Dell DJ Home Repairs
February 1, 2008 – 13:29For the past few months, the headphone jack on my 2nd-generation Dell DJ portable audio player has been acting up. More specifically, I haven’t been able to get any sound out of the left channel unless I pulled the headphone cable tight towards the back of the player and wound it around a few times to hold it in place. This was fine if I was sitting at my desk but not all that effective if I was walking around. Frustrated with my current replacement options in the capacity I want (namely, Apple’s ongoing audio/software issues with the 80gb and 160gb iPod Classics), I decided to take a stab at reviving my DJ.
I checked various Dell DJ-related forums, and found that this has been a pretty common problem among all DJ revisions. For the 2nd generation players there seemed to be only one posted solution: send it back to Dell if it is still under warranty. Well, Dell stopped making hard disk-based players over a year ago and mine was out of warranty anyways, so that wasn’t an option. I decided to start investigating on my own and documented my steps along the way, in case I was successful, so that someone else in my position might have a little more guidance than I did.
First, I removed the bottom rubber cover that protects the data port. To do this, I wedged a utility knife in between the rubber and the aluminum case and pried upward:
Then I removed the tiny screws that hold a metal plate in place, protecting the interior components:
At this point I removed the battery to give myself a bit more room to work with and make it harder for me to fry something. The battery lies along the backside of the player. Once I disconnected it (unplug the connector with the red and black wires attached to it, at the far left of the previous picture) it slid right out. I tugged on the circuit board inside with a pair of pliers a few times and it was obvious that it wasn’t going to budge, so I moved to the top of the player. The top rubber piece comes off the same way as the bottom, and once again you have to remove four screws to get the underlying plate out:
With the top plate off, I started to pull the DJ’s guts out. Although it slid pretty easily, I heard an unsettling metal-on-metal scraping sound coming from somewhere in the middle of the player. I guessed that this had to do with the scroll wheel’s connection to the mainboard, and I was right. Using the utility knife, I pried the scroll wheel assembly off the front and removed the case:
There are a handful of solders around the headphone jack housing. I inspected them closely while pressing the housing back and forth and saw that one of them had broken. Of course, it was the most tucked away of all of them and getting to it required that I remove the hard drive bracket out of the way. Three of the four screws holding the bracket in place are accessible; the other is under the LCD panel. I carefully pulled the LCD back from the left side in order to remove the final screw and then flipped the hard drive off to the side:
A quick re-solder of the broken contact (the rightmost solder on the black headphone jack housing in the picture below) and it was time to put it all back together:
Assembling the DJ is just the reverse of taking it apart, for the most part. However, you have to be careful to not let the surface of the LCD touch the aluminum case when sliding it back in. As I now know firsthand, any contact will result in an LCD with small scratches on it. 
When I got the insides almost all the way back in I found that the LCD bracket catches on the case, and trying to force it doesn’t do any good. However, you can press the bracket down just enough so that it will slide the rest of the way in by sticking a small flathead screwdriver through the scroll wheel hole and pressing down on the rectangular-shaped slot:
I popped the scroll wheel back in, reconnected the battery and slid it into place, and then put the end caps back on. Once again, I have two fully working channels.
17 Responses to “Dell DJ Home Repairs”
Goddamn boy! I’m never buying new electronics again.
By Kt on Feb 7, 2008
Excellent pics and documentation of your work. Thanks for sharing!
I have a DJ 2gen, 20G. Tried to update from MusicMatch to Yahoo and in the process attempted to reload the firmware. No luck. I can find multiple other people with the same “Player is not connected” problem, but no answers. I have extensively researched and downloaded the Dell firmware releases, v.1.00.003 to v.1.02.03 then the PlayForSure releases v.2.10.03, v.2.11.04, v.2.20.07, with no luck. Any suggestions?
Many thanks!
By LRM on Feb 10, 2008
Hm, not really. I usually sync my DJ using gnomad2 (Linux) and have never used one of the Jukebox applications for Windows to do it.
Good luck!
By jason on Feb 12, 2008
I’ve noticed a fair amount of visitors have landed on this post by searching for “dell dj wheel broken” of derivatives thereof.
My guess is that if your scroll wheel has stopped working, it is most likely due to the contact pins that connect the wheel to the main board inside. One or more of them is probably no longer touching its contact below. Try popping the wheel off, as I described, and slightly bend the pins downward so they are sure to reach the board. Be careful though, as they are very thin and will snap easily.
By jason on Mar 1, 2008
hi….
i have trouble with my firmware..
can tell me how to reload the firmware.. coz my DJ now didn’t have firmware. on windows, this stuff doesn’t recognize (offcourse without firmware).
sory my english bad.
thx 4 ur kindness.
By masnu on Jun 10, 2008
good stuff, just took my jukebox apart, re-soldered the right most solder point like this guy said, didn’t even bother to put the screw in behind the lcd, to risky and not worth it, 3 out of 4 isn’t bad lol, Apple isn’t getting one cent from me!!!!!!
