ipod not seen by itunes?

Have bought a refurbed Ipod for my son and set up a new account on my laptop. Husband uses older version of itunes on home pc. Ipod initially picked up by itunes and it has named it but will not generally sync. Have run diagnostics and it says cannot see Ipod but when you connect it says syncing on screen and if you go to file devices sync it says it is synced but it doens't update. I say generally because suddenly a screen came up that showed a picture of the 3rd gen nano and a bar across the bottom and an autofill option which I selected and it filled the nano. Then when I tried to sync changes we had made back to sncing on screen but no change to content. Have reinstalled itunes and reset ipod to no avail. Help - sons birthday in two days - Is the ipod duff or could it be something else?