My ipod touch is taking 4 hours to sync! help?

i have an iPod touch 8Gb first generation .. i bought the recent 3.1.1 update .. and its not updating it! i also bought the sims 3 app and chase the dot app and they arent appearing on my ipod either .. it is currently taking 4 - 6 hours to sync and back up .. and wont work without the backup so it needs to happen ... is this meant to be right? and whys it not updating?! is my ipod faulty?