Troubleshooting 3 charges in 4 weeks on K3G, did I get a dud?

tgnd · 02-24-2011, 10:30 AM

I got my kindle in my grubby impatient paws on the 25th of Jan and immediately plugged it in since it arrived completely out of battery. I started reading about an hour later while letting it charge fully till fairly late that night. It seemed like within a week or so battery was starting to look pretty low so I charged it overnight. During that week I think I had 3G/Wifi on about half the time and used it here and there for 10 - 15 minutes at a time.

The next charge lasted me about 10 days with Wifi/3G kept off except when in use. Again, I didn't use it that much.. 10 - 15 minutes here and there maybe a couple of times a day.

This last charge has lasted me 10 days since I fully charged it, including a 1 hour charge 4 days ago when I was in a coffee shop reading and the battery started showing pretty low. Then yesterday it popped up the warning again telling me the battery was depleted. So once again I set it to charge overnight. During this last 10 days I made sure wifi was always off and made sure to turn it on the absolute minimum amount of time - I only tuned it on 3 times during the week, just long enough to email files to myself twice and once to download about 6 free books I had purchased earlier in the day.

In the last 24 hours I read a book of about 5000 locations with 8 locations a page (I use the next to smallest text size so it's not like I'm turning pages constantly the entire time I was reading) and the battery is already showing partially used (the first notch down from full).

All this seems to go very much against the idea of a single charge lasting 30 days as I read. I mean, I don't expect the average charge to last 30 days, I realize that is best case scenario, but I think 3 full charges and a partial charge (plus a few minutes of charging via USB here and there that I'm not even counting) in 27 days is pretty crappy compared to that. One of the selling points for me was the long battery life as I am notorious for forgetting to charge my gadgets until I actually need them.

All of this is on a naked kindle - no lighted cover or anything, I simply store mine in a fabric sleeve when it's not in use. I've read about issues with it sometimes getting hung up on indexing and tried the search for a random string and gotten no results, meaning that indexing is not the problem.

Have I gotten a dud? Do I need to just call amazon and expect them to replace it for me? Is this a situation where they might try to foist a refurbished unit off on me? I'm no longer within my 30 days from ordering, but I am at 29 days from receiving it, so I'm not sure where I fall in the greater scheme of things. I'd appreciate some feedback so I can decide what my next step to take is. I know this much - I NEED my kindle now. I can't imagine not owning one any more - I've read as much in the last 4 weeks on it as I did in the second half of last year, and found a dozen other uses for it besides plain old reading.

pchrist7 · 02-24-2011, 10:39 AM

Hi there
Me experience since september 2010 is that indexing can REALLY drain the battery !
I suppose you already know the trick of going to Home page, type kkkkkkkkkk
and then enter to see a list of items needing indexing.
If any items are listed, try to click on it to see if it grays out. If not that book is a problem and you should remove it, and send a new/fixed copy.
So adding new books will definately drain, IF you're unlucky to have 1 or more items "corrupt" so indexing will just go on , and on, and ...
Had that myself last week,
I read 4-5 hours every day, and only charge when backing up, adding new books etc. Maybe once pr week, and I don't normally use "wifi/3g".
I have not done a test where I only read until the charge is down, so ...
Probably no help at all,

tgnd · 02-24-2011, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pchrist7

Hi there
Me experience since september 2010 is that indexing can REALLY drain the battery !
I suppose you already know the trick of going to Home page, type kkkkkkkkkk
and then enter to see a list of items needing indexing.
If any items are listed, try to click on it to see if it grays out. If not that book is a problem and you should remove it, and send a new/fixed copy.

I've tried searching for a random string and gotten no results, so I don't think indexing is a problem. Just to make sure I tried again just now, and got "Search Results: 0 Items"

pchrist7 · 02-24-2011, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tgnd

I've tried searching for a random string and gotten no results, so I don't think indexing is a problem. Just to make sure I tried again just now, and got "Search Results: 0 Items"

Hi tgnd
You should definately report this to Amazon !
If indexing is not the issue, go for it.
I had a screen failure in november, live in Denmark, tried email to Amazon, eventually had to call Amazon US on the phone (eeek, cost ? no ! ) everything was settled with 6 minuttes, all shipping, tax, import tax costs were refunded by Amazon so go for it.
Don't know where you live, where you bought it etc.
BUT DO report this to Amazon NOW ! Call them if you have to !
The behaviour your describing is NOT normal.
Best of luck,

montalex · 02-24-2011, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pchrist7