By john on Sep 16, 2008
Man, I can’t thank you enough for posting all this info on your site!! I was trash pickin last week, and found a discarded dell dj. Soon found out why they picthed it – the sound kept cutting out. 15 minutes after reading thru your site, I had it apart, saw the very same broken solder spot, and had it fixed!
Thanks so much!!
By Shannon on Dec 10, 2008
My Dell DJ 30GB has acted up on me ever since I went for a jog in some light rain. I think some water got underneath my volume(+) button, because every time I try to volume-up it either volumes-down, changes the menu, skips ahead in the song, etc. So basically it’s as if my volume(+) button is trying to function like every other button on there.
I tried removing the top piece of the Dell DJ and sprayed some dust remover in there (that was all I had to work with) and nothing changed.
Anyone have any idea how to make my volume(+) button go back to functioning only as a volume-up button?
By Scott on Jan 2, 2009
This is the first place (after exhaustive searches) that has a good dis-assembly procedure for this player that could be found on Google.
Fine Work!! I wish I had found it before trying to force the innards out of the case without removing the jog wheel assembly. 2 of the connectors are now broken, and the display doesn’t work.
Parts anyone?
By Johann Fassmacher on Apr 23, 2009
Thanks for posting it really helped a lot.. I probabally wound’nt have attempted this without the great detail you provided…I felt pretty confident and succeeded!!! Weird how this seems to be a common problem on this model..
By Josh on Dec 7, 2009
Although I see it has been over 2 years since you posted this entry, it still is a great benefit. I had the same problem with my Dell DJ and your help allowed me to fix it and not do any damage that I would inevitably have done without it.
Major Kudos, to you, brother!
By Tom on Mar 6, 2010
@ Shannon:
Glad the trash-pickin’ worked out for you!
@ Johann:
I suppose you already tried searching eBay? At this point, you could probably get a new DJ for pretty cheap, since they have been discontinued for a while.
@ Josh:
Awesome! Glad I could help.
@ Tom:
You’re welcome!
By jason on Mar 16, 2010
What a surprise I am new to this mp3 player for only 1 month. I am looking for a replacement for the battery with higher capacity. Do you have any idea what is the mAh of this original one? Thanks!
By Rudolf on Jun 27, 2010
Rudolf-
I don’t know where my product manual is, so I’m not sure. I bet if you hunted around on Dell’s site, or called/emailed them about it, they’d be able to tell you. Good luck!
By jason on Jun 28, 2010
Hi, it’s me again. I have succeeded with my flash and battery replacement project. Want to share my little experience here:
1. There is a 2000mAh battery available on eBay look for “CREATIVE ZEN TOUCH DAA-BA0004 DAP-HD0014″ which is plug-and-play on Dell DJ20, BUT WAIT…
2. Unfortunately the motherboard + HDD + new battery is barely possible to fit into this chassis. Since battery will inflate during charge up this direct replacement is not safe enough to recommend.
3. A better solution is to replace the HDD also, with a Compact Flash card. It has quite a number of strengths over the original HDD solution: (a) It is faster (b) It has no spinning noise (c) It consumes even less power and generate virtually no heat.
4. A Compact Flash card can be connected to the original ZIF ribbon cable by a ’1.8″ ZIF to CF adapter’ which is at least 1mm thinner than the original HDD, leaving plenty of space for the battery.
5. Common ZIF to CF adapter made in China can support up to 64GB. I got a 16GB normal speed card cheaply for this purpose. Replace the HDD and battery and they fit just good. You may need to remove the outer wrapper tapes/labels of the new battery to fit.
Now you can run the Dell DJ20 player for over 15 hours per battery charge!!!
Rudolf.
By Rudolf on Jul 23, 2010
After replacing the HDD with a new one or CF card…
Your Dell DJ20 will go directly into the rescue mode. I assume you know you have to format the new “disk”, clear the old firmware, and then… you will get trapped by the infamous “recovery mode” – the hell. If you are like me the normal or unlucky one, under this hell the Dell DJ20 firmware upgrader application never can see your DJ20 and never can start transfering the firmware.
If you google it there are lots of different people telling you different ways of getting out of this hell. Some say you have to download a “fixup.zip” and run sth. inside. Some even say you have to uninstall all the USB system drivers!!
I have spent(or wasted) 5 hours following every of them but no, they all do not work!! Using a clean new PC does not work either.
At last, I found that uninstalling the WMP 11 and WMP 9 and installing the WMP 10 is the solution. No fixup.zip, no USB uninstall, no need a brand new PC. Of course, the pre-requisite is that you are running Windows XP.
Rudolf.
By Rudolf on Jul 23, 2010
I get the reason why striving so hard to survive this “little” mp3 player…
At times I thought of giving up and got the newest 16GB Creative Zen style 100. It is so small, light weight (44g!), cheap price, and can run 15 hours (Creative claims a highly exaggerated 32 hours!) on the tiny battery with one charge. But…
If you compare it with the Dell DJ20 (or this old Creative OEM product) the sound quality has very obvious difference. The difference is so huge that even me, with a pair of wooden ears
, can feel!!
What the hell those guys in Creative Lab are thinking and doing?
By Rudolf on Jul 23, 2010