My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Hey everyone,

It seems a few people have had troubles getting what they really paid for with their players, and i have run into the same problem, so i thought i would post up all of my findings. It's a bit long but it should answer a lot of questions for people with the same problem as me.

I received my 4GB nano clone in the mail this week (looks exactly like -this- one), off ebay from Hong Kong. I never thought there would be anything fishy about 4GB players because i knew Apple had them (didn't realize they use two chips), but after finding this site, thought i should check it out straight away.

The first thing that caught my attention is that most of the flash based players all operate with a FAT file system and specify that they should only be formatted with this type. Of course that means a limitation of 2GB. When i hooked up my player, i noticed it was FAT32 (therefore able to support drive capacity greater than 2GB) and after formatting it as FAT32 again, it worked just fine. I couldn't format it with the "MP3 Player Utilities" program though, obviously because it saw it as FAT32 but wanted to format it as FAT. Windows reported is as being 3.99GB after the format.

The next thing i did was fill it up with more than 2GB worth of stuff. This worked no problems. However, when playing songs on the player, i found that once it got to an mp3 that was transferred on after the 2GB mark, it would restart (as mentioned in some other threads). I played around with the amount of files on there, and found the limit to be just under 2 billion bytes, ie: "2GB", or 1.86 real gigabytes.

I thought i'd give the hardware the benefit of the doubt and put it down to a software issue whereby the player couldn't support more than 2GB of data in the mp4 directory, so i created a new directory in the root and chucked mp3s in there aswell. Functionality of the mp3 player was fine, (ie: no restarting), but after transferring those files back onto the computer, they sounded all over the shop, as though they were playing random bits of the previous mp3 i had listened to. Windows seemed to think they were properly sized though.

This left me with the option of physically checking the memory, so i pulled apart the player tonight and checked it out. The memory is:

SAMSUNG 616
K9WAG08U1M
PCB0

Looking at Samsung's site, there are 3 versions in the family of flash. You can download the specification data sheet -here-

The base chip is the K9K8G08U0M, which is 1G x 8bit, and the K9WAG08U1M (2G x 8bit) and K9NBG08U5M (4G x 8 bit) chips are based off that. The website is -here-.

So basically,
K9K8G08U0M = 1GB
K9WAG08U1M = 2GB
K9NBG08U5M = 4GB

The part number decoder can be found -here-.
8G stands for 1GB, AG stands for 2GB, and BG stands for 4GB

Looking at pics of a 4GB Apple ipod nano, i noticed that my chip was the same. But looking closer you can see that the daughterboard which houses the flash has a chip on both sides, ie: 2x 2GB chips to make up 4GB. Pics -here-.

So it turns out my 4GB player is really a 2GB player :(
I am going to put it back together and contact the ebay guy and see how i go with that. I am not expecting much, but i forked out an extra $75 to go to 4GB so i have nothing to lose.

What i would like to know is how Windows (and the player itself) thinks it's a 4GB drive, even after formatting, and how i was able to transfer data to a space that didn't really exist, and how the assumed size of the files was able to remain after they were transferred back (even though they were stuffed). If anyone knows the story behind that it would be great to hear it.

So there you have it, the 4GB chips do exist, but be very careful about what you actually get. (Seems the price of the chip alone is a little over $AUD 100, check out www.multiarcade.com ). As for 8GB chips, there is no mention of these on Samsung's site so i would stay well clear any advertised on ebay and the like. They are most likely 8gigabit chips, ie: really 1GB.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Zaidon,

BRAVO!!!
Thank you!
There you have it indeed.
I have been singing this song for a month now ever since I received my 1st mp4 player.
No I have not been stung yet (to my knowledge), but I have taken my own advice (see posts), and if I had noticed anything fishy, would have returned the unit right away. If enough of us do this, eventually it will get back to the manufacturers, and they will find a more inventive way to spoof the firmware into showing more capacity.
No, I don't know how the coders do it, but here is my guess:

