iPod Shuffle refuses to eject; won't stop syncing.

I have a 2nd Generation iPod Shuffle and a Windows 8 laptop.

My iPod is stuck in an infinite syncing loop. I can plug it in, and it'll sync with iTunes, but then even after it's finished syncing with iTunes, it still flashes as if it's syncing, and iTunes won't let me eject it because it says it's in use with another program--I can't imagine what.

It'll charge while it's flashing, but if I remove it without ejecting--which I have to, because it won't eject--the next time I plug it in, it won't flash OR charge, and the computer won't even recognize that it exists, although iTunes will still recognize it.

Then I have to restart the iPod Service on my laptop to get it to charge again, but doing so makes it flash again, and refuse to be ejected again, ad infinitum.

I don't know what could possibly be latching onto my iPod. I recently reset this laptop to factory defaults and the only thing I've installed since the rest are iTunes, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), and Microsoft Office.

I guess it's not unusable, since it seems I can kind of get around it by resetting the iPod Service every single time, but that's kind of a pain.