m9750 battery/charging system issues

I've had my m9750 for 2.5 years now and about 4 months ago my battery just died over the course of a week. It would hold a charge for about an hour one day, then a few days later it would go dead in 15 minutes.

I figured my battery had lived its life at 2+ years old and I looked around for replacements. eBay and other places had the batteries at $100+ a piece. Amazingly enough Alienware had the best price at $56 per battery. They were on backorder so I ordered two and a few weeks later they came in. I put a new battery in and my average battery life was back to ~1.5 hours, a big increase from 15 minutes! Three weeks later my new battery now holds a charge for about 15 minutes

Luckily I got the 3 year warranty when I ordered the laptop so I spoke with tech support yesterday and after about an hour on the phone they agreed to take the computer back and fix it. They also agreed to replace the battery that was damaged due to the problem. My guess is something on the motherboard battery charging circuit is not working correctly. I've never seen anything completely destroy a battery in just a few weeks so it must be a somewhat severe problem.

Has anyone had this happen to their laptop before? If so, what was the problem? From speaking with the tech support rep he was unsure whether or not they still had the parts to fix a computer that was discontinued over a year ago. Hopefully they dont have any parts to fix it and they will have to send me a newer computer as a replacement.

 

That's strange,
This happened to my M9750, the battery was fine for the year 1/2 + it was in use and the battery just died in the course of about <1 month, Got a new one from Alienware under warrenty and the same started happening to that.

Never did investigate though as i only used it plugged in with the knackered battery until i upgraded.

 

UPDATE- I sent my computer in to Alienware and they were able to replicate the problem. They replaced my motherboard, primary video card and the battery under warranty. From the time I mailed the system out to the time it was returned to me was ~2 weeks. Great service, excellent turn-around time.

They quoted me a 4-6 week turn-around over the phone. The funny thing is I called 2 days before I got the computer back to check status and all the guy could tell me over the phone is that they had received the laptop. As it turns out it shipped back to me on that same day.