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I have had this problem for almost 3 months now. And guess when it happened to me, a month just before my warranty ran out. Creative were trying to hold me from sending to for repairs under my warranty, by telling me it might be the headphones itself. Tried another pair, still muffled sound. So warranty has just run out. So i asked Creative to give me an address where i can send my Zen for repairs in England. No reply for a week.
I am greatly disappointed with the problem with the headphone jack, i have been praying that it would never happen to me, i am sort of looking forward to fixing it with a friend, by opening it up with a tutorial that i found, but he is the one who will be doing to soldiering, so if he doesn’t feel he’s experienced enough to do it, then i guess i can send it in to creative for a new one, but i am outraged that they just give you a new one that has the same problem (mine is the fairly newer version that they claim that was fixed, with the arrow for the back button) i have got my eyes on the Zen Vision:M if this doesn’t work out. The Micro is my first MP3 player and bought it I’m spite of it lasting a few years. I have had no other problems with it; i absolutely loved it up until now.
1) Capacity
2) New, Used, Refurbished, Replacement? And where?
3) How long you owned the player?
4) Explain exactly what happened when the problem occurred?
5) Did you fix or solve the problem?
6) If you did get a replacement from Creative, is this your second player?
7) Your own comments/opinions to the whole issue and anything else you want to add. Like RMA service was bad or it was great.
1) 5 gig
2) New from ecost site.
3) I got it for Christmas
4) eventually the sound started to get kind of messed up, and only come out of one ear. i was able to fix it by moving the plug, but that only worked for a week or so.
5) I RMAed the player, although I still have not gotten a replacement, Creative received my player 17 days ago.
6) No replacement received as of now
7) I think Creative needs to address this problem not just by having people RMA their players, but rather by changing the way the micro is designed. I am also disappointed by the whole RMA process. The status page is rarely updated, my RMA has taken 2 days longer than it should have, and there is a lack of information as to whom I need to contact about this. I'm a big fan of Creative's mp3 players, but this may be my last purchase from them. Their customer service is really lacking it seems. If my replacement Micro (if I ever get it) breaks, I most likely will try another brand.
6 GB, bought new from someone on E-bay. One side started cutting out intermittently after a few weeks, I opened it up and had a friend solder it. It still cuts out sometimes, but I just press the back of the player and it works fine, I'll probably have my friend resoled it at some point. I still think this is a good buy despite the jack problem, and think that anyone who has this problem should just have it soldered by a friend or a pro, instead of whining and moaning about how bad Creative is. (Welcome to the material world, where things don't always work out exactly as you want them to). If you fix it, you'll have what I think is a great mp3 player, without all the anger and frustration that comes from just sitting there complaining. I realize this probably won't be a popular opinion, but that's okay.
I don't (yet) have a headphone problem but I do have a power switch problem which turns out to be bad soldering / bad inspection by Creative Manufacture so for the record
1) 5GB
2) New
3) 6 months - early Dec 2010, but problem evident after two months of almost no usage.
4) Increasingly difficult to power down or power up with the slide switch and eventually it did not work at all - had to connect USB to force power-up. The lock function still works - almost certainly a mechanical problem with switch.
5) I currently have the unit in pieces - no point in trying to RMA it as the unit is a competition prize and I don't know who the supplier is. On opening up (using instructions elsewhere for headphone fixing), it is clear that the switch is not mounted properly on the PCB and that the power-on side is raised up. The right-most contact does not appear to be flow soldered properly. I have the tools to fix that, not easy for everyone though.
6) Not applicable
7) this is simply poor manufacture / inspection.
I have another problem - when I opened the case a small rectangular spring clip fell out with no indication where it came from. It is made of 0.5mm springy wire and the rectangle is not closed - i.e. cut at one corner (which I will refer to as Top Right). It is about 9mm long and 2mm wide with two 1mm kinks in it - one kink vertically out of the plane of the clip in the top left hand corner and the other increasing the width towards the top right hand corner. The top right hand corner is where the cut is in rectangle is and at that point there is also a 1mm vertical 'pin' created by the wire end which looks like a locating lug. This clip is not mentioned in the dismantling instructions provided for headphone repair. Is anyone able to tell me where it goes?? There are no obvious holes where that locating lug would go.