The firmware is spoofed to read a bit as a byte (8X) real capacity. Or there is a new compression algorithm out there that will effectively do the same thing.
That's it in a nutshell. you can read my Wikipedia edit here:

http://www.s1mp3.org/wiki/index.php/...e#The_solution

This is a wonderful ExPOSE` that I hope all you newbies will read before bidding on the new 4, 8 ,16, 24, 36Gb flash players out there that don't really exist quite yet.
Thank you again Zaidon for your valuable contribution, and good luck w/ your seller.
Post back how it goes.....
I

Zaidon

Thanks for your write up and contribution to this topic. I will put it as a sticky.

I NEED THE CAPACITY OF VD101N3NC 13-L6 MANUFACTURED BY VDATA. my player reported a capacity or 2 gb initially, which later came down to 1gb. can anyone tell me what is the true capacity of this flash??

i am getting 475MB in my 2 GB player.

But i can also load 2 GB data. and i presume problem is somewhere else and not new compression a mentioned by "Iridium" above - because if i know correctly no compression tech can do much better to jpg or mp3 files, and i even tried o copy a zip file and get it back properly.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Hey there i am having a similar problem as you.
all the same issues you had as well. Including buying it on Ebay.

My problem was compounded because i synched it with media player so it was continually dumping new songs. Well my player didn't like the and was putting files that made no sense nor could they be deleted.
So i used the Hp usb formatter and it ended up formatting it as a 512 mb player.
When i checked the flash chip the and further checked the Hynix website the chip code actually says its a 4 gb player.
So now i am stuck with a 512 mb player by the looks of it.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I bought a 2gb player. had problems with loading files above a certain limit and had to format the player as it played garbled numbers. After formatting , I learned that the player was actually 475 mb (reported by windows Xp)
I promptly complained to the seller who gave me a new player with guarantee that it will be actually 2 Gb when formatted on the computer.

I was being clever and carried my notebook along. Formatted in his presence on the notebook (windows XP). and Viola - it showed 2 gb. I thanked the seller, shook hands with him and came home.

Yesterday i happened to read Zaidons article and filled up my player to its 2 gb capacity. Sadly it turned out that it supports only 1 gb capacity.

My question , as Zaidons, is How does windows XP show the formatted capacity as more than the actual capacity.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I was also just ripped off by powersellerturbo, aka marklarson007@aol.com. I didn't know about all this until I purchased my player, and even sent him an e-mail before it shipped warning him not to send it if it was a fake. I found this web site and all and it's a great resource, I only wish I found it sooner.

The ebay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN%3AIT&rd=1

The e-mail I sent to him, and his reply shortly after I paid for the item and began researching it (doh!):

I received the player today. On the outside of the box is an "8GB" sticker, on the back of the player there were two small round holographic shiny stickers, one that said "8G" and another that said "FM".

First thing I did is look at the properties of the drive, and sure enough it stated 8 GB. Looks good, maybe its true (hah)? Still I decided to format the drive. I tried first with the included MP3 player disk tools, which reported the capacity as 4 GB with matching number of sectors. I tried a low, full and quick format and they all failed stating "Volume too large" at the end. Not good so far.

Then I tried to format using windows, first trying a fat32 format. This formatted ok and oddly still reported 8 GB capacity. The drive has always been reading FAT32 file system. I then tried a regular FAT format and it completed ok.

I turned the device off and back on and went to the drive and windows reported it was not formatted and needed to be formatted. So I decided to format it regular ms dos style fat again, it formatted to reveal the true 2 GB size (about 1900 MB). The disk tool is now also reporting the correct size.

I never did anything to the firmware so I beleive the trick is in how they format the flash, using some kind of FAT32 trick to fool the OS into thinking its a higher capacity. It only switched to the real size when the FAT32 format was destroyed by a regular FAT style format. I've since loaded files, turned off/on, etc. to ensure the file system integrity.

