Problems with Batteries

[iggydoll]

I just bought an Olympus D-540 zoom 3.2 megapixel camera. The very first time I used it, the battery went down right away. I put new batteries in there and they too went down before I was able to take like 4 pictures. I put the batteries AA into a radio shack battery checker and all of them still had juice in them in the green high area.

I am hoping that there is nothing wrong with this camera because I bought it out of state when I was in South Carolina and now I am in Florida, and cannot return it to the army base i bought it from.

Is this common? Can anyone give me some insight into this? I know that digital cameras use up batteries fast, but this fast? before I even had a chance to take like 5 pictures?
Thanks Melinda

[iggydoll]

Can anyone please post any information on this? I need some help on this please.
melinda

[bvirtual]

I got my D540 just last week, and it worked fine the first few days, and then the battery indicator was flashing red, with newly charged batteries. I swapped in 4 different sets of fully charged lithium batteries, and cleaned the contacts, checked for faulty battery case connectors. Finally a set indicated fully charged, for the first 3 pictures. Then flashing red battery indicator for the next 20 pictures, and then the battery indicator was not displayed for a while, but the same batteries have lasted.

Now, the bigger problem is cycle time and the LCD screen blanking out for 5-8 seconds after processing the picture. Also, cycle time is now about 3-5 seconds, meaning 10+ seconds between pictures, and a camera that appears very broken. I'm very disappointed, and will be calling Olympus today.

The lithium batteries are 2000 and 2200 maH and my other Olympus camera indicates they are fully charged, and a load testing volt meter does too.

[SammyCee]

Same camera, same problem -- the one with the battery life indicator showing a false reading for low battery. Anyone else seen this?