dead empeg.. clicking

Ok... *wonders if everyone's rio comes with as many faults as mine*...

My player that I got a few weeks ago has decided that it doesn't want to play music anymore. I was driving along happily listening to a song and it then stopped and froze for a while. Getting sick of the ground noise, I pulled it out and pushed it back in to reboot and now it says that the HD is not found.

I brought it inside and plugged in the AC adapter and I noticed that as it's trying to boot up it's making a weird clicking sound inside. Tech support doesn't seem to want to help me and I'm wondering if anyone knows what this is...

And if it's a loose or bad cable, and I crack open the player to fix it, will this void my warranty if I have to send it back?

I did read the FAQ entry about loose or bad cables, but I'm trying to clarify if this clicking sound means anything

thanks.

Ive had drive cable issues and dimmer issues so Im getting them all. Oh yeah my sleb wasnt bent and now I think Im having the loose crimp problem too. I wont know till I get the car back

What do you mean when you say "Tech support doesn't want to help me"? David is usually really good about these things. You didn't do anything to make him mad, did you?

The clicking sound was the only warning I got when my old hard disk died. So it could be a bad hard disk. But it also could just be a bad cable. I recommend you try talking to [email protected] again and see if David can help.

I emailed them a few days ago... no response yet... but then again, with the influx of empeg owners they could be bogged down... who knows. And it's only been a couple days.

I'm not looking forward to a dead drive... but then again maybe I can kill two birds with one stone and have my clock fixed so that it's time doesn't wander anymore.

yeah what support did you contact ?

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Tech support doesn't seem to want to help me

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I'm suprised to hear this... Maybe you are talking to the wrong person... You really need to get in touch with David Moss. I think everyone that has ever worked with David has something good to say about him...

The clicking sound is most likely either the drive cable or the Happy Laptop Hard Drive Sound® (normal rattle when unit is shaken).

[email protected]

I have always gotten help from them

tony's probably right that the hdd is dead

It's probably going to be a bad HD. The happy clicking of a normal 2.5" drive can easily be heard when the drive is handled manually, outside of the empeg. A repeated clicking while trying to start up is not normal. The bad cables I've had always caused the drive to be silent. The one player I bought for Papinist that clicked on power-up had a bad 30GB drive. Diagnosed by David the day I sent him the message.

If you were to have read his recent follow-up to another thread, you'd notice there's a lot of mail coming in to the support address. Being patient is probably your best bet. He'll get to you.

Bruno

The clicking sound occurs when it's just sitting there without me shaking it or anything... it sounds a lot like a clock ticking, a loud click and then a softer one... And it appears to be coming from only one of the drives

Hmmm... I just plugged it in again to listen to the clicking and it booted up. *sigh*
I think the Penguin is mocking me cause it saw BeOS.

How long have you been waiting for a response from David?

If it is more than a day, I would say he's either on holiday or something has gone wrong in the sending of your e-mail. For example, a bad return address, a mail bounce, or something like that. If David reads this thread, I'm sure he'll get to you ASAP. Don't worry.

Sent it Sunday afternoon about my clock problem...
Sent another one a half hour ago today about my clicking problem.

If you get the problem again, hook the Empeg up to your computer with your serial cable and run hyperterminal so you can see what it is doing. This sounds a lot like a problem I had one time with one of mine that was rebooting once every second or so. I fixed it with Tony's help but it turned out that it was probably just a symptom of a bad hard drive cable. The fact that it intermittently working seems to me to be another sign of a bad cable as well.

Sorry about the wait - I've been *really* snowed under with repairs and there is quite a backlog of email - I try to run through them all and catch any important ones, but I must've missed yours. I'll be in work later today and will find your message and reply.

Look at that, he's not even at work and he's helping out!

I have 30 gb which exhibited the same problem. I had replaced the drive IDE cable for this one as well. It worked well for a few days in my car. Then I sometimes got the clicking, would take out of sled and put back in, and then it would boot. Got to a point where it would not boot anymore in the car. I swaped my home 10gb with my car 30gb empeg. Tried several times and eventually the 30gb booted at home and has been working since. I'm afraid to put the 30gb back in the car. Is this a sign that my 30gb drive is about to die? The unit is only a few weeks old.

email me and remind me of your posting here and I'll arrange to replace the drive.

I can say on mine when the cable went bad I could hear a clicking when it was trying to boot...on laptop hard drives one of the pins is power and it seemed like it was getting some power to start but because of the bad crimp it was unable to function normally and was having issues spinning the drives, or reading...the new cable fixed it wonderfully though...

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You really need to get in touch with David Moss. I think everyone that has ever worked with David has something good to say about him...

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Amen to that. He cured both my sickly empegs in less than five days!