Dynabook A40 Battery Issues

[Foresthippy]

Hi all,

 

A school I look after received 7 dynabooks as part of the DfE laptops programme. I have recently put them all in a trolley, but it seems that not one of them will run without the power cable in, despite the charging light being lit while they are plugged in. They've been left charging for days.

 

Surely not all of them can have dead batteries! Has anyone come across this with the Dynabooks?

 

Thanks,

John

[skyline_17]

We have about 10 with the same fault, I have tried disconnecting the battery but they still do the same

[Foresthippy]

What is particularly annoying is that to update the firmware it demands a minimum charge of 40%

[chazzy2501]

I have 8 dead battery a30's as well.

 

EDIT:

 

These were broken out of the box btw. County didn't want to reply when I spotted issues. The parents who had the laptops were unaware the batteries were supposed to work, they thought they'd been disabled by us!

Edited November 5, 2021 by chazzy2501

[mattpayne]

A little late to the party here, but Ive just been inside my 3 faulty A30s and in all of them the batteries had blown... ive seen in another school about 5 that were doa too.

Like you lot, they were like that from the box. surely there are enough failures for this to be classed as a faulty batch and for a recall?

 

how do we manage that? the laptops are far from amazing, but too good to just bin.

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by mattpayne

[Passat1983ICTech]

A little late to the party here, but Ive just been inside my 3 faulty A30s and in all of them the batteries had blown... ive seen in another school about 5 that were doa too.

Like you lot, they were like that from the box. surely there are enough failures for this to be classed as a faulty batch and for a recall?

 

how do we manage that? the laptops are far from amazing, but too good to just bin.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]64103[/ATTACH]

 

any one try find a update for firm ware for the battery might work

[mattpayne]

any one try find a update for firm ware for the battery might work

 

Im not sure a firmware update will make much of a difference, they need to be swapped out for new battery packs as they are a potential fire/explosion risk.

 

the number of these machines must be quite high and with them residing in the possession of vulnerable kids someone needs to think of the children!!!

[DynabookDawn]

Hi Everyone,

 

I head up education at Dynabook and I'm hoping I can help with the issues on this thread.

Yes we have had some issues with the A40 batteries on the DfE units which were made specifically for this requirement, probably down to the fact that the batteries were never charged while they were stored waiting to be deployed, we have heard that some units were not used for 9 months! What happens is the batteries fall below a certain charge level and a protection circuit cuts in and prevents charging in case there is a thermal runaway due to a high voltage draw. Best advice is to if you have these problems to contact the call center and they will process the case and see what we can do to support you. https://uk.dynabook.com/generic/ASP_SUPPORT/

I hope this helps

Dawn

[mattpayne]

Hi Dawn, thanks for turning up and being a voice for dynabook.

 

Not being charged is one thing, but I've had scores of laptops with lipo batteries that haven't been used for a long period of time, this week I have switched on a core2duo that hadn't seen the light of day for years, a surface pro that i can't remember seeing on since lockdown and an old xps that was last on in June... before the dfe allowance I pulled about a dozen old tosh laptops from the wee pile to reuse, other than the odd cost battery problem not one of these laptops had an issue with deep discharge, Dynabook laptops have a 100% failure rate if left lor a few months which means that I will avoid any products like the plague!

 

I may have been lucky in that of my fleet of around 2000 laptops over the past 20 years, excluding dynabook products I've only had swollen batteries in probably 5 instances... the two actually remember being 2011 Macbook pros...

 

I have at another school got a pile of dynabooks with exactly the same issue... is there a direct contact we can use at dynabook to get these batteries replaced, it wasn't hard work, but as the devices are all out of warranty, it also wasn't plain sailing.

 

Would be interesting to see other people's experiences- are the batteries used by dynabook more fragile than those used by other manufacturers??

Can people with the issue share what percentage of devices were doa?

[DrCheese]

Ours were DOA, not after 9 months. Admittedly we just put them aside as we had other devices that we used instead & time got away with us to warranty replace them, but it has meant they've been a massive waste to us.

I'm not sure I'd buy dynabooks in future (I've previously had a few pro's)

[mattpayne]

Alm ours were DOA too, much like Dr Cheese, we had better things to worry about, especially after we warranty replaced 2 (when dfe were managing the repairs) and had two replacement units with the same issues...

[DrCheese]

Aye. I think another poster summed it up here (In another thread) as "From box to WEEE bin"

[DynabookDawn]

As I've mentioned if you are having battery issues please get in touch with our tech support team and we will try and sort the issues for you, we have a UK based tech team who are aware of issues and will work with you where we can.

 

Dynabook Europe GmbHDynabook Business Laptops & Accessories Support Centre

 

Phone: +44 (0)333 222 74 44

Website: uk.dynabook.com

Email: [email protected]

Services:

[Foresthippy]

I emailed Dynabook support and to summarize, they're sending out 7 new batteries to the school for me to fit. The Dynabooks arrived in school February last year so were considered to be under warranty. As per Dawn's recommendation - email Dynabook support. Suffice to say I'm very pleased with this outcome.

[MYK-IT]

I emailed Dynabook support and to summarize, they're sending out 7 new batteries to the school for me to fit. The Dynabooks arrived in school February last year so were considered to be under warranty. As per Dawn's recommendation - email Dynabook support. Suffice to say I'm very pleased with this outcome.

