Last week I was watching a movie on my ipod color with rockbox. I plugged the ipod in to a car charger, and the ipod froze. I reset it, and tried to watch the movie again. It started, then the ipod froze and shut down. It would no longer start at all, and plugging it into the charger did nothing. As I was on a trip, I waited until I got home, then left it plugged into my computer via firewire.

After leaving it there for a few hours, I unplugged it, and the ipod started right up. I booted into the standard apple firmware, and listened to music for a while, thinking all was fine. Leaving it in standby overnight, the ipod appeared to die again. Upon plugging it into the firewire port, I got the apple logo for about three seconds, and the ipod shut down. Now when plugged in, it rapidly changes between displaying the logo and resetting itself. I tried a usb connection, and the backlight flickered on, then the ipod shut off.

I cannot start it into disk or diagnostic mode. One other thing I have noticed is that the corner of opaque plastic between the bottom left of the screen and the clickwheel gets quite hot when the ipod is plugged in. Is there some charging hardware there that could have been fried by a voltage spike in the car charger?

I got this ipod for free, so I am willing to do anything (take apart, replace components, capacitors, etc (I have superior soldering skills)) and I would not be horribly sad if the ipod breaks in the process.

Any suggesstions are greatly appreciated.