From DirtyDogStink (nice domain name!):

Here's the situation I found myself in.... I updated my Zune 30's firmware on release day (November 13th 2007) and was enjoying the new look and feel. After a few days of regular use I noticed the battery dying much faster than it had previously. Not sure what was going on I just kept charging and syncing it with my laptop.

Then the night before Thanksgiving I charged it all night long, knowing that I had 8 hours of driving to do in the next 48 hours [spent the holiday with my girlfriend and her family in Eastern Washington, a smashing good time other than my dead Zune] . Two hours into my drive the battery icon looked reasonable at mostly full.  Three hours into my drive it was suddenly at half charge.  Four hours it was barely registering.  Fifth hour...the exclamation point of death and I was pulling out CDs that I threw in "just in case."

I was pissed. mad Looking for a fix, I read the Zune forums and some mailing lists which lead me to this solution: Drain your Zune 30 completely of battery life until you get the exclamation point of death. Fully charge your Zune 30, overnight even. Reset it. You do this by simultaneously pressing UP on the directional pad and the BACK button.

This looks like a firmware issue on some Zune 30s. Zune doesn't charge correctly? Its a wrong indication? The hard-drive or another power intensive system stays on for longer as it should? I just hope its not that common and can get easily fixed the way described above.

Links:
forums.zune.net thread about this issue

Comments (17)

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written by Chris Taylor Jr, November 28, 2007

Does this delete anything off the device or is this a "soft reset" kind of thing?

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written by Kostas, November 28, 2007

@ Chris: It is just a reboot, like on computers. You won't lose anything.

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written by kodee, November 29, 2007

my battery actually last's longer now than it did with the v1 firmware. i listen to it for 3-4 hours and only a little part of the battery sybol goes down. sux for the rest of ya i guess

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written by Randall, November 29, 2007

When I updated the Zune 30 mine went out once but since I have a car charger and I keep it plugging into a pc it never drained completely. Now my Zune 80 on the other hand has not responded since yesterday afternoon. There is no battery indication or nothing. Just a black screen. I didn't want to come to work today because I feel like I just lost my best friend....

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written by kodee, November 30, 2007

randall,

i'm sorry for your loss...if you can't cope with the feeling of having a dead body lying around, you can send it to me... G'luck.

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Same Issue
written by desertpenquin, November 30, 2007

I have had this thing less than 24 hours. The battery is having the issue discussed above. The cover artwork in my collection is all screwed up. Well, unless 2Pac really did 'Come on Eileen'. The encoding process takes forever for video podcasts. Why dont they have the desktop software do this when it downloads the show? I really think that I made a mistake buying this thing.

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written by Kostas, November 30, 2007

@ desertpenquin : The artwork problem you describe has to do with metadata. Check here how to fix it:
Fix the metadata mess after v2 updating

About the conversion speed its enough fast on my computer... I have no idea why it takes so long for you.

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Randall
written by victor, December 01, 2007

I had the same problem with mines , i had a black screen , the zune was on i could hear the hard drive running and it felt hot, believe me i was really pissed of , mad about it , i just put it away checked on it later , the power had ran out so i just recharged the battery, and it came back to life , i had this happen maybe 4 times already , im thinking its a bad thing , but i can deal with it if i can hear my music and see my movies ...

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I had the same problem
written by Chris Holschuh, December 08, 2007

having the same problem and i pissed i call tec support twice now and they told me to reset it that did not work

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written by KHALID, December 18, 2007

I have the same problem with my Zue I jus reseted it so hoply it will work.....microsoft always have flaws jus look at the Xox360......

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written by Embryonic, December 18, 2007

I just tried this today and it worked for me, Just be sure that after you reset it let it charge for about 15 more minutes

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written by Seattleron, February 05, 2008

Not sure if the reset thing works to completely fix this issue; I let my battery drain and then recharded it. I then reset my Zune, and recharged for another 15 minutes. It worked well for 2 days. After two days, I had the same old problems again. Not sure if it is my battery due to the fact that I had NO issues at all prior to the software/firmware "upgrade".
When a product works great for the first 6 months I have it, and then is "crap" after the upgrade...I have gotten very frustrated.....
What is the use in owning a Zune when you never know when you will be able to listen to it.
I hope Microsoft is aware of the issue and addresses this soon. They may lose a lot of Zune customers to the Ipod.

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black screen of death..
written by HaloZ, February 24, 2008

my 30 gig just gave me the BSoD a few days ago. i reset it and it was fine. i came to work today, the batt was dead, so i plaugged it in and went off to do some things. came back and played aroud with it a bit and then gve me the BSoD again. i went to reset it and now it's giving me the "connect Zune to PC" message and seems i'm about to loose all the info on it and it's going to re-format it. =

im not very happy about this. i just hope this solved the problem.

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written by luismdoz, April 04, 2008

Please i need serious help i may be out of topic but i need help, i have two zunes, the 80 gb works great but i just got the 4 for sister and the computer doesn´t detect the device and it shows the default zune video while it is charging, by the way the 4 gb zune is brand new, it only has the default songs and videos that are downloead when i first plugged the zune to the computer,

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You may be right
written by Zhemas, April 23, 2008

Yeaaaahhh for as much as I dislike apple, I may also make the jump as well. Zune's great an all, but there's just too much errors and low battery--by that I mean ipods get like 9 hrs, and can go 3 or 4 days without a charge...all in all I'm saying is that maybe in the future when Zunes are much better I'll get one again. Until then I guess I'm getting an Itouch.

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Same problem
written by Matthew, April 24, 2008

This is exactly what's been happening with my Zune since the firmware update. (Also, the Zune keeps freezing during playback or skipping through parts of songs. The latter, I think, is a software issue, though.)

I'm definitely pissed by this problem. I paid over $200 for my Zune. 14 hours of battery life were promised; 14 hours were what I expect.

I called Zune Support a couple times about this issue, only to be told that I should use a USB port on the back of my laptop, rather than a side one. Yeah, . . . and, I'll also jiggle the handle on a running toilet while I'm at it. Problem solved.

Thanks for the advice. I'm wondering whether I should claim my warranty and send the thing in for Microsoft (or, whoever) to look at.

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My zune is completly dead and wont charge or even give me a sign of life...
written by Dustin, April 27, 2008

It was connected to my computer, charging, and I was listening to music at the same time. Then all of a sudden it just completly shut down and now I get nothing. How do i get it to turn on once again? or should i just trade it in for a new one?

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