White Screen of Near-Death?

[Chili]

I take my Fuze with me everywhere I go, it travels in my coat pocket. Last night I forgot to take it out of the coat pocket and charge it overnight, so the battery was almost dead by the time I pulled in to the work parking lot.

Since I wanted to listen on the way home as well, I bought the Sansa cable with me and when I got to my desk I plugged in the Fuze to charge through on of the front USB ports. The "connected" message and logo and everything showed on the screen, and it started charging. When I looked over a couple of minutes later, the screen was completely white, and the Fuze didn't react to any buttons.

I immediately unplugged the cable, and then held the power button for several seconds (I had a vague memory that's how I reset my Clip, so was hoping it would work on the Fuze as well) and the player turned off. It turned back on when I asked it to, refreshed media, and then acted normally, but the battery was still as low as when I had plugged it in.

I work in a technical support department, so my co-workers have a natural interest in situations like these and we went over the basic trouble-shooting: Yes, it always charges through USB only. Yes, the cable is good, it works at home. We then plugged the Fuze in to my desk neighbor's computer to see if the problem is my work computer or if it follows the player, and we're now waiting to see if the white screen comes back.

Should I be worried?

EDIT:
It has been several minutes longer than last time, and the white screen has not come back yet, so I am hopeful it was a weird fluke caused by the pile of junk computer I am typing this on. Input is still welcome though. Could the Fuze have been damaged?

[CrowdAds]

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Chili

I take my Fuze with me everywhere I go, it travels in my coat pocket. Last night I forgot to take it out of the coat pocket and charge it overnight, so the battery was almost dead by the time I pulled in to the work parking lot.

Since I wanted to listen on the way home as well, I bought the Sansa cable with me and when I got to my desk I plugged in the Fuze to charge through on of the front USB ports. The "connected" message and logo and everything showed on the screen, and it started charging. When I looked over a couple of minutes later, the screen was completely white, and the Fuze didn't react to any buttons.

I held the power button for several seconds (I had a vague memory that's how I reset my Clip, so was hoping it would work on the Fuze as well) and the player turned off. It turned back on when I asked it to, refreshed media, and then acted normally, but the battery was still as low as when I had plugged it in.

I work in a technical support department, so my co-workers have a natural interest in situations like these and we went over the basic trouble-shooting: Yes, it always charges through USB only. Yes, the cable is good, it works at home. We then plugged the Fuze in to my desk neighbor's computer to see if the problem is my work computer or if it follows the player, and we're now waiting to see if the white screen comes back.

Should I be worried?

Not yet. The soft reset that you did usually solves most of the simpler issues that people have. That white screen happened to me once, and after doing the reset it has never happened again.

While this may not have anything to do with what happened to you, in general I prefer to use a wallcharger to charge, and only connect to the computer if I am adding/removing content. It charges faster, perhaps because the screen almost immediately shuts off.

[Chili]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

Not yet. The soft reset that you did usually solves most of the simpler issues that people have. That white screen happened to me once, and after doing the reset it has never happened again.

Phew! Thanks, I feel better.

Does only Sansa sell the wallchargers, or can I get them through someone like Amazon or Newegg? I don't feel I need one, yet, but I'd like to look at them anyway, so I know what they're about.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by Chili

Phew! Thanks, I feel better.

Does only Sansa sell the wallchargers, or can I get them through someone like Amazon or Newegg? I don't feel I need one, yet, but I'd like to look at them anyway, so I know what they're about.

I got mine off Amazon, it was bundled with a spare sync cable and a car charger. I don't remember the exact price, but it was relatively cheap.

[sansaguy]

Originally Posted by Chili

Phew! Thanks, I feel better.

Does only Sansa sell the wallchargers, or can I get them through someone like Amazon or Newegg? I don't feel I need one, yet, but I'd like to look at them anyway, so I know what they're about.

the USB wall charger is pretty generic so you can get it most anywhere. I got mine on Ebay. I would concur 100% with what Marvin stated in his post above, the only thing I would add is that I've been reading about strange things happening to people's Sansa's when the battery is almost completely drained. I know this happened to you by accident...just FYI in the future. For me I ALWAYS use the wall charger to charge instead of the computer and always never let it get below 10% power before recharging. So far so good...haven't seen the white screen of near-death yet!

[Chili]

Originally Posted by sansaguy

the only thing I would add is that I've been reading about strange things happening to people's Sansa's when the battery is almost completely drained. I know this happened to you by accident...just FYI in the future.

That sounds a bit weird to me, I haven't seen that in any of my other gadgets. Then again, none of my other gadgets is a Sansa Fuze, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I'll just have to remember to plug in the Fuze at night from here on. The computer is never off

[Paul Houl]

Hello aarons510
I am a newbe to this forum, hope I correctly insert quotes etc.
I have experience repairing some of my fuze units, by repair I mean interchanging components to obtain a working fuze player.

