[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by dwallbaum

BUT, I still don't know why, with the unit plugged in and starting to charge, I should come back to a dead battery. The most I would have expected was to have no increased battery charge, not have the charge depleted entirely. This is most passing strange to me.

You said it was low due to indexing. Perhaps it was still indexing. Or perhaps you left the wireless on. Both will use the battery while the Kindle is sleeping.

I also noted that when the K2 was plugged into just the computer's USB port to charge, the amber light went out after a while. I thought perhaps when the computer powered down, this disabled the USB connection and would have turned off the power to the K2. But the K2 was plugged into a powered USB multi-port expander, so even if connectivity to the computer would have been terminated by a power-down, power to the hub continued and I would have thought power to the K2 would have continued.

This isn't very clear to me. Can you turn off your computer, leave the hub turned on, plug the K2 into the hub, and tell us exactly what happens? Then compare with what happens when the computer is on?

(Though I am still unclear if I need to pull the books back down from Amazon or if I can restore from a backup on my computer, owing to the DRM issues.)

You need to pull the books back down from Amazon if they send you a new unit.

FINALLY, I thought that after a period of charging, and the unit being fully charged, that the entire charging system turns off, to prevent overcharge. This, in my thinking, would explain the lack of any light at all on the K2. But this apparently is not the case.

Why do you think this is not the case? The light changes to green to tell you it's full, but that doesn't mean it's overcharging. It has a power management chip to prevent such things. I think leaving it plugged in will allow it to recharge as needed, though.