Hi all my daughter has just returned from a year in OZ and asked me to look at her 5th generation Ipod as it was not working. I am a pretty dab hand at taking things apart and trawling around for answers. Well once you get the hang of opening one opf these babies it is not that difficult connecting and re connecting the parts. The first thing that I noticed was that there was half a pound of sand in the darn thing so no wonder it was not working. I cleaned it all up let it dry out then re-assembled the unit but found the click wheel was dead. The majority of info on the web was about restoring the ipod but if the click wheel will not respond at all then that information is pretty useless so I bought a new click wheel on Ebay and I also bought another faulty 5th generation IPOD that was sold as faulty and did not work. Once it arrived I got to work on the Ebay item took it apart and fitted the new click wheel but it did not function. I cleaned out my daughters Ipod completely fixed the new click wheel into this and again nothing. So what I had now was two faulty ipods and about £25.00 out of pocket that is until I found this method on the web and I had nothing to lose.
This is going to sound pretty wierd I know but I again took apart the two Ipods removing all the connections (I was quite an expert by now) and the part that I wanted to work on was the main board the one with all the bits on that everything connect to. With everything disconnected I did this..
Using cold water and a soft tooth brush I cleaned both sides rubbing gently and I then dried this with a hair dryer but be careful not to be too agressive withn the heat. Now this is even crazier I know but I cleaned it again using Vodka, yes Vodka and a tooth brush. The original poster actually said alcohol but it's the closest I had and thought what the heck. Once both sides had been cleaned with the vodka I let it dry thoroughly re-assembled and hey presto as if by magic it was fully functioning. Well i wondered if this was coincidence, you know I may have dislodged something or re-connected something just by the action of taking it apart and putting it back together so I tried it on my daughter non functioning Ipod and had exactly the same response. So we need to two fully functioining IPODS. My wife thought that I was going a bit mad but afterall I once fixed the tumble dryer for £1.00!
I am not suggesting for one minute that upon reading this that you take your Ipods apart and ply them with alcohol but if you are like me and have a non functioing Ipod that is only fit for a faulty unit on
Ebay and you like the fun & excitement of a challenge then why not.