Inspiron 8600 Battery(?) Issues

Hi all, gonna paste my post from the Dell community boards as well as a little update, anyone have ANY clue as to what's going on? Any help would be appreciated...

Here's an update from the above post... called Dell up again yesterday, told them about the second battery having the exact same problem as the first, support tech couldn't really give any more help (apart from e-mailing me some generic list of sites on laptop batteries), and told me I'd be called by one of his supervisors. Got a call a few hours later, gave him a rundown of the problem, and he told me the only thing left would be to try a complete cycle of the battery, decharge it completely, fully charge it and then see how long it lasts... Did that last night, left it to charge overnight, fired it up this morning, and got 80 mins of running.

Here's what's killing me: There's DEFINITELY something wrong here, but what? All the Dell Tech's i've talked to INSIST it's a battery issue (that's if they admit there's an issue at all, i've had some of them trying to convince me that the 90-120 min run time is normal, yeah, so a 50% drop in running time (with NO change in apps run, brightness etc.) and this warping that occurs everytime i hit ~30% is 'normal'? Don't think so).

Anyone ever seen anything like this, and have some advice on what to do? I have around 10 days of my 1 year complete care left (think this machine was ordered on Aug. 30 last year).

Thanks

Hi guys, a little update for everyone:

Friday: Got in touch with Dell again and agreed with one of the supervisors that he'd have me send my laptop back to Dell for 5 days and have them take a look at it. (Only other option was them having send another battery out, which seemed pointless since I'd already tried a new one which had the same problem). Told me he'd get in touch with me over the weekend and arrange for packing to be sent to me by Tuesday so I could send the machine back.

Sunday: Woken up at 8:45am by a call from Dell, except this time it was some lady I hadn't previously spoken to, telling me that they had arranged for another battery to be sent to me and it would arrive either Monday/Tuesday.

Well Tuesday came, battery arrived, stuck it in, and SUCCESS. Done 3 full charges/run downs and managed ~3 hours each time (and this is with WiFi, music, constant browsing, the works etc.).

Am I happy? Yes. Am I reassured by our friends at Dell? Not really. I have NO idea why 2 batteries had the exact same problem, while a third seems to be ok (and from the sound of it, neither to the guys at Dell). Could it be different builds/models of the batteries? Guess I was lucky im still under warranty until September 9th, have a look at this reply I received at another board Seems like this problem could occur again, and I guess if your not under warranty anymore than buying a battery off ebay would be much cheaper than getting one from Dell.

Hope this information is of some use to those of you still having this problem.