To be sure, I opened up the player to examine the flash chip. Sure enough it's a Samsung K9WAG08U1A, which is a 1G x 2 (two chips in one). So my player is really only 2 GB after all, 75% less than what the seller claimed. Also in this case there is no confusing the GB with Gbit, as 8 Gbit = 1 Gbyte, however this player is in fact 2 GB.

Here is my angry e-mail fired off tonight:

I've not yet posted negative feedback or done anything to maintain a good position with the seller. However it is clear that this player is only 2 GB. It's a nice player and I do like it and will mod it etc. but I wanted an 8 GB player to hold my entire music collection. I wouldn't be so mad if there was a way to upgrade the player but in this case there is not...

That and the fact I paid $100 when I could have got a real 2 GB nano for only $50 more....

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

That's too bad, Owned. May I know the real names of the persons you all bought it from, showing in your paypal history?

ComedicCook,
Your chip is most likely a 4 Gigabit not 4 Gigabyte chip.

1 Gigabit=128MB
4 Gigabit=512MB
8 Gigabit=1Gigabyte
16 Gigabit=2Gigabyte

I do not think Hynix do a 4 Gigabyte

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Here is all the info I have about my seller from PayPal:

Payment To:
Larz Inc. (The recipient of this payment is Verified)
Seller's ID:
powersellerturbo
Seller's Email:
Marklarson007@aol.com

I do have one question, however. Assuming the pin outs are the same, would it not be possible to desolder the SMT chip and put a larger one in it's place? Then do the dead player type procedure to reflash a new firmware, and format the flash.

I ask because I can very easily solder/desolder this SMT chip.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Thank you for your detailed findings. You are on the money with all the details. I have purchased 6 of these players about a month ago and have only just discovered the problems with this 4gb Mp4 Player. I removed the rear cover and scratched off the little round sticker off the chip and low and behold the part number is the 2gb chip description (as per zaidon). I am currently persuing the seller for an explanation (emails are going around in circles) so I checked his items for sale and he is still selling them as 4Gb players and also 2gb Tiny MP4 players that are only 1gb. I will post more details as this issue progresses. They still operate fine as a 2gb Player though, but have a little trouble playing the frog video from this site.

0wned, The Actions chipset that powers these players will only support a maximum of 2GB nand flash.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Well here has what has happened since:

- The seller offered to refund my money if I sent the item back at my expense. I don't feel this is a good thing to do because I already don't trust the guy. I would take $50 refund and keep the player, I think that's plenty fair.

- I left the seller negative feedback because I see he has just listed another lot of "8 GB" players. I was hoping that other buyers would see my feedback and have at least a warning, especially considering not all people will realize they've been scammed.

- The seller made his feedback comments private!! I didn't even know you could do that...and that basically means that I left him a negative for no good help to others. He of course left me a negative...

- I filled a dispute with Paypal and I am waiting to file an ebay claim. It just makes me feel bad for other buyers/victims.

There should be a link to this thread on the home page to warn others!!

Pam

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I have success I have been communication back and forth for a while now trying to keep my cool and the seller "citipower" has agreed to send me an extra MP4 player at no extra charge. The average cost for the seven players recieved is AU$85.00 have I been ripped off? I guess the moral of the story is do your research before you purchase anything! I hope others can learn from my mistake. Paul

race 1999,
Alas most people only find out about these things once they have bought their players or start having problems. The price you paid is about right for a 2Gb player and at least you are getting some return from the seller for your troubles.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I got my 4GB :x grrrrrrrrr.... 2GB player from eBay, has this picture been edited or can I really make the screen look the same as an iPod?

http://i16.ebayimg.com/04/i/06/d3/1e/14_1_sbl.JPG

The listing

TH_Overkill, They are just mockups using iPod images, no chance of album art but you can customise most of the interface.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I bought the same one on Ebay 4 GB, my question is how does it work, when I first got it, ther was music on it and a short music video, it played ok I deleted the music and video. I draged and droped my music files on to the player, I could see some of the files but not all of them, when I tried to play them nothing happend the instructions that came with the player are writen in pigeon English, the seller says he's going to phone me, I won't hold my breath, would one of you guys kindy tell how the f-ing thing works. regards Dan

