Charging sansa clip zip method using Rockbox
 

1. should i follow the instructions ' To charge your player over USB, hold any button while plugging it in. ' ?

or..

2. is it safe to charge sansa clip zip when rockbox is still turned on ?

thanks !

--post moved to the Rockbox subforum, you'll get your best answers here--

Welcome to ABi :)

Either way works to charge the player. The way you post is how to be able to use the player normally while it's charging. If you connect without holding a button it establishes a full data\charge connection and you can transfer files and such but you can't listen to it.

got it . thank you !

But then, of course, you can play the Clip's contents using whatever music player software you have on your computer; e.g. RealPlayer, Mediamonkey, Windows Media Player, etc. (For some reason, many people either seem to overlook this or don't want to play the player's music this way, for some reason--maybe I'm missing something here.)

Maybe the fact that the Clip will sound better than a lot of computers' headphone jacks? Also, the music on your Clip should already be on your computer too.;)

I really did mean use it normally, not just play it. You can take your time changing things like the sound or theme settings without being concerned about having to charge it again after having the screen on for along time. Another of the ways is using it the way Marv says.

A Rockboxed Clip or Fuze sounds much better than my computer headphone jack. The integrated codec isn't bad but the headphone jack puts out noise from somewhere inside the computer. Whenever I do anything that uses the mouse there's a sewing machine type noise.

I use a USB sound card to get around that most of the time. However I've found a Rockboxed sansa on charge will feed my speakers or headphones just as well. The USB sound card works really well most of the time but if I don't use it in WASAPI exclusive mode there's still occasional clicks or pops. I don't get any of that using the player as it charges.

When I connect my Clip+ holding a button (for charging only) Windows does that hardware installation failure sound, is this normal behavior? (Rockbox 3.12)
Afterwards it does work as expected though (remains disconnected and charges).

I was using an USB disabled version until now...

I get the same thing. There's a bug somewhere they haven't been able to track down. Fortunately it doesn't interfere with USB functioning properly for me.

The pattern is the same for me on the Clip Zip and Clip+. The very first connection fails and freezes the player needing a reset by holding the power button until it reboots. After that it connects as expected.

Windows also tries to install a driver and fails the first time I connect in charge only mode. I get a message from Windows that the device won't work until the driver is installed but the player charges just fine. After I tell Windows to not notify me again the error message stops and it works as expected.