M10-D running hot and draining battery like mad

[fenykepesz]

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i never really use my M10-D with wifi - except for last friday : since that unfortunate moment my camera runs hot and drains its battery like crazy.  moreover, switching it off and then on again makes the LED blink red once, and then blink green for those (in)famous 30 seconds - and believe me, i have the wheel on power on, not on wifi.  meanwhile i also observed that actually the camera light meter is on all the time !!!  which is perhaps the reason that it warms up and wastes power. i tried to fix this already several times with 'factory reset' which doesn't seem to do a thing in my case - nothing indicates that something was reset. i also power drained the camera several times down to zero  - with camera dead no beep no light, then recharged battery : no success, problem prevails...

in terms of connecting per wifi to the camera (wheel on wifi) , that still seems to work fine.  also all other camera functions seem to be ok, and shooting too works as expected.  it's just that i need to switch the camera off to save power - otherwise the battery is gone is less than an hour approx...

any suggestion what to do ?   and how to avoid having to send my favoured fotó toy to Deutschland ?  any feedback greatly appreciated.

Edited August 25, 2021 by fenykepesz
typos

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[Guest]

I am afraid that you've done everything that I would have done, bar leaving it alone for a week without battery or card inside then trying again. I don't know why but the "simplest" M10 is in my experience anyway is the most trouble prone. Mine is just back from it's 4th lifetime trip to Wetzlar and I fear that the reason it went there 6 weeks ago still seems to exist but if so then I will just live with it, ( will / would not Format SD cards in camera via Fotos ). In your situation I would try to contact / email Leica Service directly at Wetzlar directly outlining everything you say here and more if there is more, then follow up with a phone call if you can.

My guess is that it's a main or secondary circuit board problem as per' my recent problem with my M10-D, if that's the case I hope that any repair will not be held up as long as mine for lack of spare parts, but my guess is that there's little there at Wetzlar "in stock" in Service for the M10-D seeing how much of a "niche" camera it is and how short it's production run was.

The WiFi and the fact that if you use the 020 Visoflex the GPS is automatically on whether you need that frankly useless "disability" or not, is this camera's Achilles Heel. I wish it never had any of that built in and was much simpler, more like the earlier MD, but that horse has left the barn and is way over the hill now.

Good luck!

PS: One other thing..........sorry if it's too obvious, but is the camera set to be ON all the time or set to SLEEP after 2 minutes or more? I keep mine set to 2 minutes SLEEP, never turn the camera off during the day and that works fine, little or no battery drain in SLEEP mode. I've even left the camera turned on thus for a week and the battery drain is negligible.

Edited August 25, 2021 by petermullett

[fenykepesz]

thank you, Peter, for your reply.  here my responses :

- me too i left the camera w/o battery for more than a day : no improvement.  i am doing it right now again, leaving out even the SD card, though i am wondering how that should help.

-nop, no Visoflex, i use it just bare bone, as it is.

- i played with that standby fx too.  indeed i have had it set at SLEEP after 2min inactivity since i started using the camera which i like you never turn off.  changing the settings back & forth via FOTOS didn't help.

- it looks as if live view mode is ON all the time, for no reason, as i don't own a Visoflex.

- what i don't understand why not BlueTooth was implemented instead of wifi which is a anyway technical overkill - was it the market that dictated such ?  as said in the past, i use this silly FOTOS application solely for setting the time in the sub-second accuracy range, that's it.

like you suggested, i will have to contact Wetzlar, perhaps even call them : that way at least i can rant auf gut deutsch

 

[Guest]

You're welcome, but it does feel like a trip to Wetzlar I am afraid.

I too don't understand the choice of Wifi for the M10 cameras, not that I am any sort of an expert but I do believe that Bluetooth would have been a better choice, maybe Fotos as an App dictated the choice of WiFi rather than Bluetooth, who knows?...........But I hate being dependant even in a small way on using Fotos, it has no value to me outside of changing the M10-D's settings very occasionally, none at all...even with my other Leica's. It's clunky, slow and unreliable at best, a horrible piece of work!......and don't get me started on GPS, that function with the M10-D is worse than pathetic even if it would be something that one would need, which I don't.

Anyway, I'd email Customer Service first then follow up with a phone call whether they respond to your email or not and ask to speak to a technician that understands this quirky camera.

