iAudio 7 power/hold button broken

[jambo2000]

Hello all, i bought my iaudio 7 about 2 years ago and i'm pretty sure that the warranty has expired.

My problem is when i slide the power button to the on position, nothing happens. It seems to get stuck about halfway through sliding it and if i raise the button a little higher and push it towards the on position i can get the slider to that side but it does NOT turn the mp3 player on.

The player seems to be working because it turns on when i plug it into the USB and i can see all the files.

So my question is can i unscrew the back and some how fix this myself? Is that possible? If not, can i some how hack into the software that runs the mp3 player and change the power button to something else, like lets say the mute button or something else?

I am looking for any work around because i love this product and can't afford to pay for the repair, if all else fails i am using it as a slow 16gb usb card. Thanks!

BTW i really loved this mp3 player while it was working, would highly recommend them!

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

In the US the warranty is only one year, so yes you’re past the warranty period. Also you can not change the power button location via firmware or hacking and without the parts I don’t believe you can fix it yourself. Have you called cowon to get a quote? That might be your best bet to figure out if you can get it fixed or you could sell it for parts on our vBClassified or ebay and then with the money buy a refurb lower cost player.

Edit: BTW welcome to abi ...

[jambo2000]

thanks for the reply and thanks for the welcome. That is sad to hear, i was hoping some kind of hack may be done but i guess not.

One last question i guess, how does the power button work on the iaudio 7? I am looking at photos from this page:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archi...sassembled.php

and on the 3rd column, 3rd photo it looks like that metal piece on the left middle side is the power button, am i correct?

[WalkGood]

Yes that looks like it to me, but you can see a better picture of it here just below the Samsung NAND flash memory (this one’s 8GB). This slider switch is probably impossible to get unless you dissect another i7 and you would have to be very good with a soldering iron to switch it out. I am not sure how it’s wired, but works like this - while looking at the face of it I slide the switch to the left and it boots, it goes back to the center position on its own, if I slide it to the right it goes into the lock mode and stays there.

[jambo2000]

yeah that looks way too complicated for me.. i'm not going to chance it. I will consider selling it after i call them up for a quote.. thanks again for your replies!

[WalkGood]

No problem, if it's not a hassle let us know what they say, it could help others.