Battery woes

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I just bought a new laptop on Saturday so I could use my own programs/excel macros to fiddle with formulae and models (and watch the occasional vid during slow periods) at work on nightshift seeing as how we're now restricted from using external storage devices on work PCs.

Anyway, despite my mistrust of all things Korean, I ended up buying a Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook.  Took a while to get to grips with Win 8 and get things set up the way I like, but I've only just discovered that the battery won't charge at all.  As soon as I unplug the AC adaptor, poof.  It's dead.  The first time I did it, it ended up killing the PC and I had to reinstall Win 8 from the recovery partition and spend several more hours getting it re-setup. 

Anyway, I've tried the little pinhole battery reset.  I've tried deleting and reinstalling MS ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery in Device Manager but it looks like the battery is simply hooped.  Before I end up RMAing the mother, anyone have any other tips to get a battery working?  I really don't want to set this thing up a third time in as many days.  Steam's going to start getting suspicious if I keep reinstalling the same games on what they see as a new computer each time.



Also, the battery for the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 that I bought last summer is also screwed.  Ever since the company released firmware "upgrade" 2.2.6, a lot of users are finding that the battery power display on their Apple devices will show power drain from 100% to 0 in 3-90 seconds.  Yet if you unplug the battery from the drone and then immediately plug it back in, the power bar will jump back up to 60-70%.  The company refuses to acknowledge that there is any problem.  Only fix so far seems to be to shell out for a 3rd party battery and charger.  Bastards!

[MIGMaster]

When it comes to RC batteries lithium polymer or lithium ion rock , but they will not tolerate more than 70% discharge. I've watched a lotta guys (including myself) kill lipo batteries by letting them discharge too low. Bad software in a charger or control device can really ruin your day.

Re: the laptop - I can't see any easy fix. Looks like an RMA situtaion.

Good luck ! 

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Jumping through the RMA hoops for the laptop now as both Samsung and NCIX are trying to get me to use the other guy to deal with the return.  Always a joy to deal with this crap.

As for the drone battery, the battery itself is fine.  It's an issue with the firmware/iPhone app misreading the remaining charge on the battery.  The battery still holds a charge for 12 minutes on a drone that hasn't been upgraded with the latest firmware.  Unfortunately, there's no way to roll back the firmware once you've done the upgrade.  There's been an issue with the batteries since last September and despite 3 firmware updates since then, the problem has yet to be fixed and the company won't even admit there is a problem despite hundreds of complaints complete with power graphs, videos, and all sorts of engineering nerd talk on the forums.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Wow.  The NCIX online support may have been a hassle, but the in-store guys were fantastic.  Took my laptop in, they cracked it open, agreed that the battery was FUBAR and just grabbed a new system off the shelf and said "take it.  We'll sort the paperwork out with online support later."

[MIGMaster]

WOW! Ya gotta like that !!!!

[LongBlade]

WOW! Ya gotta like that !!!!

+1

Cool!