in my brain. So I look over where the little stop-cock drain thingy on the sprinkler system lives, and it is dripping water. Like 4 or 5 drops a second, maybe a little more. Not a stream, but definitely enough to cause problems in the 13 hours it had been leaking. So I crank the hell out of it with my fingers and the dripping stops. So I did close it, but apparently not enough.

So upstairs I go to tell my wife that the basement is flooded (no standing water, but whereever I step, water would come up through the carpet). So we move half the furniture in the basement to the other half of the basement and I get the carpet pulled back. There's a whole bunch of padding that is quite wet. So I decide that first thing in the morning I'll be heading out to rent some air mover fans to dry stuff out.

I head upstairs, plug in the ipod to charge (it was already really low) and go to bed. Next morning (Monday) I call into work to let them know I'll be late cuz I have to get some fans going to dry out my basement. The first Home Depot I go to though, doesn't rent anything. Fortunately the second does. So I head back, set up the fans and my mom shows up with a wet-dry vac. I end up spending the rest of the day vacuuming water out of the padding and carpet (and several calls to work to say I'd be later, I'd be even later, I wasn't going to make it in). Eventually I called a place that does this stuff professionally and got them to tell me what they would do if they would come do the job, which turned out I was doing most stuff correctly, but would probably just need to replace the padding instead of dry it out.

So I disconnected my computers, monitors, etc. and move more furniture to get it out of the way so pull the carpet back even more and then sclepped a large back of very heavy and wet carpet padding upstairs to lay in the back yard to dry out.

Really long story slightly shorter, I ended up getting stuff dried out well (as best I can tell anyway) and we left the fans going all night to dry out the carpet without the wet carpet underneath. I left the ipod connected to the computer to charge again.

In the morning I woke up and the ipod was dead. It had a little picture saying that it needed to be charged and it wouldn't even turn the backlighting on. Then it completely went dead.

Keep in mind it is only a 2.5 day old ipod at this point. I am trying to decided if I got a bum ipod and need to return it for a new one.

[*] This isn't the first time some dumb NPC I needed to do a quest went insane. On my previous game (about 70 hour in, level 30 etc), I was doing the Mazoga the Orc quest where some orc shows up at the castle and claims she is a knight, etc, and I am supposed to investigate. I talked to her and she demanded I bring some dude to see her. I blew her off for a few weeks (months? who knows, I had a lot of active quests). So when I finally got around to finding the guy she wanted I return to the castle and she's going nuts and attacking the guards. I tried several ways of helping her, incuding leaving her alone (she killed a couple of guards and then got killed), helping her fight the guards (she survived, I could talk to her, but then I am wanted). When I did this I got my bounty up high enough that it wouldn't let me pay it so I ended up going to jail, where I broke out, and went back upstairs to see Mazoga going nuts and eventually getting the crap kicked out of her by the gaurds, some mages and the count(?!). Eventually I gave her up as a lost cause and figured I'd have to try that quest on another character, but it just wasn't going to work.

So I decided to go back to the main quest where I am supposed to escort two guys to a city way up north. I'd previously told them to sit and wait while I did some stuff for the Thieve's guild and the Dark Brotherhood. I guess both the guys had problems with me stealing stuff and killing people and they'd run around yelling and screaming that "There's been a murder! The body's still warm!" or "Stop! Thief!", etc. It makes it tough to be all sneaky and covert. So I activate the escort quest and find the icons that indicate they are way the hell up north, probably by or in the city I am supposed to take them to. I figured they must have walked there themselves and I needed to go talk to them and move the quest forward. When I get to the city I discovered they were in fact inside the city and the only way in the door is with a key which I didn't have. So my main quest was essentially over. That's when I started a new character.

Good gravy, this is a long one. If you get to this point, please let me know.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Take it back.

[blazin]

It is currently working. Or it was this morning. It is sitting in my pocket while I listen to podcasts on the computer. I'm just worried that since it completely locked up in less than 24 hours since purchase and that it didn't charge after leaving it plugged into the computer overnight that I may have a bum unit.

The computer wasn't recognizing that anything was plugged in at all when I tried the reset procedure. I think I do need to exchange for another one.

Thanks for the advice.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Take it back.

[blazin]

I did purchase the apple care thing. I also had trouble with that as the instructions for enrolling it don't match the website at all, so I had to enroll it over the phone. I will try to make sure all the stuff is the latest and greatest and then I'll wipe it completely. Uploading the songs and videos seems to be quick, so I'm not worried about having to do that again.

Thanks a bunch again.

Oh hey

[trmj]

While we're on the subject, remember how my ipod died last June and I got it replaced?

The replacement is in the process of failing in the exact same way, with the added bonus of having battery issues. I think I'll go with a Nano next, so I don't have to worry about having another hard drive fail in my ipod.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Oh hey

[trmj]

From what I remember, the store guy said it only has a 90 day warranty because it's a replacement. Haven't taken it in, I have until the end of July for the 1 year mark on this one.

Do the replacements come with a 1 year from the time of replacement? If so, I'll be paying a visit to the fruit shop again.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Oh hey

[trmj]

In that case, I've been out of warranty for two months. Tough luck, I guess. I'll be putting off my new bicycle purchase for a bit longer (is it wrong that the bicycle I'll be buying costs as much as any two cars I've owned?)

Re:Oh hey

[blazin]

The stories of failures on this site and others is what prompted me to get the apple care package. Not that I am happy about having to pay more for something to work like it should, but I am hoping the iPod will prove to be worth the $520 it cost to walk out of the store with it.

Re:Oh hey

[trmj]

I'll put it this way:

I _hate_ that the ipods fail so much.

I'll be getting a new one.

The convenience alone of having something small that I don't have to pick and choose what I want to listen to long before listening is why I enjoy it so much. I look at the applecare plan the same way you did, but I did not purchase it. I figured that I got a prematurely bad unit. Now I see that the additional $30 should just be considered part of the unit's price.

Re:Oh hey

[blazin]

That'd be $60 for applecare. And you may as well add a case to keep it from getting all scratched to hell as well. So figure $520 as the real price for a 60GB iPod.

i got to that point

[subgeek]

you said you wanted to know.

man, i want to play oblivion.

Re:i got to that point

[blazin]

Oblivion is excellent. It's a good thing it is because if almost any other game had problems where you find you cannot complete the game after putting in over 70 hours, I think I'd stop playing it. As it stands I'm probably 15 hours into a second character. Or really probably a 6th or 7th, but I started over (and over and over) a few times near the beginning. But that was my choice.