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Dan, files placed on the player beyond the (probably your size) 2 gig border, seem to arrive on the player, but aren't really there, just indexed as.
Format the player to get the real capacity:
tadad1's method

yup, use the disk tool & drag the slider from side to side & format it when it says 2GB

well I gues at least we are not alone

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

There's a seller , mensan666, currently selling hundred of these players every day on Ebay. I bought mine from them and encountered all the problems quoted here, plus the fact that despite having British Union flags all over every picture, the players come from, yep, you guessd it, Hong Kong!!!

If you have a problem with your player, as I have had, the seller states

"... we are the retailer of these players but not the manufacturer, and we cannot offer you support service or support the error-free operation of the product for all operating environments."

This is totally wrong. In the UK at least, a contract is made between the buyer and the retailer or seller, not the manufacturer, and as such the seller is liable for any fault.

Ebay item number 320050033387 is very interesting!

It would seem the real villains in all of this are Ebay.

If they don't know that they have a massive scam going with countless sellers and Mp4 players then I am the Queen of Sweden.

With Ebay it's all about green. And as long as they keep raking that, then screw everybody else.

They are a disgrace.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I recently bought the same mp4 player but from other store: ebritain

Anyone bought from this seller?

The auction that I bid for it

Today I received a email saying that the item was dispatched, I think I will have the same problem as all of you... :?

The question is if I receive a fake player I will return it and ask for a full refund, because a 512MB player doesn't interests me. I would bought one like this.

My lucky is that I only spent $35... I'm waiting to test the player... Seller continues to sell it like pies! :roll:

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I come in peace...

I'm sending this to buyers of hacked players from someone called mensan666

If you file a complaint with Paypal, you'll
be able to get a refund and keep those pieces of crap you've been sold. I've still got mine but never use it.

You need to complain to Paypal that the items were
significantly different to what was described. You'll find that
the hard drive capacity is nowhere near 4GB. The drives are
hacked to show a false reading. More
details here
MPX
Paypal will need to see a report from an independant expert to
back up your claim. Have you got Photoshop or something
similar??? It'll take you half an hour to knock up an opinion
from a professor at your local university. Don't let
this horrible fraudster get away with it, and keep checking his
profile to advise others of how to scam this scammer.
Of course I'll be sending the player back to the specified address tomorrow, not to the seller but to the manufacturer, overland to Hong Kong, as this costs about the same as sending it to a UK address as the seller wants us to believe he is sending them from.

That'll take about six weeks, and is notorious for losing items. What a shame!!

Maybe people should just buy these things well armed with this knowledge then put these people out of business???
Good Luck!

P.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

U8- I also purchased a mp4 player frp, Ebritan on Jan 3, 06. Also they disptached my mp4 player. Also today on Jan 10, 06 I was looking at their ebay site and they are gone. I was wondering if you received your mp4 player. Could I get my money back if I never receive me product and how would I do that.

My Fake 4GB MP3 Only gets 233MB of memory
 

A friend bought one of those 4 GB gizmos and dumped on my lap to make it work.

Here is the deal: The directory got corrupted so I tried to format it with the "MP3 player Disk tool" but it didn't want to format it. So I clicked the partition tab and somehow I let me format it but now I only get 233MB. When I try to format it with the Windows formating tool it won't let me; it says that there is a applications running and such.

At this point I would be happy if I get 2 GB I (even 1 GB ) but 233MB is ridiculous can anybody help me with this.

lifehacker , if you had formatted it via the MP3 Utilities Disk Tool, then that would be actual chip memory size. Most probably the player contains a 256MB chip.