Hi tgnd
You should definately report this to Amazon !
If indexing is not the issue, go for it.
I had a screen failure in november, live in Denmark, tried email to Amazon, eventually had to call Amazon US on the phone (eeek, cost ? no ! ) everything was settled with 6 minuttes, all shipping, tax, import tax costs were refunded by Amazon so go for it.
Don't know where you live, where you bought it etc.
BUT DO report this to Amazon NOW ! Call them if you have to !
The behaviour your describing is NOT normal.
Best of luck,

I have a Kindle 2, but I have remarked that turning on 3G is like stepping on the gas pedal in a '57 Chevy -- you can see power consumption gage jump.

Hollow Man · 02-24-2011, 11:39 AM

I suspect it's simply how much you're using the screen.

I've had my Kindle 3 for 9 days now, and after a full charge I did within the first day or so of getting it, it's a bit less than half charged. I've used the wifi/3G on and off, plugged it into the PC a number of times to add and remove files, and flipped the sleep button countless times to screw around with the screen savers. All of the adding and removing of books makes it do the indexing, which clearly hurts the battery. I've also been using it a lot for actual reading, so I'm probably doing much more than the average amount of page turns on it per day.

So while at best it looks like I'll get about 2 weeks on my first full charge, I think Amazon's estimate of a month is based on casual use.

It doesn't surprise me that for you the battery level dipped after 24 hours and 5000 locations read. That seems like a lot of usage for one day.

Of course I haven't had my Kindle for long, so I'm not the best judge of this.

-HM

bZkindle · 02-24-2011, 07:47 PM

OP- that doesn't sound so bad really. (doesn't seem great either)
I have a k3 I'm sending back because of a bad battery and within one day without even reading anything the battery level would drop to half.
i had to charge it 3 times within less than a week.
I know it's a little late now but doing a restart would probably help.

the-equinoxe · 02-25-2011, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pchrist7

Hi there
Me experience since september 2010 is that indexing can REALLY drain the battery !
I suppose you already know the trick of going to Home page, type kkkkkkkkkk
and then enter to see a list of items needing indexing.
If any items are listed, try to click on it to see if it grays out. If not that book is a problem and you should remove it, and send a new/fixed copy.
So adding new books will definately drain, IF you're unlucky to have 1 or more items "corrupt" so indexing will just go on , and on, and ...
Had that myself last week,
I read 4-5 hours every day, and only charge when backing up, adding new books etc. Maybe once pr week, and I don't normally use "wifi/3g".
I have not done a test where I only read until the charge is down, so ...
Probably no help at all,

Can you give an example of an book which is corrupted and has this effect?
Would be useful to have some examples so this problem ca be fixed.

pchrist7 · 02-25-2011, 06:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the-equinoxe

Can you give an example of an book which is corrupted and has this effect?
Would be useful to have some examples so this problem ca be fixed.

Sorry, but no.
I had 5 Amazon books that wouldn't index, maybe because K3 FW was updated to 3.1, or I made a mistake somewhere when starting over after a factory reset. Ended up deleting the books, and sent them again from Amazon to K3 and everything was fine.

TenaciousBadger · 02-25-2011, 06:05 AM

i read average of 4 hours a day, wifi off. i charge it almost every week without letting the battery go below 20-25%

