Manufacturer Warranties and Protection Plans

[jonhoang]

I just bought a brand new Toshiba Satellite M645 laptop with a 12-cell battery from Best Buy and picked it up from the store on Friday. I have been trying to troubleshoot the poor battery life as it is advertised to have 10 hours and 19 minutes of life. Even on the lowest settings, no programs running, optical drive off, etc, I am getting under 4 hours of battery life.

The program BatteryBar tells me that my maximum battery capacity is 73,796 mWh of the max 97,200 mWh that it should be.

This was confirmed by running a battery diagnostic test (powercfg -energy -output %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Energy_Report.html) that said this (among many other things):
Battery:Battery Information
Battery ID 41167COMPAL PA3819U-1BRS
Manufacturer COMPAL
Serial Number 41167
Chemistry Li-I
Long Term 1
Design Capacity 97200
Last Full Charge 73796

Can I come in store to replace my battery given that this brand new laptop with this supposedly brand new battery is faulty? It is significantly worn down and only performs at roughly 75% of what it should from the moment I first turned it on after charging it overnight.

[CrimsonRain]

The battery test the manufacturer runs has very detailed conditions and is run in a very specific environment. There is a fine print expalining this in all of Best Buy's weekly ads. The test is not even run with Windows running so that takes a load off of the power. I believe that limited manufacturer warranties do not cover consumable parts such as batteries but the Geek Squad Black Tie protection does offer you one battery replacement per the life of the plan.

[jonhoang]

I know that it is practically impossible to reach the 10 hours and 19 minutes advertised, but, the capacity of the battery has already been worn down and it holds less charge than a new battery should. It's like they gave me an old/used battery with my new laptop.

If I don't have the Geek Squad Black Tie protection, am I just screwed?

[CrimsonRain]

I don't think you're "screwed" but it would be totally up to the store's discretion to exchange/return your laptop if they deem the issue you are having to be a true defect or not. You can definitely still exchange/return the laptop but if it is not defective then there would most likely be a 15% restocking fee. You stated that you bought the laptop breand new which I am assuming means that the box was sealed by Toshiba. So, that means that whatever battery you received with the laptop was the one Toshiba stocked in there. Even if you got a laptop that was presetup with services by Best Buy, I don't think they would have swapped the battery. They have no reason to and is quite unheard of in retail.

[Justin-BBY Community Connector]

Hello jonhoang,

I'm sorry that you're already encountering battery life issues with your recently purchased Toshiba laptop.  I'll do what I can to provide you additional assistance with this situation.

As CrimsonRain expressed, you can work with the store on alternative options if you desire to return your laptop.  There isn't much more that I can add to what has already been posted by Crimson.  Crimson did an excellent job informing you of the return option.  Otherwise, you can contact Toshiba directly at 1-800-457-7777 for alternative options. 

Thank you for sharing your inquiry with us here on the forums. If you have any additional concerns or questions, feel free to reply to this topic or send me a private message by selecting the link within my signature bar.

Regards,

[cortezer66]

Hello,  I too had a 24% loss shown on a new 12 cell battery in a Toshiba laptop - 665 series.  BatteryBar is an excellent program to find this out.  I was able to 'reset' the chip in the battery that reported the 'wear' as 24% on the brand new battery.  Problem is, I was able to reset the wear number down to 11% but not to 0% as I should have been able to. 

Note:  To do this, run the laptop on battery only power.  When it shuts down to save itself within the OS, reboot into the CMOS setup screen and let the battery discharge all the way.  Then, plug it back in and charge it completely from the 'dead' state. The battery chip should have reset itself to 0% wear if everything worked out OK.  Of course the battery must be 'Brand New' for it to read 0% wear.  If not (as in my case of 11% wear after reset)  then try and get the battery replaced by Toshiba.  Best Buy will only replace the entire laptop (just to replace the battery) which was not my choice to do.  Instead, I went through 'Acclaim' which is a do it yourself warranty replacement online service for Toshiba.  Be prepared to have your credit card charged nearly $200 against the return of your old battery.  It worked out just fine for me.  0% shown for battery wear now as reported by BatteryBar. 

FYI - my battery life was advertised to be about 8 1/2 hours for new and it was less than 4 hours on the original battery.  Now, about 5 1/2 hours on the replacement.  So, there must have been something wrong with the original.  Of course I dont suspect that a 12 cell battery will last more than 8 hours under real use, but I did dial down every setting possible to get the 4 hours and later 5 1/2 hours of actual use.  As stated in another reply, those advertised high battery life readings are based on some test that is not real life use.  No surprise here.

One last thought - I have read where running the battery on a charge of 40% to 80% (never discharged below 40% and only charged above 80% if you are going to use it right away on battery power) helps extend the battery life.  There must be some truth to that as I still have a wear rating of 0% and have had my replacement battery in use for about 3 weeks now.  Hope this helps.

Full battery number - 41167COMPAL PA3819U-1BRS