 

Hi @jdmackay @DynabookDawn

 

Just wondered how long it took to get a response after sending an email regarding faulty batteries???

 

Following your post, I too sent an email as we have a few with battery issues but still awaiting response / acknowledgment.

 

Thanks,

[DynabookDawn]

Have you had a response yet MYK-IT?

[chazzy2501]

I've stripped the ram and SSD from ours and they're sitting in the recycling pile. now 10 dead btw.

[MYK-IT]

Have you had a response yet MYK-IT?

 

Hi @DynabookDawn,

 

Yes, I've had a response thanks. But as ours are the A30 model (e.g. older) I have a feeling they won't be covered... but fingers crossed

[mullet_man]

Hi @DynabookDawn,

 

Sorry to hijack this thread but I've got a few issues am not sure if it's possibly to sort. They are Dynabook E10 model.

 

Are the keyboards all one piece part of the top cover? I've got a few laptops where keys have been pulled off and I don't have any parts to replace them. Are replacement keys/keyboards available?

 

I also have one where the trackpad seems to have failed, I would suspect it's now out of it's 1 year warranty though.

Edited February 8, 2022 by mullet_man

[DynabookDawn]

I'm not technical but I believe the keyboards are separate to the cover and can be replaced. You should be able to find spares on line to replace these or our service provider Equinox https://www.equinox.co.uk/ will be able to quote you. The unit with the trackpad we will support if its in the warranty but if, like you say, its outside of warranty it would be chargeable I'm afraid. I will PM you with access to the FTP server so you can try and see if new drivers will help with that issue.

 

Dawn

 

Hi @DynabookDawn,

 

Sorry to hijack this thread but I've got a few issues am not sure if it's possibly to sort. They are Dynabook E10 model.

 

Are the keyboards all one piece part of the top cover? I've got a few laptops where keys have been pulled off and I don't have any parts to replace them. Are replacement keys/keyboards available?

 

I also have one where the trackpad seems to have failed, I would suspect it's now out of it's 1 year warranty though.

[mullet_man]

Thanks Dawn. I'll contact Equinox and see if they can help.

 

I'll try a driver too but think it's a hardware fault myself but it's worth a try.

 

Cheers.

[DynabookDawn]

Can I just point out that with regards to the below, I am in no way saying there is a fault with the laptop itself, this is simply not the case, but more in how they are stored and for how long, which is not a Dynabook fault. We will always try and support our customers where we can but it will depend on if it is a fault and the timescales involved.

Dawn

 

 

Hi Everyone,

 

I head up education at Dynabook and I'm hoping I can help with the issues on this thread.

Yes we have had some issues with the A40 batteries on the DfE units which were made specifically for this requirement, probably down to the fact that the batteries were never charged while they were stored waiting to be deployed, we have heard that some units were not used for 9 months! What happens is the batteries fall below a certain charge level and a protection circuit cuts in and prevents charging in case there is a thermal runaway due to a high voltage draw. Best advice is to if you have these problems to contact the call center and they will process the case and see what we can do to support you. https://uk.dynabook.com/generic/ASP_SUPPORT/

I hope this helps

Dawn

[chazzy2501]

welp today is the day, 10 new unused laptops straight from box to recycling... I've harvested the ram and storage.

[ksls]

Out of a haul of 84 Dynabooks, we had so many fail within the first year - our records show Dynabook replacing 30 batteries on one ticket, and I know we had another ticket with another batch of failures. Neither of my colleagues managing those issues were advised of the battery deep discharge issue outlined on this thread by Dynabook. I ran an audit recently and this turned up another 8 battery failures (not from the same serial numbers as before). So we are technically out of warranty at this point but given that this is clearly a known and inherent designed failure mode of these laptops from the outset, and given the unprecedented scale of this problem, the least Dynabook could do would be to honour these battery replacements. Their head office have reviewed the case and have refused. This is a scandalous failure rate, it is shocking in scale and completely unprecedented, nothing I have experienced from any other manufacturer comes close. Given how many of these must have ended up on the scrap pile for this same issue from schools across the UK, this is a scandalous waste of the Department for Education's money, ultimately taxpayer's money on equipment that has an inbuilt failure mechanism and shockingly high failure rate. I will certainly be avoiding Dynabook as a brand.

@DynabookDawn do you have any idea how badly this failure mode reflects on your company? Do you have any idea how let down I feel by Dynabook? How would you feel to be in a situation where the MAJORITY of supplied laptops experienced a total battery failure so early on in their lifetime?

I am awaiting a call back from Head office, I presume my next step is to contact the Department for Education to make them aware of the issue and ask that they launch an investigation into this.

Edited September 8, 2022 by ksls

[ksls]

Putting this in context: we also received a batch of Dell DFE laptops at the same time. How many of their batteries have failed on us? NONE. Zero.

 

For further context on how a responsible company manages hardware defects - we have a brand of interactive screens that have a known failure mode, their company will fix this known failure outside the warranty period. Because they do the right thing by the customer regarding this common failure mode, we would still use them despite the large number of failures we experienced - we know we can trust them to treat us fairly and put it right.

 

We have experienced other reliability issues with these dynabooks also - we have to roll back the wifi driver in order to the wifi to work, the trackpads frequently fail and require their driver be deleted and re-added.

Edited September 9, 2022 by ksls