G3 survives scare

[knackers]

So I slipped under the covers, popped my ear clips on, held the face of my G3 against my leg so that the light would not wake the missus, and clicked the On button. Soon I would be listening to Sharpe's Fury and hacking my way through enemy battle lines. The beep that usually occurs was much louder than usual, and then nothing. I saw light flash on, and then suddenly a loud click occurred right in the middle of my head. I was genuinely scared for a moment, as I thought that this was a burst blood vessel in my head, and that soon I would die. As I lay there checking vital signs, the player appeared to shut down and without my doing anything whole sequence cycled again, and I knew that it must be the G3.

I got up and examined it in the kitchen. I replaced the battery. No change. Saddened, I went to bed, convinced that this was the end of the G3.

Next morning (yesterday) I upgraded the firmware to 1.58. It went seamlessly, and I am happy to report that the player is now working perfectly.

The only thing that may have contributed is that I have added and deleted files over the last year, without defragmenting. As I mainly listen to audiobooks, the fragmentation should be far less than a player would normally experience. Has anyone experienced a similar failure mode?

[TBOL3]

No I haven't, but what are you talking about?

[wader]

Originally Posted by TBOL3

No I haven't, but what are you talking about?

Er, it sounded like the G3 was set to play an audiobook file, when it instead sent a loud beep - then, a louder click - through the headphones, rebooted and a firmware upgrade seems to have helped it work smoothly again.

At least, that's what I read.

- wader

[TBOL3]

So, how does the burst blood vessel and the hacking my way through enimy battle lines fit into this?

[wader]

Originally Posted by TBOL3

So, how does the burst blood vessel and the hacking my way through enimy battle lines fit into this?

I read it as:

1. The sound was so abrupt and sharp that the OP worried about the cause of that sound being a sudden health issue (for some of us older folks, these are actual concerns)

2. The "enemy lines" related to the audio book content.

If you interpreted things otherwise, oh well.

- wader

[Veget]

Learn some english, man ...
This is supposed to be a very thrilling and dramatic story of an almost-dead G3 which compleatly out of the blue happened to have a microscopic chip implemented, detecting the latest firmware being published and demonstrating the necessity of upgrading.

[TBOL3]

Alright, thank you, I was incredibly confused.

[knackers]

Thank you so much, Wader and Veget, for putting into ordinary english what I could not, with my rambling story!!

[608zz]

Can flash memory get to a fragmented state? I didn't think it could, but I'm no computer geek, so maybe I'm ignorant on this.

[GSV3MiaC]

It can, but the damage is generally minimal (more entries per file in the FAT .. it certainly doesn't slow things down much).

More likely that the firmware area of flash got corrupted, or the FAT got in a complete knot (most firmware upgrades reformat the whole memory area, iirc). Anyway, 'all's well that ends well'. 8>.