Hi my 1st creative Zen micro has a damaged audio jack; i sent if for repairs and got a new player. Less than a year later, the new player's audio jack is also damaged, but my warranty has already expired. Seeing such a large number of NEGATIVE comments on the Zen micro's audio jack, i think it’s obvious that the problem lies with the manufacturing. I think it’s time that the people at Creative do something about it and try to compensate customers whose warranty has already expired! There's no use jus giving us new players since they are going to fail us in the near future.
1. Zen Micro 5GB
2. New from Wal-Mart
3. a little over 1 year
4. Listening to the player one day and the sound started to go off
5. Sent RMA request to Creative and received response within 24 hours. Sent player with $25.
6. Received an email yesterday telling me that in order to fix the problem they need an additional $65.
As you can imagine, I am absolutely pissed that the repairs for a simple headphone jack cost $85. I really like creative and the Zen micro and as a matter of fact I recommended the player to 4 other people and they bought it. I now regret doing so because they're service sucks. I really can't believe how much they want to charge me. Even though it's going to cost me more, I'm not going to have it fixed and buy a new player from a different company that isn't experiences as many problems with their players. I'm surprised that Creative refuses to admit there is a problem with the jack even though the same issue is occurring with many other customers. I'm just severely disappointed with Creative and they've lost a customer (although i severely doubt they care). I think I might buy an iPod instead even though they are more expensive than most players on the market.
1) 5GB
2) New, From Wal Mart.
3) Christmas, '10
4) I'd heard about the headphone jack problem and so was extremely delicate when dealing with the plugs, but within 2 months of receiving it, the sound stopped playing from the right headphone. Wiggling the plug temporarily fixed the problem, but likely worsened it overall.
5) My solution was to place a tiny piece of plastic between the jack and the actual player. It's sad that this problem occurs, when creative could've prevented it by just making the little plastic ring on the jack a little larger. I plan on removing the plastic and having it repaired before the warranty is out.
6) No replacement received as of yet.
7) This is definitely negligence on creative's part. For so many people to have this problem, it is obviously not an uncommon issue. If their product had been tested thoroughly, surely this could not have gone unnoticed. And if creative DID know about the problem, even worse, because they did absolutely nothing to correct it. I'm really hoping that, in dealing with creative to have my Zen repaired, they will be eager to correct this. I refuse to pay any large amount of money, and will instead replace my MP3 player with another brand. I've always liked creative's products, but this has become a disheartening experience.
Zen Micro #1
6 GB purchased in May 2010 from amazon.com in black
sound suddenly cut out in august of 2010 sporadically so I bought a pair of Sony headphones thinking that was the problem but it was not. CValled they up and they replaced it for free.
Zen micro#2
identical replacement of the first one. Thought the first one was my fault so i took special care of it and also bought a case for it. This one lasted a little longer and around Jan 8th the headphone problem sprung up again. I'm finding it harder to take care of it by phone now since the warranty has expired. Had to do it by email but i am still waiting for their reply. I sent them all my information for the second time. The first time they tried sending me links that had nothing to do with my problem. And a lady on the phone wanted to charge me money to talk to someone. I don’t even want another one, but i guess i have no choice.
Has there been any improvement to the design lately? I'm sure there has not been since they have more advanced models out now. I also now have a problem which may be related where my battery will lose a lot of juice while it is off. If i take it off the charger in the morning and listen on the way to work the power will be 100% when i turn it off but when i turn it on after work the battery will be down to one bar. Also when it is off and i plug the headphones in you hear some noise through the headphones.
Well just an update on my situation, I decided to fix my headphone jack. I noticed how the headphone jack isn't connected well, maybe there wasn't enough solder to hold it in place because I could easily pry it out. The hardest part of soldering it is the top right connector since it sits close to the usb jack and it's hard to get the solder in there. My tricks to doing this was adding solder to the one connector on the board then adding a small amount on the headphone jack, heat up the two, and quickly connect it as fast as you can before the solder hardens. It took me a lot of tries to get it done right. But after that part, everything else was easy. The one thing that surprises me the most after the fix was that there was hardly any loud annoying static popping once you start plugging in your headphones even when the Zen micro was powered on or off. I remember that the Zen micro was plagued with this type of problem, surprisingly reordering the headphone jack fixed that problem. Now I can give my Zen Micro away instead of leaving it as a brick.