Z71V Battery Problems... - Page 44

My second battery is still working, but I am going to be without a laptop for a few weeks cause my graphics card needs to get replaced . Thank goodness I bought a 3 year warranty. Sent it in for repair yesterday, and I am hoping to get it back before I head back down to LA for the summer.

Is there anywhere to get a replacement battery right now? My laptop is now out of warranty and I can't find a new battery anywhere. Though with my experience so far I'm not sure I want to buy anything else that ASUS makes.

My battery has been busted for about 6 months now and I've yet to ever see the batteries in stock anywhere during that time.

It's really too bad this laptop wasn't mainstream, otherwise we might have lucked out with a class action lawsuit.

on what grounds? they fixed the battery charging issue at the beginning of last year, so that's not an issue anymore. Unavailability of replacement batteries 2 years after the system made its debut isn't basis for a lawsuit, inconvenient though it is. I'd recommend that you call Asus in Fremont and tell them they need to get more batteries in.

Well, I still continued to have the battery problem even after they replaced it the first time. Also, even though I had a two year warranty on the laptop the battery warranty was only for a year and it was not extended at all even upon replacement of the first one. I've also repeatedly emailed and called ASUS about getting a new battery and all they do is continuously tell me they'll have more in two weeks and they never do.

And my comment about the class action lawsuit; I though that the problems had persisted for others. Perhaps I had misinterpreted this.

I've been still having major problems with batteries. I have had at least 5 batteries. After mainboard crashed, I got a new laptop and still was battery problems. But now it seems to be working somehow.

Ditto here. Asus no longer responds to my emails, or comments left at the store site. I'm not being abusive, just asking when they will get more batteries. Each time they would tell me "two weeks", then in two weeks I would ask if they had any and they'd tell me the same. Now they just don't answer. My laptop is a Chembook, and ChemUSA won't answer my emails anymore either. And DiscountLaptops, where I've had a battery on backorder for six months, has now closed their doors.

I paid at least a 50% premium for this laptop over a store brand like Toshiba. My neighbor's old Toshiba is still going strong (and he can drive over to Batteries+ and buy a new battery any time he wants, even after four years). Frankly, I don't think I'll ever buy an Asus product again.

I had my employer buy me a new Lenovo so I can get work done. But I still want to get a battery for my Asus so I don't have to throw away my investment.

yikes, that's not good. I hope you're not driven away from the brand due to lack of replacement parts. Just about every other model manufactured from 2004 up to now has batteries available to purchase from the Asus e-store, which obviously doesn't help those of us who own a Z71V, but does show that Asus hasn't had supply problems like this for all their models. I'm not really sure what the best course of action is if they won't answer you. I'd say talk to your reseller, except since your reseller isn't around anymore, that wouldn't work. hmmm...

I decided to try it with my old battery (from Dec 2005) that developed wear issues. Just got it back, charged it up, and watched a 2 hour long movie as a battery test. Ubuntu just gave me a 15% battery warning, saying that I've got 29 minutes left. As my original battery got around 2 hours and 15 minutes while watching a movie, the "refill" seems to have worked! There was a 2 week turnaround between when I shipped it out and when I got it back. NHC in Windows says it's got a capacity of 66000 mWh, in comparison to the 65000 mWh designed capacity with the stock cells. First impressions are good.

I had my batter replaced by Asus back in Oct 2006 with their newer version (PROPORTABLE hooked me up with Asus rep)...

Working great, zero% wear..been using it constantly since..

Asus can rot. They will not do replace my battery because it is one month to a year over. Im trying to work out a deal with there parts guy. The guy on the phone would not even let me talk to a sup at all. I think im going to call back tomorrow. I will never buy an asus again. This is my first laptop and I get to deal with this. I cant even take it unplugged for 10 mins now. You reading this asus. You can rot in hell for all I can. Fess up and help all us z71v owners. I going to see if my reseller can do anything for me but I think not. Just have to vent. I have a 2k paperwait now.

I got my battery replaced over a year after i got the laptop. It is all about how you get connected.

Since you got it from ISTNC, have them contact or hook you up with their sales rep. That is what PROPORTABLE.COM did for me. Justin hooked me up with the Asus account rep and they took care of it for me. Even did cross shipment too, so I didn't even have to wait to get my battery...

As you are all probaly aware the battery degradation issue does not appear to be isolated to your model. My R1f and many others are suffering from identical issues and Asus appear not to admit they have a problem.

