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ipod battery won't hold a charge

hey, i have had a 5th generation 30gb ipod for about 6 months now. i will listen to it for about an hour or so, with a ton of battery left and then turn it off, sometimes sliding the hold button on too to make sure it doesn'taccidentally turn on. But then the next day or so i will turn off the hold and try to turn it on to listen to it and nothing will happen. it just won't turn on. so then i'll charge it and it'll have to fully recharge, like it had had absolutely no battery before. what is wrong and what can i do about it?

Windows XP

Posted on Jun 11, 2006 5:22 PM

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21 replies

Jun 16, 2006 3:45 PM in response to btabz

thanks for your help, but i have already looked at all of those articles. it seems to die overnight, or while it isn't in use, but it seems fine while it is in use most of the time. the battery just doesn't seem to die really quickly during regular use. Also, it won't turn on after i first pick it up and try resettting it-- i have to charge it first in order for it to turn on. it acts like the battery has been totally run out and discharged, when it shouldn't have been discharged.
*KatBT

Jun 17, 2006 9:35 AM in response to katbt

i tried resetting it for a second time. after i did this i found a new clock/alarm and deleted this. it seems to be working fine now(i did that last night), but will keep an eye on it to see if it happens again. thanks for your help.
*KatBT
P.S.the "iPod Battery Unplugged" site had a lot of good suggestions and things that could really help if it keeps doing this, or has other problems. Thanks.

Jun 20, 2006 10:19 AM in response to katbt

well, it has done it again. for about two or three days it worked fine, except once i used it scrolling through songs and making an on the go playlist for about an hour and the battery was practically dead after that. so now when i tried to turn it on this morning, after it had been pretty much charged the night before, it wouldn't turn on. the battery acted like it had been totally discharged and it is charging right now. when it was first plugged in to be charged, it had the old black and white charging symbol and took a couple of minutes before the computer recognized it. so if anyone could please help me with this problem i would much appreciate it. Thanks for any input! *KatBT

P.S. I just looked at the clocks and the mysterious California clock was there (this had appeared there before) but like before, the alarm was off. i deleted this once again and i hope it works. So if this is it, could someone please tell me how to stop this thing from appearing??? and wasting my charge cycles User uploaded file Thanks

Windows XP

Jun 20, 2006 11:30 AM in response to iP0d

I know that it does, i wasn't too worried about it, except that it drained in an hour surprised me a bit, considering that the video should last 3 hours of continuous play. Like I said, i wasn't too worried about it though. Also, i was going throught the albums and looking at them and adding a ton of songs (1025 to be exact) so i thought it would be easier to do on the actual ipod adding whole albums at once. But I do appretiate any suggestions or input anyone has, so thanks.

Jun 22, 2006 11:25 AM in response to katbt

Well, I guess that it was just the clock that was the problem, so i suppose that i will just have to check to see if it is there everytime before i turn it off. Please, if anyone knows how to truely stop it from coming back, please tell me!
But now i think i have encountered a new problem: the battery doesn't last very long at all. i was listening to it and playing Solitaire for nearly 5 MINUTES and the battery was almost totally out when it had started out almost full. I'll check out the other posts on this because i know im not the first to have (or think to have) this problem, but will still apreciate any replies! thanks!
KatBT

Jun 26, 2006 7:41 PM in response to katbt

Ok, so my 5th generation 30 gig iPod has been acting up some more. I have found that the batttery only drains really quickly every once in a while while i'm playing games, but at other times i'll be playing games and it will last ten or more times as long.
However this is not what i am worried about. what i am worried about is that the battery still sometimes drains totally overnight. And it wont turn on without charging it for at least ten minutes.

This happened again last night/ today (i turned it off last night,making sure that no clocks were set or on/there and then turned it on at about 5 today), but when i went to turn it on, nothing would happen until i pressed down the select and/or menu buttons and held them for a while. Thats when the apple logo would flash and it would go blank again. So i plugged it in to charge it up again and it acted like it had been discharged again. But i have not mentioned that when i firt plug it in after it supposedly has been discharged, some sort of error sign shows up for just a tiny amount of time- so short, i dont even know what it looks like exactly. but i know it is reallt small and has the triangle with an exclamation point as part of it.Also, when this happens i'll check the clocks and a weird clock for california will be there, but no alarm will be turned on.