Good luck,

 

Peter

 

 

[fenykepesz]

as i am trying to find out how to contact Leica/Wetzlar, i stumbled over this here :

    FIRMWARE (2.20.48.40) LEICA M10-D  - Date: 01/28/2021

it's the first time i see this new firmware for the m10-d - did you know about this ? 

did anybody else in this forum already install this 121MB larger binary ? is it any good ?  any new quirks ?

[Jeff S]

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2019/09/firmware-2-7-5-0-for-leica-m10-m10-p-m10-d-released/
 

 

Jeff

[Guest]

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Yes, it makes little or no difference to the M10-D.....

Edited August 25, 2021 by petermullett

[fenykepesz]

you know, dear Jeff, i saw this new firmware version on an official Leica website (page down to the bottom) :

https://us.leica-camera.com/Service-Support/Support/Downloads?category=93710&subcategory=153183&type=&language=all

i use the 2.7.5 version for the last 2 years or so...

 

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, fenykepesz said:

as i am trying to find out how to contact Leica/Wetzlar, i stumbled over this here :

    FIRMWARE (2.20.48.40) LEICA M10-D  - Date: 01/28/2021

it's the first time i see this new firmware for the m10-d - did you know about this ? 

did anybody else in this forum already install this 121MB larger binary ? is it any good ?  any new quirks ?

There are said to be some GPS improvements but you wisely don't bother with that next to useless facility anyway. May as well install it though, there may be some other"invisible" improvements "under the hood".

Edited August 25, 2021 by petermullett

[fenykepesz]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb petermullett:

Yes, it makes little or no difference to the M10-D, said to be some GPS improvements but you wisely don't bother with that.

ok, i see, thank you, Peter !

i may still give a try - who knows if the upgrade process flushes some clogged wires...

[Guest]

No harm in doing that.....I just looked up the work order on my M10-D that returned to me yesterday. They replaced two printed circuit boards, Circuit H and Circuit IMG, why, they didn't say, but the same problem remains. Fotos will not Format the SD cards in camera, that option is greyed out............But now I am just going to live with it and format the cards before they go into the camera. I dislike Foto's enough so ignoring another of it's malfunctions won't be too hard a task.

[Jeff S]

14 minutes ago, fenykepesz said:

you know, dear Jeff, i saw this new firmware version on an official Leica website (page down to the bottom) :

https://us.leica-camera.com/Service-Support/Support/Downloads?category=93710&subcategory=153183&type=&language=all

i use the 2.7.5 version for the last 2 years or so...

 

Hence my second link.

Jeff

Edited August 25, 2021 by Jeff S

[fenykepesz]

vor 13 Minuten schrieb petermullett:

No harm in doing that.....I just looked up the work order on my M10-D that returned to me yesterday. They replaced two printed circuit boards, Circuit H and Circuit IMG, why, they didn't say, but the same problem remains. Fotos will not Format the SD cards in camera, that option is greyed out............But now I am just going to live with it and format the cards before they go into the camera. I dislike Foto's enough so ignoring another of it's malfunctions won't be too hard a task.

i am a unix command line guy.  i type

• fdisk   : type "b" = W95 FAT32 (Windows95, not LBA)
• mkfs -t vfat /dev/...

and formatted my SD card just once, 2y ago.  then i simply move my DNG files after i have the card mounted, thereafter i umount it.   this seems to work fine.  on other systems it should work equally well.   i agree with you, i would never want to use FOTOS for such...

 

 

[Guest]

That's all Greek to me........I just use SD Card Formatter on my Macs.

[egrossman]

4 hours ago, petermullett said:

did anybody else in this forum already install this 121MB larger binary ? is it any good ?  any new quirks ?

 I purchased my M10-D around the same time you did a couple of years ago. I've (knock on wood) not had any problems with the camera. I've upgraded it to new firmware a while ago but no noticeable improvements.

 

Erik

[fenykepesz]

vor 8 Stunden schrieb Jeff S:

 

 

 

vor 8 Stunden schrieb petermullett:

Yes, it makes little or no difference to the M10-D.....

 

vor 3 Stunden schrieb egrossman:

 I purchased my M10-D around the same time you did a couple of years ago. I've (knock on wood) not had any problems with the camera. I've upgraded it to new firmware a while ago but no noticeable improvements.

 

dear Peter, Jeff and Erik,

i just upgraded to the newest M10-D firmware, that's 2.40.48.40 from last february, and like you said, there was no noticeable difference after reboot, to my eyes at least.

importantly, the error persists as the camera LED keeps blinking green for half a minute after turning it on, then light metering doesn't switch off at all, body runs hot, battery still drains superfast.

what's left to do, i guess, is to write & call Leica in Wetzlar, and see what they have to say.  i am somewhat shy of thinking about shipping & repair costs and the time i don't have a camera.  but i will not be shy to consider an M11-D in case that's ever on the plate, in one or two years from now...

