Troubleshooting New Kindle 3, poor battery life

DaveCR-V · 02-04-2011, 09:30 AM

Hey guys, new to the forum and e-readers in general, recently I received my new Kindle 3 (January 29th 2011) in less than a week I have had some concerns over the battery life. When I first got the device I loaded ~990 books in mobi format, a friend gave me the books, after reading a short book (277 pages) I saw the exclamation point over the battery, figuring the unit only had a small charge from the factory and assumed that it needed an initial charge, that night I plugged the kindle into the wall. The next day I get up pull the Kindle out and have a full charge (wifi off) I did some browsing of the new device over breakfast and put the unit in my bag later that day I open it up and see I have lost around 1/4 of the battery. I understand the Kindle needs time to index those books so once the battery got down to ! I recharged, I believe that was Feb 2nd, all day yesterday I had the unit in my bag but I probably only flipped through about 20 pages simply due to schedule constraints this morning I am checking my battery and I am down to 1/4

. I understand again that the unit has to index and that this sucks down battery but in truth I am only using about 33% of the units available space I cannot fathom this thing really takes 6 days to index about 1 gig of files when it clearly is sucking juice 24 hours a day to do so. So my question is should I send the thing back to Amazon or wait it out?

kindlekitten · 02-04-2011, 09:41 AM

hi and welcome to the forums! that is a LOT of books for it to index at once. most folks recommend sending 2 or 300 once. it is also possible that something is stuck indexing. I've never had this happen before, but it is a known issue (not a kindle issue, a book issue). I am sure someone can tell you how to check for it. if you can find out which one it is, the fix is to delete it and re-download it. also, keep your wifi off when not using it unless you are stationary to a server as the battery will run down looking for a signal if you are moving around a lot.

I'm sure you will get much more feedback as folks check in ;o)

ProfCrash · 02-04-2011, 10:18 AM

That is a ton of books to index and it sounds like some have not been index. Try doing a search across the books. Put in a bogus word, something that won't actually be found. If a book is not indexed you will get a message that the Kindle cannot search book X. Remove the books that are not indexed and see what happens.

TheKindleWorm · 02-04-2011, 10:20 AM

Hi and welcome to the forum.

It does sound like an indexing problem as kindlekitten says. I have instructions at my blog on how to check for that:

http://www.kinworm.com/2011/01/q-7-w...ning-down.html

TenaciousBadger · 02-04-2011, 01:50 PM

like everyone says... too many books at once and indexing sucks the battery life out of the kindle.
just search something random like "wqxz" and see if anything got stuck. delete it!

i hope you get to enjoy your kindle. it bites when technical issues put a downer on enjoying gadgets .

chamekke · 02-06-2011, 02:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheKindleWorm

It does sound like an indexing problem as kindlekitten says. I have instructions at my blog on how to check for that:

http://www.kinworm.com/2011/01/q-7-w...ning-down.html

Thanks and karma to you for this. Your instructions were most helpful!

TheKindleWorm · 02-06-2011, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chamekke

Thanks and karma to you for this. Your instructions were most helpful!

You're welcome. Thank you and to everyone who tried to help. Luckily there are lots of people to help in the kindle forum.

DaveCR-V · 02-09-2011, 01:04 PM

Did a search and nothing turned up. We will see how the battery life is from this point on, I should note I turned my WiFi on and got a low battery warning then immediately after turning it off the battery life still showed 25%. Does that seem normal? I have only seen battery variations in some old iPods with bad batteries.

desertblues · 02-09-2011, 02:21 PM

I really would have thought it is a typical indexing problem: too many books at once on the Kindle. (it happenen to me with my first Kindle; loaded 1100 books in one go

).
But if you say that, when you do a random search; it shows ' no items indexing' then it must be something else. The only thing, apart from the battery being defective, could be the downloading.
Did you check if there's a book downloading endlessly? Home-menu-view downloading items. That last one should be greyed out, otherwise there's downloading in progress. It this is the case, you could try sending that book once more from your ManageYourKindle page on amazon.com.
Apart from that, I would charge the Kindle fully (let it charge overnight) and restart it: home-menu-settings-menu-restart.
It this doesn't help; phone Amazon and tell them about it. Good luck.

edit: the WIFI shouldn't make that much of a difference, but it could if your Kindle is already unstable.

