Archos AV400

[5v5 rider]

Hi peeps,

Can anyone help me with this one, I've been given very kindly an av400 archos media machine but it needs a new battery and a hard drive (no hdd or battery in it at all), I've bought a new battery off fleabay but I just needed to check what sort of hard drive goes in it (sata/ide/max size etc), I know it has to be a 2.5 inch drive but thats about it,the archos support site is no help as it insists not to 'upgrade' the hdd but what if there isnt any at all? If anyone has one or knows about them your advice would be really appreciated.

Cheers

Phil

[tigersaw]

Did you get the cradle, remote and all the leads? I have one somewhere all boxed up, its a pretty good piece of kit. It came in several hard drive sizes, and they are not upgradeable as far as I remember, the AV420 was a 20 gig, and there were bigger versions, up to 60 or 80 gig? There was an advantage to having the 20 gig, smaller size and better batteryI think.. been a while since I used it. I have extra leads to make it a complete portable recorder, it uses a funny 4 pole jacvk plug I believe.

[5v5 rider]

My mate is gonna give me the docking station and all the leads it needs tomorrow just need to get myself a hard drive and solder a new battery in place - battery part of it is sorted as far as i can tell but the hard drive has got me stumped - I'm assuming its a 20gb sata 2.5 inch drive but dont want to buy just in case its not right...:confused:

[tigersaw]

Dont know, had mine a few years, when Lost came out, I watched it on the train, so thats 3 or 4 years? Not sure if Sata was the device of choice back then.
Just done some googling, it says the AV420 used a 1.8" drive, not 2.5".
You talk about soldering in a new battery - that suggests you dont have the 420 - they were removeable. You need to identify the model methinks.

[5v5 rider]

av400 - the clue is in the title.....;)

[tigersaw]

av400 - the clue is in the title.....;)

There is no AV400 - that refers to the range

[5v5 rider]

Ah bollock5!! My mate just said..its an av400, it even says av400 on the back of the unit and when I went to the archos site and dloaded the pdf doc http://www.archos.com/support/download/manuals/EN_AV400_Manual_V2.pdf it does state 'av400 series' so I havent got a bloody clue now:confused:

[tigersaw]

If the battery pack is removeable, its a 420, thats a 20 gig 1.8" hitachi drive.
if you cant change the battery, its a 440 or 480, using a 40 or 80 gig 2.5" drive.

[5v5 rider]

the battery pack has 2 wires (red and black) coming out of it and they are soldered into place at the bottom left corner of the system board so to remove it you would have to resolder it....does that help at all??

[tigersaw]

the 420 has a pack with the battery in in that comes off, like a mobile phone, it is meant to be changeable so you can have several batteries - yours does not sound like that, so I guess a 440 or 480 then.

[5v5 rider]

the 420 has a pack with the battery in in that comes off, like a mobile phone, it is meant to be changeable so you can have several batteries - yours does not sound like that, so I guess a 440 or 480 then.


Cheers mate - I'll have a bit of a search on the 440 or 480 - hope you have a good sunday mate.

[johnnyrod]

Do any of you know about problems recording on these? My mate has one which seems to work fine on his TL1000 witha bullet camera, but on his SV over about 5k revs it packs up. I reckon it's to do with interference from the coils but he's never listened to me, he thinks it's vibration though it worked fine on teh Tl and also taped to his head on an MX track. Any thoughts? I looksed long and hard and found nothing, also Archos don't seem very helpful.

[tigersaw]

had mine duck taped to the back of a 280SX as an exhaust flame cam and never had a problem. maybe it was the bullet cam that was packing up not the archos? Was everything on independant batteries?

[johnnyrod]

Er, I think the battery in the Archos ran everything, not really up on it though. It didn't seem great, if you whacked it hard enough to make the recording skip, it binned the entire file, it didn't just stop there.