If someone knows what could be wrong, and how it can be fixed, i would greatly appreciate any information or sugestions. I will try to restore it and hope that that works.
Thanks to those who have made suggestions!
*KatBT

Jul 5, 2006 12:39 PM in response to katbt

Nope, restoring did nothing and i think i have everything up to date. I have also reset it a number of times.
it is also still draining really fast at times-- one second it has full battery, the next, nothing-- and this is not mch of an exageration, it played maybe two songs until it went to a skinny bit of red battery and then another two and it shut off. It doesn't always do this, but that is what happened the last time i used it and it was unplugged from the charger (computer USB.
Please, i still need help! If anyone knows anyhting, please tell me!
Thanks, KatBT

Jul 7, 2006 11:11 PM in response to katbt

Well, i sent a message to apple feedback about my problem. here is what i said, i am posting it here in case it has any useful information i forgot to mention.
I have noticed that sometimes my ipod will discharge overnight after being fully charged the day before. It has not happened yet after i restored it, but now i am finding that the battery appears to run out really quickly, and i am not sure if it is just the meter being so inaccute that it makes the ipod think it needs to shut off or if the battery truely fully dies so quickly. So i might be suggestiong something be done about the meter, that is if i am correct that it is the culprit. i recalibrated the battery/meter the other day and am not sure if that helped just yet.

Another thing that i find is that a clock that i did not program or set will appear in the Extras>Clocks set for California (I live in Colorado)and this always appear after the battery has been discharged or sometimes just randomly appears, but usualy after it has been turned off for a bit.
This is a theory to the overnight rundown: a mysterious alarm might be set for sometime in the night and will play songs until it runs out of juice. I personnaly have not had any alrms set for in the night (i have checked many times) but have heard that sometimes it will turn on by itself although all alarms are off and think this could be/have been the case for me.
So I'm not sure if all of these problems are connected.


So that's it. I still need help! i recalibrated the battery the other night and it seems to have helped, but am not sure yet. and maybe the restore did help, im just not sure and would still like suggestions!!

Jul 13, 2006 11:41 AM in response to katbt

hey, i have had a 5th generation 30gb ipod for about
6 months now. i will listen to it for about an hour
or so, with a ton of battery left and then turn it
off, sometimes sliding the hold button on too to make
sure it doesn'taccidentally turn on. But then the
next day or so i will turn off the hold and try to
turn it on to listen to it and nothing will happen.
it just won't turn on. so then i'll charge it and
it'll have to fully recharge, like it had had
absolutely no battery before. what is wrong and what
can i do about it?

Windows XP



i have this exact same problem on my 4th generation ipod if anybody knows how to fix it please email me on alex_moeller@hotmail.co.uk

Jul 18, 2006 3:34 AM in response to harveyalex

ok i read about the softwear issues beig a problem and reading what others had done to try and cure this "run down problem" so i formatted my ipod and reloaded it with an older softwere (1.2 not 1.2.1) and now it appears to be working all fine and dandy.... so i belive that it was apples softwear is the problem....

(to download th older version use the disk that u got with your ipod and load it from there, as i looked on the internet and they only do the lastest versions)

Jul 18, 2006 9:36 PM in response to harveyalex

Thanks for the suggestion, but i think i've determined its a battery problem. this problem started while i was on the older software.

The other day i took it in and the guy looked at it after i explained what it had been doing-- discharging over night-- and he first asked if there were any alarms set. (there wasn't and never had been) so then it wiped out all the songs and put new, different ones on and said to try that for as long as i could stand it and then if it didn't do it again, then to attatch it once again to the computer and put my songs back on. Then, if it did it again, then to take it in with the computer to see if any formatting or settings on the computer [if it was working compatably with it]. He also said that he couldn't find anything wrong with it and it was working perfectly fine with the mac and the pc that were there and it didn't seem to go to sleep and run down. However, i don't kno whow he could tell that there was no problem if the problem happens at NIGHT, not at 3 in the afternoon. I don't think he had checked the battery to see if there were any problems there. So that was yesterday(Monday) afternoon.

It did not have the run down problem last night. But just about a half hour ago i went up and looked at it-- turned it back on, everything was fine, turned it back off, then on again and i noticed the battery was quite a bit lower (when i first turned it on it had been about 3/4 full, at that point it was a bit less than half)and turned it off and on again and the battery drained a bit more, but was still green. I then pressed play and the message that apeared said something like 'no more battery power left; please connect iPod to power' even though it had showed well enough power to play for at least a couple of hours. please note that it had been off and almost full battery for about a day and should have been about 3/4 of the way full. So after that message appeared, i pressed menu- nothing- then i reset it and it took a couple of seconds, but returned to the apple sign--then cut out. i tried again and got the same thing along with the hard drive spinning and then made a whining noise and totally shut off. a couple more tries came up with the same result, with the low battery sign(battery w/ triangle !)sometimes appearing before or after the apple. it is now charging via the A/C charger and i havn't yet plugged it into the computer and don't know if i will all too soon.

So i'll probably be taking it in AGAIN and might as well just print out this whole thread and have that be my explanation of my stupid problem. it really makes me soo mad. thanks to any and all sugestions. i really appreciate the help. KatBT

Jul 18, 2006 9:43 PM in response to katbt

its maybe a problem with the iPod Battry Meter (the little batery icon) calibration because the meter cuts off the ipod and displays a battry icon when it thinks the battery is almost dead because they say that lithium batteries shouldnt be draind COMPLETELY so the ipod cuts off... but try restoring your ipod...

xmartinx

ipod battery won't hold a charge

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