Toshiba's answer to battery problem complaint

[PPCWanderer]

My girlfriend bought a new Toshiba 805 1 month ago. I am so jealous :D I want one so bad. I have a 330 and am dying for wireless.

She has been complaining that the system is telling her that the battery discharges in just an hour or two after a full night on the cradle. I suggested some things like turning off wireless and screen brightness and cranking down the Mhz. Nothing seems to be helping. So she called Toshiba. This is her email to me after talking to somebody:

I got the Toshiba problem resolved I think. I called their support line and it turns out that I am supposed to be doing a soft reset (like a CPU reboot) EVERY time I charge the battery AND EVERY time I put the unit on the cradle. Also, it should never sit on the cradle. Only put it on to sync and then take it off. This particular battery dismisses ALL the time even when the unit is off. He said since I never did the soft reset before charging the battery was not charging properly. He also told me to charge it only when power was between 30-50%. Never more or less. IF this doesn’t fix the problem they will send me a new main battery. Problem resolved.

Has anybody who owns one of these had a similar issue and gotten a similar answer from Toshiba about the battery?

Personally I can't imagine resetting my PDA everytime I put it on and take it off the dock and not being able to leave it sitting on the dock or having to wait until my battery is almost dead to charge it.

I am just amazed at the idiocy of this answer and am really starting to get angry the more I think about it.

[Kati Compton]

I am just amazed at the idiocy of this answer and am really starting to get angry the more I think about it.
That is rather strange. Let us know if it actually makes a difference.

I know that I've had what sounded like off-the-wall advice from tech support on at least one occasion that actually turned out to be valid.... :oops:

[Steven Cedrone]

I think I would call back and get a tech that knows what he/she is talking aqbout... :roll:

Steve

[PPCWanderer]

OK. She follows Toshiba's instructions last night and today. After 24 more hours of charging she has a green charge light meaning the battery is fully charged. She unplugs it and the battery indicator goes red and the OS tells her the battery is 28% capacity. Yeah :? :roll:

SO, she calls up tech support. They tell her "we'll send you a new battery, one of the extended capacity batteries, put it in and ship us back the old one."

Pain in the butt... but OK, she gets a new battery worth $110. Fair deal. The tech puts her on hold and come back a few minutes later to tell her they don't have any batteries of any size because the model is so new. Then they tell her "Ship the whole unit to us and we'll repair it."

"How?" she asks. Logically, if you don't have batteries to ship, how do you have batteries to replace? No answer to that. So she's shipping it back and will be without the PDA for who knows how long while. Good thing she hasn't had it long enough to become dependent on it.

[Kati Compton]

Ugh! That's *horrible*. I'd refuse that particular solution. Did they say when they expected to get new batteries in?

[Janak Parekh]

I have an e805, and I do not have this problem. The tech is full of BS. :|

--janak

[Steven Cedrone]

I think I'd hold out for a new battery. At least she can use the unit for a little while. Plus, you never know what will happen if you ship the unit back...

Steve

[PPCWanderer]

That's what I told her. No statement of a date that the batteries would be in. I said that they should ship her the battery when they get them in. She went with sending it back apparently.

She did tell them she expects some sort of additional add-on for the hassle. It seems that the tech was willing to accomodate her, but I'm not sure how that turned out yet.

[Steven Cedrone]

Well, good luck! I hope it turns out well for her...

But, if they don't give her anything worthwhile, I'd still hold out for the battery... :wink:

Steve

[dmacburry2003]

I have an iPaq 1935 and have e-mailed HP at least five times about various issues and questions. Even if they had no advice to give me, or just a simple "do a soft reset", they were ALWAYS nice about it and never gave me any trouble. They weren't rude or anything.

Oh, I left my iPaq on the syncer one time without it being plugged in (it was syncing with the PC all day and night) and the battery de-charged to about five percent. Also, it only takes me about thirty-fourty minutes to charge my 900 mAh battery and it lasts about 2-4 hours.

[suemccartin]

I've always read that lithium ion technology batteries like to be kept on the charger all the time. I've got a dell axim, I have a spare battery on the charger all the time, no problems. My 805 has mostly sat on the charger since I got it last week, no problems yet. I think that toshiba tech is full of cocka but apparently others have been told that too because that's not the first time I've read of that. Sounds like they're having some quality control issues with their batteries, hopefully they'l fix whatever the problem is soon.

[JohnnyFlash]

I've had my 805 only about two weeks. The second day I had it, I had some weird issues with the battery. Similar to what has been mentioned in this thread. But, before I could call Toshiba the next day, the problem seems to have resolved itself. As I said, it has been about two weeks now, and no additional problems since.

Also, I leave mine on the charger all day while I am working in my office. It doesn't seem to cause any problems. I also have repeated this same behaviour with a 740 and 755 before this 805, also with no problems.

I agree that that tech was full of malarkey. I honestly believe that they sometimes pull the answer out of their arse when they don't know what the real solution is. :roll: