What concerns me is the dots you said you have. If you just had a plain white screen then that is an easier thing to approach, but with the dots it makes things different, and more dificult. I would keep checking your thread and not do anything else until tomorrow and see if others have any Ideas
Very odd. You’re either extremely unlucky (since you managed to get your hands on two defective Fuzes) or there’s some other problem that we’re missing.
It really sounds like a hardware problem, meaning that you should get a replacement from SanDisk. It’s very unfortunate that this is the second time you have a problem with a Fuze but I really can’t think of anything else (you’ve pretty much tried everything you could; firmware update, reset and format) . Third time’s the charm, right?
I realize that you said you formatted the player already, but when you did that did you put your songs back on the player?
Could it be possible that a file you are putting on the player is corrupting it? I somehow doubt it but maybe? Plug it into your computer, format it again, reinstall the latest firmware (download a fresh copy in case the previous one was corrupted), don’t put anything on it, unplug the Fuze from the computer and see if that changes anything. If that doesn’t change anything I’d say it’s most definitely a hardware problem. So you’ll need a new Fuze.
Write Exactly what you told us. That this is your second Fuze and both have been defective, and tell them what the screen looks like, and if you can include some pictures of it with the screen visible. they will tell you what they need.