From: Joel Lardizabal <chingmagaling_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2004 10:55:30 -0700

My AJBR has had a HDD transplant (to 80GB) and 2300mAh batteries about 6
months ago. In the past 6 weeks, it started dying.  ATA errors, resets,
etc.  Usually, it refuses to boot up as a player or as a USB disk.  However,
its OK when "charging".  Also, I noticed the LEDs dim when trying to
bootup.  So, I thoguht the batteries or the AC adapter were not providing
enough power.  So, I took it apart and connected a 30A DC power supply
directly to the battery terminals, and set it to 4.8V.  Lo and behold, it
was still not booting up as it did before. 
 
Next I traced how power was sent to the HDD.  I found that the top
horizontal PCB has two large connections to the main upper PCB.  These two
connections are on either side of the mic.   The one one the right connects
to the + battery and the one on the left is the + terminal of the HDD
power. I disconnected the HDD + power from the main PCB, and connected the +
HDD power to the battery + power. 
 
Knowing that the charging circuit sends 6v and more to the batteries to
charge it, i decided to remove the batteries altogether, and hard-wire a +5v
2.1A switching power supply directly to the battery terminals. Now, the AJBR
PCBs and the HDD get direct +5v power from the external adapter only, and no
more batteries.  This was OK with me because i use it where there is AC
power, including the car where I have an inverter.
 
Did it work?  YES!!!!  Powers up without hesitation each time.  Its on life
support because of its dependence on the external adapter, but hey, its
better than dead!!!
 
Next project is 100GB drive and maybe increasing DRAM to 8MB.


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Received on 2004-07-06