How does this sound to you all. Asus are using the fact that the batteries are legally listed as consumables to get around having to replace their laptops and/or do a recall. They are relying on a lack of a pooling of evidence and solidarity between their customer base to continue this debacle. What we need is to turn them into the next Apple as the danish recently exposed design issues with their G4 and were rewarded with a vilification of their consumer rights.

The issues with the Z71v are all exclusively to do with the batteries themselves, not the computer. At least the major initial issue of the Z71v batteries not being able to fully charge was fixed 9 months after release. While there have been problems people had with their video cards overheating (the only other significant problem I've seen reported among Z71v owners), those occurrances have been relatively infrequent, whereas the initial battery problems (now fixed) were nearly universal. The current annoyances with rapidly wearing batteries that may also be common to the R1F & V6J models would be much alleviated if Asus was willing to simply keep the batteries in stock. Although there are those that have sworn off ever buying an Asus again due to the lack of available batteries (an extreme step, in my opinion), I think a majority of Z71v owners would be satisfied as long as batteries continue to be available for the Z71v. It's the seemingly universal unavailability of Z71v batteries that's behind the majority of dissatisfaction with Asus at the moment among Z71v owners. If/when the batteries become widely available again, these complaints will cease. (in my opinion, anyway) However, it is of course up to Asus themselves to replentish the stock of these batteries, and I think that is what we should be asking them to do.

My question is simple. Should a customer be forced to purchase a battery purely because a manufacturer refuses to admit they have an issue. Some R1f owners are now on their 6th battery after 8 months of ownership. Their warranty on the battery expires after 1 year leaving them with a laptop which s not capable of being used for the purpose intended. In december 06 Proportable (see members list on notebookreview.com forums) claimed that a further battery recall may be imminent following the voluntary recall for Z71 owners conducted earlier. We R1f owners have had no such recall and are left out in the cold.

You said that when the batteries become available agin the complaints will cease. Why?. Because we all love to spend more money on a product which is of a faulty design. I dont have that money to spend buying more faulty batteries. Its a laptop, not a pay as you go phone. We shouldnt have to 'top up' our laptops with new batteries to make them work the way they were meant to in the 1st place. Asus seem to disagree.

I was speaking as a Z71v owner. It seems your situation is different. Since Asus has not done a battery recall for the R1F as it did for the Z71V, I would agree that you have every right to ask (or force) Asus to release a different battery that is fully and correctly functional. What I was trying to say, although perhaps I did not say it very well, was that since it is the batteries that have the problem, it is the batteries that should be replaced or fixed, and not the whole notebook, as I thought you were advocating in your previous post.

Thanks for the reply. One of the annoying parts of hte saga is I have been a proponent of the tablet format and a long-term Asus customer for years and would now never ever go near one of their products again. Fellow law students of my college (some 8,000 in total) are now actively avoiding the brand following the treatment I have received at their hands (you can see a blow by blow in the Asus RMA experience thread).

R1f owners I have spoken to originally put the issue down to the R1f being a 1st generation product, expecting a fix of some form, but have come to the realisation that the strategy now appears to be to hold out till the battery warranty runs out and dismiss us completely. And because the R1f is more niche than the Z71v we just dont have the force to demand a fix.

I worked in the industry for years selling and supporting laptops and tablets from companies such as sony,fujitsu-siemens, acer, hp, toshiba etc but never have i come across a company which has such little regard for its customers. I cant even sell this tablet in good conscience as 2nd hand as it would simply be unethical.

We're really not asking for the world, just a working battery.

Its sad that Asus will not live up to this problem. I like my notebook beside the battery. I now have a compact desktop. I will never buy and Asus again. You hear me asus. NEVER AGAIN.

@rfs: this worked for me, for what it's worth. It costs $90 as I recall, but the battery works fine now.

hey, i have a question
is it actually legal that Asus does provide only 90-day warranty for replacement batteries?

Well, after looking at the FTC rules on providing warranties
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/...#understanding

and at Asus' North America Notebook Warranty Coverage,
http://support.asus.com/repair/repai...Language=en-us

a case could potentially be made that the change of coverage from a year on batteries that come with the system to 90 days for replacement batteries constitutes "deceptive warranty terms" as defined below: However, such a case could be difficult to prove, since Asus did provide appropriate warranty service on the initial battery. One could argue successfully that since the battery in question was not the initial battery AND since one year had passed from the purchase of the notebook, the initial warranty no longer applied and so Asus is perfectly justified in having a separate and different warranty in those circumstances, provided that the terms of the effective warranty are provided and accessible.