02-04-2011, 09:30 AM	#1
DaveCR-V Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: Kindle 3	New Kindle 3, poor battery life Hey guys, new to the forum and e-readers in general, recently I received my new Kindle 3 (January 29th 2011) in less than a week I have had some concerns over the battery life. When I first got the device I loaded ~990 books in mobi format, a friend gave me the books, after reading a short book (277 pages) I saw the exclamation point over the battery, figuring the unit only had a small charge from the factory and assumed that it needed an initial charge, that night I plugged the kindle into the wall. The next day I get up pull the Kindle out and have a full charge (wifi off) I did some browsing of the new device over breakfast and put the unit in my bag later that day I open it up and see I have lost around 1/4 of the battery. I understand the Kindle needs time to index those books so once the battery got down to ! I recharged, I believe that was Feb 2nd, all day yesterday I had the unit in my bag but I probably only flipped through about 20 pages simply due to schedule constraints this morning I am checking my battery and I am down to 1/4 . I understand again that the unit has to index and that this sucks down battery but in truth I am only using about 33% of the units available space I cannot fathom this thing really takes 6 days to index about 1 gig of files when it clearly is sucking juice 24 hours a day to do so. So my question is should I send the thing back to Amazon or wait it out?

02-09-2011, 02:21 PM	#9
desertblues Home for the moment Posts: 5,127 Karma: 27718936 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: travelling Device: various	I really would have thought it is a typical indexing problem: too many books at once on the Kindle. (it happenen to me with my first Kindle; loaded 1100 books in one go). But if you say that, when you do a random search; it shows ' no items indexing' then it must be something else. The only thing, apart from the battery being defective, could be the downloading. Did you check if there's a book downloading endlessly? Home-menu-view downloading items. That last one should be greyed out, otherwise there's downloading in progress. It this is the case, you could try sending that book once more from your ManageYourKindle page on amazon.com. Apart from that, I would charge the Kindle fully (let it charge overnight) and restart it: home-menu-settings-menu-restart. It this doesn't help; phone Amazon and tell them about it. Good luck. edit: the WIFI shouldn't make that much of a difference, but it could if your Kindle is already unstable.

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02-04-2011, 09:41 AM	#2
kindlekitten Professional Adventuress Posts: 13,368 Karma: 50260224 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: The Olympic Peninsula on the OTHER Washington! (the big green clean one on the west coast!) Device: Kindle, the original! Times Two! and gifting an International Kindle	hi and welcome to the forums! that is a LOT of books for it to index at once. most folks recommend sending 2 or 300 once. it is also possible that something is stuck indexing. I've never had this happen before, but it is a known issue (not a kindle issue, a book issue). I am sure someone can tell you how to check for it. if you can find out which one it is, the fix is to delete it and re-download it. also, keep your wifi off when not using it unless you are stationary to a server as the battery will run down looking for a signal if you are moving around a lot. I'm sure you will get much more feedback as folks check in ;o)

02-04-2011, 10:18 AM	#3
ProfCrash Tea Enthusiast Posts: 8,554 Karma: 75384937 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Somewhere in the USA Device: Kindle1, Kindle DX Graphite, K3 3G, IPad 3, PW2	That is a ton of books to index and it sounds like some have not been index. Try doing a search across the books. Put in a bogus word, something that won't actually be found. If a book is not indexed you will get a message that the Kindle cannot search book X. Remove the books that are not indexed and see what happens.

02-04-2011, 10:20 AM	#4
TheKindleWorm Guru Posts: 860 Karma: 177868 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: East Anglia UK Device: Kindle 3G, iPhone 3G, iPod 4G, PB 360, Sony 600 sold, Kindle 2i sold	Hi and welcome to the forum. It does sound like an indexing problem as kindlekitten says. I have instructions at my blog on how to check for that: http://www.kinworm.com/2011/01/q-7-w...ning-down.html

02-04-2011, 01:50 PM	#5
TenaciousBadger Mrawr? Posts: 1,109 Karma: 15039064 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: kindle 3 wifi	like everyone says... too many books at once and indexing sucks the battery life out of the kindle. just search something random like "wqxz" and see if anything got stuck. delete it! i hope you get to enjoy your kindle. it bites when technical issues put a downer on enjoying gadgets .

02-09-2011, 01:04 PM	#8
DaveCR-V Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: Kindle 3	Did a search and nothing turned up. We will see how the battery life is from this point on, I should note I turned my WiFi on and got a low battery warning then immediately after turning it off the battery life still showed 25%. Does that seem normal? I have only seen battery variations in some old iPods with bad batteries.

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