I’m on my third clip and continue to have the same problem that it seems many others experience. I have tried everything on this message board and am working with sandisk support, but that takes DAYS to get anything done.
The first clip I returned to BestBuy and got another, then Sandisk replaced the second one. Now I’m on the third one and the same pattern as follows: It works great at first, charging or moving music from WMP or Rhapsody. Then after a couple of weeks my computer just stops recognizing it or charging it. This time I bought a charger at BestBuy so at least I can listen to the radio and the music I download before this bug takes over. I have a Dell Inspiron 700m with XP SP2 and WMP 11. I would buy an ipod in a minute if it had a radio. From what I read, all the newer Sansa products (view) are having the same problems.
The last thing I tried was to reformat the clip and restart my computer. Still no luck, and now all the music I downloaded is gone. I have tried the press and hold while plugging in, no luck. The clip blinks and says it’s connected, but it’s not writing or charging.
I tried another computer and that one did not recognize the clip either. I tried another usb cord (one that goes with my camera) and neither computer could recognize the clip. I have tried MSC and MTP and auto detect modes. I reset and reformatted and restarted my computer a bunch of times. I think support is going to give me another rma, but there’s trouble in sansa city - at least with my Dell. So if they replace it, eventually the same problems happens again.
Perhaps your PC is killing the Clips…there may be a voltage regulation / transient problem on the USB port(s). If the Clip is more susceptible than say, a USB mouse, is questionable though.
There are known issues with certain Dell front-panel USB ports, where the metal shield gets bent and shorts between pins, causing bad things to happen.
Have you had any other USB device, or PC hardware, fail on this computer?
Any trouble booting up the Dell, have you seen LEDs blinking on the front of it recently, etc?
As you know I am using a laptop and the usb ports are in the front. I use them regularly with an HP printer (no probs) and regularly sync a Dell Axim x50 PDA, also without problems. I don’t really plug in anything else to these usb ports - so not a lot of data (like a mouse). I can’t recall that any USB device has failed except the clip. No trouble booting up - have been doing lots of restarts throughout this diagnostic process, so that seems to be fine. No blinking LED’s - the computer runs quite well and is used many hours a day for business.
I’m going to try downloading some pictures from my camera through the USB though, to see if that goes okay.
Is there any way I can test to see if the USB ports have the problem you mentioned? (metal shield gets bent and shorts between pins)?
The bent shield issue was primarily a desktop issue and shouldn’t apply to you - sorry I didn’t pick up on the fact you were using a LT…
You might however, just for the sake of troubleshooting, try connecting to the Clip via a powered USB hub - it is possible that your laptop is not correctly / consistently providing the correct USB power level to the Clip.
Using a powered hub (one with a seperate “wall-wart” power supply) between the laptop and Clip should eliminate that as a possibility. If you do this make sure the hub is USB2.0 compliant.
Should it work with an external hub, it’s possible that an updated USB driver (from Dell) could resolve the issue.
I hope you can try this and report back, as this is certainly a nasty issue and finding the cause would be very helpful to others.
The bent shield issue was primarily a desktop issue and shouldn’t apply to you - sorry I didn’t pick up on the fact you were using a LT…
You might however, just for the sake of troubleshooting, try connecting to the Clip via a powered USB hub - it is possible that your laptop is not correctly / consistently providing the correct USB power level to the Clip.
Using a powered hub (one with a seperate “wall-wart” power supply) between the laptop and Clip should eliminate that as a possibility. If you do this make sure the hub is USB2.0 compliant.
Thanks for the comments Click.
One of my two Clips is dead and is not recognized by any computer, with any cable, with any technique (hold the center button when connecting and such). The Clip will now do only three things: turn on to display the Sansa logo, turn off, and charge the battery.
I used this dead Clip on an iMac, and the other one on a WinXP PC. Several times in the past, I had to connect the mac Clip to a PC and reformat it.
Could I have killed my Clip by using it on a USB1.1 port?
I have purchased a powered usb hub and will use it with my 4TH clip and see if that resolves the problem. In the past it has taken several weeks for the clip to fail, so it may not be for a while.
In the meantime, isn’t this a knowable problem? Such as, if you have a computer with “name your brand name” usb ports, or “name your brand name” computer of X vintage this is a known problem. Is it just the nature of this mp3 flash drive business that some computers burn them out and that’s part of the cost of producing them? Does this mean that my computer will burn out other models of mp3 players or only this particular one? Not being in the technology business, I’m always surprised at how kludgey things are.
Oh, this is discouraging. My Clip is presenting the same issues. It started today. The only thing I did differently is let the battery completely run out (I was listening to FM Radio). Can I assume my Clip is shot? Does SanDisk offer any remedies? Geez…that’s a $60 waste!
Your clip is not as fried as mine, as it still shows up on your device manager. When I plug mine in it doesn’t show up in device manager or WMP, or Rhapsody or anywhere - it’s like the device doesn’t exist to the computer at all.
Don’t forget the power of the soft reset in cases where the Clip disappears or won’t charge. Hold the power slider in the ON position for about ten seconds, release, and try again.
The processor of the wee Clip has multiple duties, including the charge (battery) management. If it is having communications issues, the battery charge operation can be halted, and this can make issues worse if the battery is low to begin with.
The MTP protocol is the fragile one of the two communications modes. If your Clip won’t pop up on the PC, try switching via Settings > USB Mode > MSC. See if the device is recognized and charging in this mode first.
If the device does not show up in MSC mode: try another port, making note of the display before doing that- was it charging on the first port? Did the display show data available, reading “connected”? Then have a look via Windows Explorer / My Computer / Computer (whatever Microsoft names it, as they like to throw you a wrench every revision…). Open the Device Manager with the Clip plugged in, and look for the wee yellow triangle of doom.
Uninstall the Clip. No, don’t unplug it, but select “uninstall” via the device manager, THEN unplug. Reboot, and try again.
Using the same method, manually select “auto detect” or “MTP” on the Clip and look for it in the same way, while connected. Remember that the MTP protocol is another animal entirely, as the “drivers” for MTP are integrated in Windows Media Player 10/11.
JUst bought my first clip today and my Compaq presario (H_uge P_iece of junk) didnt recognize it at first either. After I downloaded the frimware it finally took, and then it was at thsi stage I went into my computer and just made a shortcut via desktop link to pull it up when I now plug it in.
I’m having the same issue with the Clip. I have tried to transfer my songlist form Real Player to the Clip. Neither the computer or Real Player recognize that the Clip is connected. I have tried this on a LapTop and a Desktop to see if it was a computer/hardware issue. If nothing else- its good to know that this isn’t a “unique” problem.
I bought mine at Best Buy as well, but its been over a month. Has anyone had experience with either Best Buy or Sansa direct in replacing, returning the Clip. (I plan to call their 866 # referenced in an earlier response). But, if this is a known issue, I don’t want to deal with it.
I am experiencing the same issues. Everything was fine until the other night I was messing around with my clip and hit format and it erased everything and now it won’t even recognize on my computer, I’ve tried everything. Frustrating!! It was working perfectly. Good luck!!
I’ve already tried two different computers two different USB cords, it doesn’t even show up under device manager. How did this happen all of a sudden, just from hitting format in error??
Check you USB setting. Sometimes formatting will revert it back to Auto Defect, leading to recognition or connection problems. Set it to MSC for the most trouble-free connections.
Check your USB setting. Sometimes formatting will revert it back to Auto Defect, leading to recognition or connection problems. Set it to MSC for the most trouble-free connections.
I tried all of those things, still not being recognized ever since I hit format the other day and it wiped out all my music and now won’t recognize on Dell.
