Need help with an iPod

[zxcvbob]

I bought an iPod Nano 3rd generation off eBay, to donate to the church to use with the music system.  It got here today and it looks in good shape.  I have one just like it and it's my favorite model.

I powered it on and it worked fine for about a minute and then the screen went white.  I reset it (hold MENU and the center button for a few seconds) and that didn't help.  I loaded some music on it and it plays, there's just no screen.  Then I looked at it closer and if I hold it at a steep angle it appears that the screen is kind of working but the backlight is turned all the way up and the contrast is turned all the way down.  I looked thru the menus on my old iPod and I don't see a contrast setting anywhere.

I reloaded the operating system from iTunes and that didn't help.

Any ideas?  Is this something the Apple Store could help with?  Or would they charge me a fortune to even look at it, or just try to sell me a new one?

I would be really pissed except I did see it working when I first powered it on.

[BryanP]

Have you tried adjusting the screen brightness?

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iPod_nano_3rd_gen_Features_Guide.pdf

[Harold Tuttle]

I have one that did that after it got zapped in a car dock

If you dork arround with it the backlight comes back for awhile

[zxcvbob]

Have you tried adjusting the screen brightness?

That's kind of tough to do without a screen to read the menus.

I've been searching the Internet and apparently this is a common failure mode of iPods and they call it "the white screen of death".  Probably why the guy on eBay sold it.  It seems like a software problem rather than hardware, so maybe I can copy the firmware from my old iPod that works (and has a slightly order version)

It did come back briefly, until I turned it off and back on.

[Regolith]

That's kind of tough to do without a screen to read the menus.

I've been searching the Internet and apparently this is a common failure mode of iPods and they call it "the white screen of death".  Probably why the guy on eBay sold it.  It seems like a software problem rather than hardware, so maybe I can copy the firmware from my old iPod that works (and has a slightly order version)

It did come back briefly, until I turned it off and back on.

If it's a software problem, then a hard reset may work. Usually there's a pin-sized hole that will allow you to use a paperclip to hit the hard reset button (although some newer devices don't have them and instead require you to hold the power button in for a set amount of time).

Edit: did a quick search. Here's how you do a hard reset with your particular iPod: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1320

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)

2. Press and hold the Menu and Center (Select) buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 8 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.

Tip: If you are having difficulty resetting your iPod, set it on a flat surface. Make sure the finger pressing the Select button is not touching any part of the click wheel. Also make sure that you are pressing the Menu button toward the outside of the click wheel, and not near the center.

If the above steps did not work, try connecting iPod to a power adapter and plug the power adapter into an electrical outlet, or connect iPod to your computer. Make sure the computer is turned on and isn't set to go to sleep. Try resetting the iPod while it is connected to power.

[zxcvbob]

Thanks Reg, but I did all that.

I left it alone for about an hour and it's working again, although the language looks like Portuguese   Kind of tricky changing the language setting when you can't really read it...  There, it's back to English.

I turned the brightness down to 40%.  It was only 50% to start with; that's the default and a good setting.

I just turned it off and back on and that white-screened it again.

[dogmush]

If you plug it in to your computer and open iTunes, there's a "restore" button on the device screen that's supposed to dump and reinstall the software for things like this.

[zxcvbob]

If you plug it in to your computer and open iTunes, there's a "restore" button on the device screen that's supposed to dump and reinstall the software for things like this.

I did that; it didn't help.

[Harold Tuttle]

its an intermittant hardware failure in the screen lighting system

the unit will work perfectly and you can reboot it to a known start state and manually press, down over down over
and get it to shuffle the song list

but it gets old real fast