I was scaning the threads regarding fuze problems and found the info below which you may consider in determining the function of components.

Chili experience (below) indicates that a white screen would indicate a good LCD.
If that is correct then perhaps your fuze LCD (white screen ) is functioning correctly. ie. it is not faulty.

3) If there is a defective part, is it likely to be the LCD assembly or the main board? Are there any other separable components? (It's obviously not the battery!)

I would then consider a faulty main circuit board.
May I suggest you charge the battery of each unit (fuze) B4 attempting to trblshoot the problems.

Have you tested the units for connection with the Pc ?
I have also read somewhere that a unit will operate ie. play songs etc. even though the LCD shows white.

I have experienced weak batteries with insufficient power output to fully operate these units for more than a few minutes. I also do some testing while these units are powered by external power charger and not relying on the battery, to ensure the battery is not giving false test results.

You mentioned you received a lot of the fuze players. You may wish to consider using a working player for a test bench unit. ie interchange parts to determine the functional condition of the components of players to determine and ID which parts are functioning properly.

Then use these parts to rebuild units from your known functioning parts (my method of repair aside from replacing /repairing earjack and power switch ).

Paul

Originally Posted by Chili

I take my Fuze with me everywhere I go, it travels in my coat pocket.

Last night I forgot to take it out of the coat pocket and charge it overnight, so the battery

was almost dead by the time I pulled in to the work parking lot.

Since I wanted to listen on the way home as well, I bought the Sansa cable with me and

when I got to my desk I plugged in the Fuze to charge through on of the front USB ports.

The "connected" message and logo and everything showed on the screen, and it started

charging. When I looked over a couple of minutes later, the screen was completely white,

and the Fuze didn't react to any buttons.

I immediately unplugged the cable, and then held the power button for several seconds (I

had a vague memory that's how I reset my Clip, so was hoping it would work on the Fuze

as well) and the player turned off. It turned back on when I asked it to, refreshed media,

and then acted normally, but the battery was still as low as when I had plugged it in.

I work in a technical support department, so my co-workers have a natural interest in

situations like these and we went over the basic trouble-shooting: Yes, it always charges

through USB only. Yes, the cable is good, it works at home. We then plugged the Fuze in to

my desk neighbor's computer to see if the problem is my work computer or if it follows the

player, and we're now waiting to see if the white screen comes back.

Should I be worried?

EDIT:
It has been several minutes longer than last time, and the white screen has not come back

yet, so I am hopeful it was a weird fluke caused by the pile of junk computer I am typing

this on. Input is still welcome though. Could the Fuze have been damaged?

[aarons510]

Paul Houl wrote:

Have you tested the units for connection with the Pc ?

I don't have a computer that can run Windows XP or Vista. I don't even know if any of my old PC's even work. I test everything on my PPC Mac, which only connects in MSC mode, so that if a non-working Sansa (Fuze or e200 series) was left in MTP mode, there's no way I can connect to it.

I have also read somewhere that a unit will operate ie. play songs etc. even though the LCD shows white.

I've tried to get sound out of units with a bad screen, but perhaps haven't been patient enough to keep fiddling with controls until I get something.

You mentioned you received a lot of the fuze players. You may wish to consider using a working player for a test bench unit. ie interchange parts to determine the functional condition of the components of players to determine and ID which parts are functioning properly.

Until I figure out how to put the front-panel ribbon back into the white circuit-board connector, I'm not going to risk disassembling any decently working Fuze. But I have no problem figuring out which LCD's work, and I can connect them to circuit boards known to work.

[...]Then use these parts to rebuild units from your known functioning parts [...]

I've actually rebuilt two Fuzes in the last day or so, except that I haven't been able to reconnect the front panels that contain the controls, so I can't be sure they fully work.
[Edit: Since writing this I have removed a button assembly including the ribbon cable from a badly scratched front panel. It's pretty easy to insert the ribbon without the rest of the front panel getting in the way of my fingers, so I can use this for testing.]

(my method of repair aside from replacing /repairing earjack and power switch ).

Do those latter two repairs require soldering? I have a soldering iron on order, but I doubt that I could handle soldering tiny things without messing them up.

[nardis_miles]

Originally Posted by Chili

That sounds a bit weird to me, I haven't seen that in any of my other gadgets. Then again, none of my other gadgets is a Sansa Fuze, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

I'll just have to remember to plug in the Fuze at night from here on. The computer is never off

I am having frequent white screens on my sansa fuze. At this point there is more white screen than anything else. I have updated the firmware. I'm wondering whether the white screen is at all correlated with maxing the memory use. My first problems came when I accidentally tried to write to the fuze in stead of the microcard I had inserted. If the memory protection isn't great, I'm guessing that you can stomp on some things you don't want to. The other observation is that the white screen has vanished when I have shaken the device. Could this be a cold solder? I am really motivated to keep this device because the new fuze has an awful interface, and because I am a linux (Banshee) user.