[Photon42]

On 8/25/2021 at 1:45 AM, fenykepesz said:

i never really use my M10-D with wifi - except for last friday : since that unfortunate moment my camera runs hot and drains its battery like crazy.  moreover, switching it off and then on again makes the LED blink red once, and then blink green for those (in)famous 30 seconds - and believe me, i have the wheel on power on, not on wifi.  meanwhile i also observed that actually the camera light meter is on all the time !!!  which is perhaps the reason that it warms up and wastes power. i tried to fix this already several times with 'factory reset' which doesn't seem to do a thing in my case - nothing indicates that something was reset. i also power drained the camera several times down to zero  - with camera dead no beep no light, then recharged battery : no success, problem prevails...

in terms of connecting per wifi to the camera (wheel on wifi) , that still seems to work fine.  also all other camera functions seem to be ok, and shooting too works as expected.  it's just that i need to switch the camera off to save power - otherwise the battery is gone is less than an hour approx...

any suggestion what to do ?   and how to avoid having to send my favoured fotó toy to Deutschland ?  any feedback greatly appreciated.

Sorry for picking on the reset aspect. You are reporting it does not seem to do a thing. Well - it should. To check - change a setting you remember (e.g. JPEG sharpening or so), and then reset the camera as described in the manual p64.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Photon42

[poli]

9 hours ago, fenykepesz said:

 

 

 

dear Peter, Jeff and Erik,

i just upgraded to the newest M10-D firmware, that's 2.40.48.40 from last february, and like you said, there was no noticeable difference after reboot, to my eyes at least.

importantly, the error persists as the camera LED keeps blinking green for half a minute after turning it on, then light metering doesn't switch off at all, body runs hot, battery still drains superfast.

what's left to do, i guess, is to write & call Leica in Wetzlar, and see what they have to say.  i am somewhat shy of thinking about shipping & repair costs and the time i don't have a camera.  but i will not be shy to consider an M11-D in case that's ever on the plate, in one or two years from now...

I seem to remember that you did some things to the switch (drilling in it?). Could that have done something to the mechanics of the switch that caused over time an ill-effect and keeps the camera on wifi and also turns on live view all the time (which should not be the case, but you never know). That would explain the heating up of the camera because of battery drain.  Maybe take the lens of and check if the shutter is open constantly? Not sure if it helps, but you might get to the problem. Good luck with the M10-D. It is such a lovely M! 

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[fenykepesz]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Photon42:

Sorry for picking on the reset aspect. You are reporting it does not seem to do a thing. Well - it should. To check - change a setting you remember (e.g. JPEG sharpening or so), and then reset the camera as described in the manual p64.

Photon42, thank you for your suggestion - but it actually truly does not do anymore factory reset : DNG&JPG and monochromeJPG are not reset, just as examples.  i have to manually reset those variables using FOTOS.

plus, i just realized that the picture counter is also broken, it stays at 718 or 717, counts shots back and forth, meaning it steps up & down with the numbers.  moreover, an empty SD card should have 754 pics which is not reached anymore.

incidentally, taking pictures still works...

ojwej...

ADDENDUM : shows the image counter shows again 754 for my empty SD card - but it still counts (subtracts) only every 2nd shot...

Edited August 26, 2021 by fenykepesz

[fenykepesz]

vor einer Stunde schrieb poli:

I seem to remember that you did some things to the switch (drilling in it?). Could that have done something to the mechanics of the switch that caused over time an ill-effect and keeps the camera on wifi and also turns on live view all the time (which should not be the case, but you never know). That would explain the heating up of the camera because of battery drain.  Maybe take the lens of and check if the shutter is open constantly? Not sure if it helps, but you might get to the problem. Good luck with the M10-D. It is such a lovely M! 

you know, poli, the 'drilling' was kind of a scratching the surface of the metal (brass?) ring of the power wheel, making three small indentations (because that cursed power wheel rotates too easily in my case, and i needed some reference for the wheel position).  but you are right, i used a drill for that.  the problem looks to me like something rather internal, electronic or electrical in nature...

the shutter is closed while the light meter works as expected, measuring the light reflection on the shutter curtain - even with the lens off.