Help Please! M9 ill!

[lysardman]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

My M9 has decided to play up! I took a couple of photos 10 minutes ago for the first time in a couple of weeks after first checking the Info which showed a full battery. However, after the second photo the Battery Low warning came on so I changed it to another one. Checked the Info and it showed a full battery. This time it wouldn't take a photo at all with the battery light coming on and Battery Low warning and none of the function buttons worked. 

I have started charging the batteries and the charger is flashing and not showing the 80% charge which implies to me that the battery has been drained very quickly somehow.

Having checked the 2 pictures on the SD card I thought I'd managed all they showed in the Microsoft Picture Manager was a small white square with a red x in the middle, no pictures at all. The ones I took a couple of weeks ago are still on the SD card. 

Does anyone have any ideas as to why the M9 should start to act like this? 

[Knipsknecht]

First thing I would check is the batteries. How old are they? And are they original ones or third party batteries? Another thing to try is cleaning the contacts in the camera (cotton swab with a little bit (!) of medical alcohol).

From your description I would assume it's the batteries and not the camera.

[elgenper]

Surely it is the batteries...  Have had my M9 since Feb 2010, and the three batteries from that same day (1 with the camera, 2 bought as spares) are beginning to act up big time now.  Same symptoms as you describe: first full charge indication, then after a couple of exposures, dead battery.  The charger lights in my case do go through the normal sequence when charging any of these, but much faster: from dead to full charge indication within half an hour or so.

I´ve found that these symptoms are typical when a battery with several cells in series (and that applies to most of them, from car batteries down to telephones) become old: some cells are bad and can take only a little charge to hold the nominal voltage, while others may be better.  Then the whole pack will accept very little energy, but "read" as fully charged.  And, that small amount of energy is spent for just a couple of shots.

Remedy: discard the old pack(s) and get newer replacements!

[Graham (G4FUJ)]

Sounds like deteriorated batteries to me, too.

[jaapv]

Battries are unpredictable - I still have 2006/2007 M8 batteries (identical to M9 ones) that are just fine. OTOH I just bought two new M9 batteries for the future. Got them at 92 Euros apiece, had to be ordered, so completely fresh.

[surfmanjoe]

My battery was bought around 2014 April, now it is starting showing low battery warning and shutting off the camera when the info shows 25% left. but it still can successfully save the last picture before shutting off. I am thinking it might be time to buy a new one.  

[lysardman]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I think I may have found the problem. The wi-fi SD card!! I had this card in for some time without any problem then after the M9 problem I removed the SD card and put it in my laptop to see what photos were there. The ones I took just before the event weren't on it, as previously mentioned. But, when I took the card out  of the laptop after about 20 minutes I noticed it was quite hot!  When I tried a normal SD card in the laptop it wasn't hot after the same time. I've just got round to trying the M9 again with the alternate SD card and all seemed to be exactly as it should be, no instant battery drain or non-existing photos. I'm hoping I can give it a good workout later in the week and will keep you posted.