The Niestat brothers were wrong. The iPod's dirty secret is not the iPod's irreplaceable battery, but flaky FireWire ports in early models.
Contrary to the assertions of brothers Casey and Van Niestat, an iPod's internal battery is easily replaced. Any idiot can do it.
On the other hand, the FireWire port in first- and second-generation iPods suffers from a fatal design flaw. The connector is unreinforced, and the constant plugging and unplugging of the FireWire cable can loosen the solder on the motherboard.
With broken solder points, the iPod is no longer recognized by the host computer, though in most cases, it still charges.
Forums are rife with discussion of the problem, which is much harder to fix than a worn-out battery. The iPod must be completely dismantled, and the teeny weeny FireWire connectors re-soldered.
"That is the most common repair for the first-generation models other than the batteries," said Trey Mattox of PDASmart, a Texas-firm that fixes iPods and PDAs. "The FireWire jacks are not reinforced enough to withstand the daily abuse. Some are just poorly soldered. I believe this is a design flaw."
This flaw is why Apple moved to a dock connector in third- and
fourth-generation models. Plugging and unplugging a dock connection places much less strain on internal components.
Thanks to both these problems in an original 5Gbyte iPod – a worn out battery and a wobbly FireWire port – I busted out the soldering iron and replaced the battery with one of Newer Technology's high-capacity replacement batteries (See review).
When plugged in, the FireWire cable had to be lodged in an ungainly position to make a connection with the host computer. To keep it in place, I laid a hammer on top of it.
After breaking down the iPod (here's a blurry guide), I aligned the FirwWire port's five metal connectors over their broken solder points.
The points were far too small to fix with fresh solder. Luckily, simply pressing down on the connectors with the iron to liquefy the old solder beneath did the job. Thanks to my shaky hands, I thought I'd bungled it. But it worked.
Ye olde iPod, though dented, scratched and grimy, has been transformed into a vigorous spring chicken. Played a couple of hours a day, the battery now lasts all week. And no more hammer.
I was tiring of the clunky of old iPod, but like it better and better now it's been fixed. There's something about the original, mechanical scroll-wheel – it's charmingly old skool.
Update. Regarding the dock connector in newer iPods, writer/editor Dan Frakes of Macworld and Playlist writes: "There were also a few other reasons – line-level audio output, remote control access, other to-be-revealed-in-the-future I/O capabilities... P.S. We reviewed the NewerTech battery for Playlist and had the same positive experience as you – it's a no-brainer if you have an older iPod!"
