Can I take a flashchip from one ipod and put it in another?

Iwizzard · Jul 9, 2007

Can i take a 4GB flash chip and put it in anoter ipod?

I have an broken Ipod nano first gen (4gb) can i:
a) put the chip in an 1GB nano 1st gen?
b) an 1gb nano 2nd gen?

knightlie · Jul 9, 2007

Nope, unless you have a tiny soldering iron, hawk-like eyesight and a very steady hand.

Iwizzard · Jul 9, 2007

I thught the samsung chip the flash chip, inent it? it is easy to remove.

knightlie · Jul 9, 2007

Iwizzard said:
I thught the samsung chip the flash chip, inent it?

Eh?

it is easy to remove.

I doubt it. It'll be soldered to the logic board, it's not something you can unplug.

Aptmunich · Jul 9, 2007

Short answer? No.

The chips are soldered to the mainboard. You most likely would not be able to swap them ove without breaking something badly.

Iwizzard · Jul 9, 2007

Can some one who actualy seen an nano opened give an better answer?

The reason I said it is easy is that I am sittng here with my nano opened and have removed the samsung chip. it is verry easy. it is as easy as removing a peace of lego + glue.

The samsung chip is itself is soldered on to a small circuit board witch in turn i snapped on to the main curcit board.

With some google-ing i found out that the samsung chip indeed is the flash chip.

there is physically no problem to move the chip from one nano 1st gen to another.

My question is will the other nano accept it? or have they protected it some how (encryption? example you cant move one harddriv from an Xbox v1 to another because of encryption)

And does the 2nd gen has the same curcit board? has anything ells changed other the the casing?

Aptmunich · Jul 9, 2007

Apparently the way the memory is connected differs between the 2 generations of iPod nano, as well as amongst the different capacity models.

The 2GB models had it attached directly to the logic board, the 4GB models had it connected to a daughterboard of sorts.

I'd check www.ifixit.com.

The firmware is also definitely different between the 2 versions of nano, so you might run into issues there to.
The iPod Linux project has a pretty good roundup...

Arstechnica said:
The first thing we noticed was that this 2GB version's internals were somewhat different from the 4GB disassembles we saw online a few days ago. Apparently in the 4GB version, instead of soldering the memory directly to the board, they soldered it to a daughter board which attaches via some sort of connector. In fact, on the 2GB version, the base circuitry for the daughter board is in place, with only the connector missing.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/nano.ars/4

knightlie · Jul 10, 2007

Iwizzard said:
Can some one who actualy seen an nano opened give an better answer?

The reason I said it is easy is that I am sittng here with my nano opened and have removed the samsung chip. it is verry easy. it is as easy as removing a peace of lego + glue.

The samsung chip is itself is soldered on to a small circuit board witch in turn i snapped on to the main curcit board.

With some google-ing i found out that the samsung chip indeed is the flash chip.

there is physically no problem to move the chip from one nano 1st gen to another.

My question is will the other nano accept it? or have they protected it some how (encryption? example you cant move one harddriv from an Xbox v1 to another because of encryption)

And does the 2nd gen has the same curcit board? has anything ells changed other the the casing?

I don't know why you're asking questions to which you seem to know the answer. You neglected to say you'd already taken one apart and disconnected it, leaving your request a pretty loaded one. I maintain that it's probably not as easy as you seem to think to just plug the flash chip into another iPod and expect it to work, regardless of how it's connected. If I'm wrong then fine - if you only trust the opinion of someone who has actually seen one, then you have two choices, either try it, or don't. I've given my opinion, take or it leave it.

If you don't accept our answers, or already know them, don't ask the question.