A reader, Hartley Odwak, found my iPod Surgery photo album and reported that he found the same problem with his unit. He wrote:
My ipod charges, but neither of my macs will recognize it. I am certain that it is the port; hence why i dismantled mine!
What I see where my Firewire port attached to the logic board are (1) four larger connections at each corner of the port, all of which are loose (are these supposed to be soldered to the board?) and (2) Six very thin pins running parallel, and down from the port, conecting the port to the circuit board. Some of these are loose.
Should I make sure all 10 connections are soldered tight to the board? The thin ones may be too hard for me to solder, as I have never worked on such tiny connections, and as such may take it to a shop to have them do it.
His solution, which I would recommend to anyone over my experience, was to take the unit to a local independent Mac shop to get the soldering repairs done. It cost about $40 and the unit works again (unlike mine), so well worth the $.
Some notes on my new 10GB iPod to round out the story:
- The backlight is very cool.
- The solid state, no moving parts controls took virtually no time to get used to. I like the solid state wheel a lot better than the original moving one.
- I did have to get used to the new button placement; having everything around the wheel was a little easier, I think.
- One gripe: the new unit doesn’t work with the old remote control, so I’ll have to buy a new one.
Overall a slick little unit.