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iPod Surely this isn't normal...

Nermal

Nermal

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Original poster
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
21,433
5,311
New Zealand
I got a brand-new 80 gig iPod a few days ago, and it doesn't seem to be behaving itself very well.

1. Scrolling through the artist list is "laggy", as if it's dropping frames.

2. If I pause a video then put the iPod to sleep, it takes about 30 seconds to wake back up.

3. Quite often (about 1 in 5 times), holding the Play button to put the iPod to sleep doesn't do anything. Once it fails, I have to do something else (eg. go into a different menu) before it'll sleep again.

I've restored the software and the problems persist (although I haven't had #2 happen again yet, but I haven't actually "tried" to make it do it).

Has anyone else experienced any of these problems? Does it look like the iPod is a dud?

Thanks
 
Nermal said:
I got a brand-new 80 gig iPod a few days ago, and it doesn't seem to be behaving itself very well.

1. Scrolling through the artist list is "laggy", as if it's dropping frames.

2. If I pause a video then put the iPod to sleep, it takes about 30 seconds to wake back up.

3. Quite often (about 1 in 5 times), holding the Play button to put the iPod to sleep doesn't do anything. Once it fails, I have to do something else (eg. go into a different menu) before it'll sleep again.

I've restored the software and the problems persist (although I haven't had #2 happen again yet, but I haven't actually "tried" to make it do it).

Has anyone else experienced any of these problems? Does it look like the iPod is a dud?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have issues with 1.. The other two do sound like a fault though, I don't have those kind of issues with mine...
 
Thanks Shirley, that was prompt :p

I'll talk to the reseller and see what they can do.
 
iSaint said:
Was the album art issue fixed from the 5G iPod?
Click to expand...

I never owned a G5 so I'm not sure whether this is the same thing, but it does sometimes take a few seconds to load the artwork.
 
Nermal said:
I never owned a G5 so I'm not sure whether this is the same thing, but it does sometimes take a few seconds to load the artwork.
Click to expand...

I think the fix for that was to disable artwork for the iPod sync>sync your iPod> then turn the artwork back on and sync again. Not totally sure about that so you might do a search for this issue.
 
Yes, I have #3, but it seems to only happen on video just after I pause the video. #2 is somewhat flaky. Video has always lagged (in starting) on my iPod, but it's never taken half a minute to bring it out of sleep, with or without video on.

Also, don't try to disable the backlight thinking that holding Menu would bring it on. You'll be in for a surprise. Unless that's fixed on the new 5Gs, because it still doesn't work properly on my original 5G iPod. ;)
 
As expected (since it was formatted as part of the restore), it doesn't find any problems.
 
I get the laggy problem and the funny sleep thing. i have found a way around the sleep thing tho. I have found that if you hold play/puase too far down nothing will happen, so you have to hold it right where the icon is
 
My 80 gig is very laggy too. It seems to be a new feature for all of them. My 4th gen 60 gig scrolls through the album/artist lists much much faster than the 80. It's very annoying. :mad:

It appears as though Apple have cut some corners to save battery life. The newer iPods go in to "deep sleep" a lot sooner than the earlier ones. Maybe they have cut the processing power or something as well which leads to this laggy performance?
 
There's two things going on...

First, the "laggy-ness" has largely to do with the new software features in the 5.5G iPods. The new features (letter overlay during scrolling, increased use of album art, gapless playback, etc) are all running simultaneously, so the unit is quite a bit more strained than previous versions. This is a really geeked out analogy, but on the off chance you've ever programmed in Flash, it's just like running a whole bunch of "onEnterFrame" events at once. The first one or two work fine, and then you slowly start to see a lag in your animation the more loops you add. Same idea.

Not that you should have to do this, but for example, if you remove all your album art and the images from your contacts (if you sync those), you'll see a drastic increase in performance right away.

Second, the other thing you should keep in ming is the file type and file size of your library items. One thing the iPod (and iTunes for that matter) doesn't handle as well as it should is working with large files, particularly ones that aren't "normal" for iTunes (ie. not AAC or .mp4). Because iTunes (and the iPod) load some of the data for your next few songs (either random or in a playlist), if the songs that are upcoming are very large (Apple Lossless for example, or just very high quality), the unit has to stop and "process" this file, even though you aren't actually listening to it.
 
I do believe the "laggy" problem is not a problem, per say. It is just how the 5G iPods work. I noticed this coming from the 1G and 3G iPods I have owned. They were much snappier in terms of scrolling.
 
clintob said:
First, the "laggy-ness" has largely to do with the new software features in the 5.5G iPods. The new features (letter overlay during scrolling, increased use of album art, gapless playback, etc) are all running simultaneously
Click to expand...

I get the lag even when I'm not playing music, so the gapless playback and album art shouldn't be affecting anything. I just got my iPod back a few minutes ago and I'm synching all my new videos etc now, but I'll turn off the letter overlay once it's finished and see what happens.

Edit: Hmm, how do you turn that off? I'm sure I've seen the option before, but I can't find it now :confused:

tominated said:
i have found a way around the sleep thing tho. I have found that if you hold play/puase too far down nothing will happen, so you have to hold it right where the icon is
Click to expand...

Interesting, I'll give that a try next time it fails.
 
spencecb said:
I do believe the "laggy" problem is not a problem, per say. It is just how the 5G iPods work. I noticed this coming from the 1G and 3G iPods I have owned. They were much snappier in terms of scrolling.
Click to expand...

My girlfriends 5G iPod is very laggy when skipping ahead a song. My 4G iPod and her old 3G iPod do not lag at all. That's been one big reason keeping me from upgrading to the new 5.5G.
 
Nermal said:
3. Quite often (about 1 in 5 times), holding the Play button to put the iPod to sleep doesn't do anything. Once it fails, I have to do something else (eg. go into a different menu) before it'll sleep again.
Click to expand...

My iPod completely died a couple of weeks ago, so they replaced it with a new one. This problem still happens!
 
I have issues with 3 but its more like 99/100 times with a the first video ipod. it doesn't work and this have driven me insane. It was after a damn software update when I noticed it.
 
My iPod is ropey whenever it syncs - it has restarted itself, album art takes a while to develop, one time no videos would play etc etc. So it's being looked at by Apple as we speak and hopefully the may replace it.:apple:
 
My iPod 5G has the laggy issue but, only when music is playing. If I stop the music, it goes away. Also, sometimes I'll unplug the iPod from the car and then it won't play anymore at all... the play/pause icon will change but the play head doesn't move and no sound at all. The only fix is to force reboot the iPod.
 
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