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

thanks for the reply lattesurf

Wow, Is pretty amazing that they can hack it to read 4 GB

wrong, and amazing at the same time

Hello, happens the capacity of a disk is not in the formating but in the Partition Table, you need clear the partition table and then make a new one (using mp3 utilities).

regards

Well, suckered like so many more. Bought a supposed 4gb, original nano-style.. and started filling it tonight to see how far it would go.. my wife had only used about 500mb so far, so I wanted to max it out.

Files started corrupting, so I started formatting.. and lo and behold, a 1gb machine. Sad, really.

I have no recourse, i bought it through craigslist from a college student right here near my house. Won't ever see that $80 again.

Are there any true 4gb machines out there? Or even one that would run off of a thumbdrive?

Thanks.
J

Teamjoedawn, Sorry to hear you were scammed. I have seen no definative proof that 4GB clones exist despite the latest rumours that they are now available.

To Zaidon
 

Gee man, got the replica of Ipod too. I thought that it was a firmware problem so I flashed it, but to my bad luck I forgot to backup the first one. Now I have only the White screen, but can access my MP3from PC. weird. Would you be so kind to post your firmware here, or send by mail to babyloation@centrum.cz

Thanks a lot

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

I have bought a Chinese Sony mp4/amv/rec/fm player (2GB). But when I am downloading into it, it accepts only 300 MB of data. I asked the seller and he told me that all these players are like it. It shows something and gives something. Is it not cheating? 300 Mb for 2GB.

i also just found out that my "4gb" mp4 player is a 1gb piece of junk.these guys rip you off so bad.....flash movies suck...no clickwheel....crappy lookin interface

i paid almost 170 dollars for this thing.its amazing that they can trick people into thinking they are good...

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Dear Zaidon, Firstly congratulations for your excellent work in this matter, I've followed your instruction and my mp4 player proved to be 2gb instead of 4Gb. However I've done the same thing for another one and the windows cannot format it. When you turn on the player it says 'disk error'. Is there something else I can do?

Any help will be welcomed

Thanks, Nick

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

Hey all!

First of all, thanks for all the helpful stuff on this site.

I got bagged aswell as hundreds, maybe thousands on this site and the www in general, by buying a 4GB player off of Ebay.be that after removing the hack turned out to be a 2 gig player.

I'll post some detailed info here concerning the memory chip inside.

It's a samsung 722 chip, part number K9LAG08U0M-PCB0
This chip is a Two gigaBYTE chip, samsung sells it as a 16gigaBIT chip, so those two are equal.

The firmware version is 9.0.50 and the manufacturer is Wilson co Ltd.
bootflash type f285
brom version 3.0.80

fake number of sectors :8380449
Fake capacity : 4092.02Mb
Real capacity according to mp3 player disc tool : 1946mb

Capacity after reformat : 1945.09mb



I am currently negotiating a full refund, as this guy seemed really friendly when it came to some delivery trouble, so i'll see how he responds. If he's unwilling to refund in full, i wil demand the difference between the cost of the alleged 4GB player and the 2GB model + postage price.

There might be a chance that this seller doesn't even know he's selling hacked ones, but i tend to find that option unlikely to be true. If this is the case however, i will inform him to the fullest, with the help of this site.



Still, thanks for the help in the removal of the mem. hack and the disassembly of the player to trace the chip's part number.

Here's a pic of the item.[img=left:9029432133]http://i21.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/9f/f9/f334_1.JPG[/img:9029432133]

Re: My Fake 4GB MP3 Player - Detailed Findings!
 

hi all, new guy here. i have seen similar devices to this, in the form of a "32gb" thumb drive, the capacity of which was actually 128mb

anyway, my housemate bought a "4gb" mp3 player just like the one in the original post, running act firmware 9.1.51, from ebay seller "digitexpert". and yes, it seems to be one of these 512mb/1gb ripoffs

i'll pursue the seller (who knows, i might actually keep it myself and repair the volume size, it's an interesting curio) but i just wanted to say thankyou to everyone who has helped compile the info this forum contains, it's a very useful site

edit: fixed it with the low level format + partition tool. 2gb. not so bad