iPod restarts during restore/update

My iPod touch 5th gen has been sitting unused in a corner for a half-year or so, and had completely died. I decided I would try to wake it back up, and make sure I had all of my data synced before it completely died, and try to turn it into a alarm clock of some sort. When I charged it and turned it on it was stuck in a boot loop. I searched online and found how to update or restore my device. I followed these instructions and tried to update my device to get it running again, but came back to see an error message for an unknown error. I then stayed with the iPod and noticed that my windows computer played the disconnection tone directly after extracting the update file. Looking closer, I noticed that when iTunes begins to prepare the device for an update, the iPod restarts and tries to boot until it goes back into recovery mode. I have tried many combinations of cables and ports including a lighted USB hub to watch for any disconnection of power from the USB port. The problem seems to be on the device when it restarts. Is this a problem that I have to go to a genius bar to fix, and will i have to pay, because a silly alarm is probably not worth it. Thanks in advance.