iPod classic battery drains

Well, I went in to the Apple store to see what they would do about my 80G classic battery problem (3 days old)...after telling me that I could wait 3 hours to talk to a "genius," I told them that that would not be acceptable and that I simply wanted a replacement.

So, they replaced my iPod and I got home, made sure it was fully charged, and have purposefully used it a lot (music, video, cover flow, etc.) and the battery meter has not gone down at all. Note: the software version on the new one is 1.01 (i did not update this time) we'll see what it is like overnight.

After a bit of testing I can definately say this isn't soley a coverflow issue. I have remove coverflow from my menus so can't use it inadvertantly. To turn ipod off i pressed menu until was right at top then pressed left /back track until pause/play symbol turned off and held play/pause until ipod was turned off. then put lock key on. obviously ipod looks like its all settled and ready to put to bed. BUT.. put ipod to my ear and could still hear the hamsters turning there little wheel inside. Thought, oh it will spin down in a few seconds... but no.. left it for a min or 2. Nope, HD still puring away, even though ipod fully turned off. had to turn ipod back on, play something wait for HD to stop spinning BEFORE turning off the put lock back on. done this so lets see if battery drained in morning, Come on APPLE! this is a serious issue and an obvious software fault that needs sorting YESTERDAY! im on V1.02 firmware BTW.

Yep, mine's playing silly bees with it's battery too. It's very odd. I can have it playing music left on for more than 20 hours, but sometimes after charging it and sending it to sleep overnight the battery will be empty in the morning. That's about 8 hours of doing nothing and emptying the battery and more than 20 hours of playing music to empty the battery. It doesn't make much sence. It must be doing something really odd while it is sleeping sometimes. I would imagine the hard drive is constantly spinning at the very least. I wouldn't be supprise if the ARM was doing some proccessing too.
Of course this all leads to the iPod also forgetting my menu ordering a lot. It seems to be the only setting stored in volitile memory, and I don't understand why. Hopefully all this jazz will be sorted in 1.0.3.

Well, it has been two days since I exchanged my 80g classic. I did not update the firmware (still using 1.01) and I have had NO problems with the new one. Battery is still over half full after two days of good usage.

It has to be either a firmware problem or a hardware problem.

I don't know if I will want to update to 1.03 when that time comes around either.

Well now Apple has created a whole new look for iPod Classic users! We're all now going to be in the habit of holding the Classic to our ears, straining to listen carefully - not to music - but if our hard drives are spinning or not even though we've shut the unit off. Kinda like the ghetto blaster to the ear look of the 80s. My battery worked great on my 160 gig before I upgraded to 1.0.2. Now, if I am not extremely careful to listen for or feel by touch if the hard drive is spinning, the battery is dead in the morning. Not bad for $399 Canadian dollars eh?

LMAO, yeah that's funny. You can tell iPod owners by the white ear buds and the new classic owners by looking like they're trying to time warp back to the eighties boom box. Better be careful, if a mental health offical observes these actions you may wind up in the looney bin

I'm also having the same problem. I noticed a couple of mornings that my battery was drained but couldn't work out how. After reading this I listened to my ipod after switching it off and can hear the hard disk spinning. It's still spinning after one hour of being switched off! This was from putting it to sleep directly from cover flow mode. Surely this is a faulty product and by rights the Apple Store should replace it, but is this worth doing if all Classics have the same problem, or are some people not experiencing this fault?

I think I have found a solution to prevent this problem from happening. A complete overnight battery drain happened to me 4 times in the first 6 days of owning the iPOD. After reading this discussion I have a routine to turn off the iPod. I have not had the problem since, and I have noticed that battery time is significantly longer. I hope this helps you.

I have a 160GB iPOD Classic with fw 1.0.2. I updated from 1.0.1 on the first day of owning the iPod (doh). I also use a windows version of iTunes v 7.4.3.1, and this version does not allow me to restore to an older version of the iPOD fw as detailed above. (The dialog box offers something along the lines of "Maintain current version" and "Cancel" ).

This is what I do:

1. I dont use Coverflow.
I think this is becoming clear from the discussions above.

2. I do not switch off the iPOD with a song either playing or paused.
When I want to switch off the iPod, I pause a song, skip forward to the end of the album or playlist until I return to the menu from whence I started. There should not be a "play" or "paused" symbol in the top bar.

3. I then return to the "main" menu.

4. I switch off the iPod from this state then switch the hold button on.

5. I do not remove or re-insert the headphones when switched off.
I have notced the removing or inserting headphones will switch on the iPod. This wont happen with the hold button on, but why oh why engineer a feature that will activate the iPod by inserting the headphones!

6. I do not use any alarms or any of the other "extra" features. The EQ is off.

I hope this works for you, and I look forward to fw v 1.0.3.

Paul.

i keep having this problem too! i just bought this stupid thing, and i turned it off yesterday with maybe 1/5 of the battery drained, and then i turn it back on not even 5 hours later, and all the power is COMPLETELY gone! i couldn't even get to the menu. i also have a problem with the screen that comes on after awhile (you know, the clock and the battery indicator?) where the battery indicator ALWAYS shows a larger depletion than the other one. not only that, but when i first turn on my ipod and choose a song, i can feel the hard drive cranking and the menu's get very slow. actually, the menu's get slow if i don't touch the click wheel for awhile too, and the pictures get stuck on the screen and stuff. VERY ANNOYING. i hope they fix this, or i will just have to return it, it really is a rip-off.

Ive had my 80gb classic for a month and it's happened to me quite a few times. This afternoon the battery was almost completely drained (went from 90% to red) in less than 5 hours. Since i still had some battery there i know for sure that i didnt leave it on by accident, cause it was sleeping and not playing any songs when i turned it on. I have to go through this at least twice every week, and this will obviously hurt the battery life in the long run.
apple should at least give us a discount if we have to replace the battery in the future. its their firmware thats causing this.

7. Don't stare too long at your iPod... he doesn't like it.
8. Don't criticize Steve Jobs in front of your iPod.
9. Never let the LCD of your iPod faced towards a Windows computer, or it won't charge!
C'mon... that's ridiculous... so I can't use EQ or just
turn off my iPod carelessly?
These issues need to be solved pronto!

C'mon... that's ridiculous... so I can't use EQ or just
turn off my iPod carelessly?

Just offering some solutions to help with some problems that some people are having, which, no doubt, Apple will sort out with their next software update.
But in the meantime feel free to turn off your iPod carelessly.

I've never said it was your fault... it's Apple's fault! And by turn off carelessly, I mean turn off without putting the iPod in my ear and making sure it's on the right menu... I've never made that with my 5G and I don't see why I have to do that with my 6G...
And it's ridiculous to spend 350€ in my case in a product with a bug as wretched as this one. This update should've come two months ago...

Having same problem as others. I have the 80gig classic, just bought 2 days ago and it's my first apple product ever period. I bought it, charged it, put music on it and went to work and listened to it for about 18 hours straight with no problems. Came home and charged it, noticed that I could look to update firmware and did and then today at work my battery drained in 4 hours. I thought I charged it incorrectly or something but decided to look to see if there were any other people noticing abnormalties with the product (wasn't really expecting to find anything).

I did use coverflow before I updated because I thought it was a awesome feature, didn't have it on my other MP3 players, and it worked fine. I didn't notice a difference in the menu system or anything so I can't comment on that but I will try out everything listed on this thread.

If I have to downgrade firmware how would I go about doing it? I clicked restore in Itunes expecting it to give me a option of a version to restore like any normal product and it didn't.