02-24-2011, 10:30 AM	#1
tgnd Member Posts: 10 Karma: 2992 Join Date: Feb 2011 Device: Kindle 3G	3 charges in 4 weeks on K3G, did I get a dud? I got my kindle in my grubby impatient paws on the 25th of Jan and immediately plugged it in since it arrived completely out of battery. I started reading about an hour later while letting it charge fully till fairly late that night. It seemed like within a week or so battery was starting to look pretty low so I charged it overnight. During that week I think I had 3G/Wifi on about half the time and used it here and there for 10 - 15 minutes at a time. The next charge lasted me about 10 days with Wifi/3G kept off except when in use. Again, I didn't use it that much.. 10 - 15 minutes here and there maybe a couple of times a day. This last charge has lasted me 10 days since I fully charged it, including a 1 hour charge 4 days ago when I was in a coffee shop reading and the battery started showing pretty low. Then yesterday it popped up the warning again telling me the battery was depleted. So once again I set it to charge overnight. During this last 10 days I made sure wifi was always off and made sure to turn it on the absolute minimum amount of time - I only tuned it on 3 times during the week, just long enough to email files to myself twice and once to download about 6 free books I had purchased earlier in the day. In the last 24 hours I read a book of about 5000 locations with 8 locations a page (I use the next to smallest text size so it's not like I'm turning pages constantly the entire time I was reading) and the battery is already showing partially used (the first notch down from full). All this seems to go very much against the idea of a single charge lasting 30 days as I read. I mean, I don't expect the average charge to last 30 days, I realize that is best case scenario, but I think 3 full charges and a partial charge (plus a few minutes of charging via USB here and there that I'm not even counting) in 27 days is pretty crappy compared to that. One of the selling points for me was the long battery life as I am notorious for forgetting to charge my gadgets until I actually need them. All of this is on a naked kindle - no lighted cover or anything, I simply store mine in a fabric sleeve when it's not in use. I've read about issues with it sometimes getting hung up on indexing and tried the search for a random string and gotten no results, meaning that indexing is not the problem. Have I gotten a dud? Do I need to just call amazon and expect them to replace it for me? Is this a situation where they might try to foist a refurbished unit off on me? I'm no longer within my 30 days from ordering, but I am at 29 days from receiving it, so I'm not sure where I fall in the greater scheme of things. I'd appreciate some feedback so I can decide what my next step to take is. I know this much - I NEED my kindle now. I can't imagine not owning one any more - I've read as much in the last 4 weeks on it as I did in the second half of last year, and found a dozen other uses for it besides plain old reading.

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02-24-2011, 10:39 AM	#2
pchrist7 Addict Posts: 385 Karma: 6514 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Denmark Device: Kindle 3 3G+Wifi, Oasis	Hi there Me experience since september 2010 is that indexing can REALLY drain the battery ! I suppose you already know the trick of going to Home page, type kkkkkkkkkk and then enter to see a list of items needing indexing. If any items are listed, try to click on it to see if it grays out. If not that book is a problem and you should remove it, and send a new/fixed copy. So adding new books will definately drain, IF you're unlucky to have 1 or more items "corrupt" so indexing will just go on , and on, and ... Had that myself last week, I read 4-5 hours every day, and only charge when backing up, adding new books etc. Maybe once pr week, and I don't normally use "wifi/3g". I have not done a test where I only read until the charge is down, so ... Probably no help at all,

02-24-2011, 11:39 AM	#6
Hollow Man Evangelist Posts: 401 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Connecticut Device: Kindle Colorsoft, Oasis, Keyboard; iPhone 13 Pro, Air	I suspect it's simply how much you're using the screen. I've had my Kindle 3 for 9 days now, and after a full charge I did within the first day or so of getting it, it's a bit less than half charged. I've used the wifi/3G on and off, plugged it into the PC a number of times to add and remove files, and flipped the sleep button countless times to screw around with the screen savers. All of the adding and removing of books makes it do the indexing, which clearly hurts the battery. I've also been using it a lot for actual reading, so I'm probably doing much more than the average amount of page turns on it per day. So while at best it looks like I'll get about 2 weeks on my first full charge, I think Amazon's estimate of a month is based on casual use. It doesn't surprise me that for you the battery level dipped after 24 hours and 5000 locations read. That seems like a lot of usage for one day. Of course I haven't had my Kindle for long, so I'm not the best judge of this. -HM

02-24-2011, 07:47 PM	#7
bZkindle Fanatic Posts: 510 Karma: 1025024 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Canada City, Soviet Canuckistan Device: k2, k3G, kindle DXG, Sony T-1, iPad, iPhone, stone tablet	OP- that doesn't sound so bad really. (doesn't seem great either) I have a k3 I'm sending back because of a bad battery and within one day without even reading anything the battery level would drop to half. i had to charge it 3 times within less than a week. I know it's a little late now but doing a restart would probably help.

02-25-2011, 06:05 AM	#10
TenaciousBadger Mrawr? Posts: 1,109 Karma: 15039064 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: kindle 3 wifi	i read average of 4 hours a day, wifi off. i charge it almost every week without letting the battery go below 20-25%

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