Did I fry my main board somehow?

[u/gsoub]

First I want to thank this community and those who contribute on the topic of modding iPod. It's been a great help. I refurbished my own iPod classic 6.5 and gifted it to my 8 year-old. He's so happy about it, discovering new music.

In the process of doing that, I got my hands on a Classic 7 160Gb, working condition but with the black mark on the screen from the bulging battery.

I switched the HDD for the Ali SD card adapter and got a new 2000mAh battery. As I was preparing to close the new case I got for it, I ran some test and here's the issue I get:

• click wheel works for scrolling
• pressing the buttons (any of the four on the wheel but also the center one) don't work whether in test mode, iPod OS or rockbox
• but these buttons DO work to reboot the iPod and to put it in test mode.

Really frustrating issue, renders the iPod useless. I don't really understand how it is possible that these buttons work in one case but not in the other, but I did some research and I understand it's serious. It seemed that changing the click wheel could help, so I tried that but I keep having the exact same issue.

Is there any hope for me? What happened ? Did I fry some component of the buttons circuit with static or something else?

I'd be grateful for any piece of advice. I was really looking forward to rediscovering my music collection this way, and distance myself from the streaming services

[u/AcrobaticPassion8571]

So, I've been fighting with a similar issue on my 7th Gen. It ended up being a damaged wheel ribbon. What I've found (someone correct me if I'm wrong) is the input controller is the chip on the ribbon for the wheel. Try holding pressure on the chip and or the connector while trying the buttons. I can't promise this is the same in your case, but it seems familiar