Do you own an original Zune [now called a Zune 30]? Did you upgrade to the new firmware¹ released a few weeks ago? Did you start having problems with the battery life? Does this image look familiar?

If so, then you're seeing the same problem I and many, many others have according to this thread in the Zune forums.

Here's the situation I found myself in.... I updated my Zune 30's firmware on release day² and was enjoying the new look and feel. After a few days of regular use I noticed the battery dying much faster than it had previously. Not sure what was going on I just kept charging and syncing it with my laptop. Then the night before Thanksgiving I charged it all night long, knowing that I had 8 hours of driving to do in the next 48 hours [spent the holiday with my girlfriend and her family in Eastern Washington, a smashing good time other than my dead Zune].

Two hours into my drive the battery icon looked reasonable at mostly full.  Three hours into my drive it was suddenly at half charge.  Four hours it was barely registering.  Fifth hour...the exclamation point of death and I was pulling out CDs that I threw in "just in case." I was pissed.

Looking for a fix, I read the Zune forums and some mailing lists which lead me to this solution:

1. Drain your Zune 30 completely of battery life until you get the exclamation point of death.
2. Fully charge your Zune 30, overnight even.
3. Reset it. You do this by simultaneously pressing UP on the directional pad and the BACK button.
4. To save the battery when not using your Zune 30, force it to turn off by simultaneously pressing DOWN on the directional pad and the BACK button.

After doing this, I got 13 hours of continuous music playback [with wireless on].  Fully charging the battery and resetting the Zune seems to have fixed the problem.

I could go into a longer rant about this, but I'm just too tired from dealing with it over the weekend. Suffice it to say that I like my Zune enough to deal with this bullshit. I also have faith that the Zune team is aware of the problem and working on a fix as we speak. [fingers crossed]

Update: Just to be clear, the solution presented here is not an official one provided by Microsoft or Zune. This is strictly from my own experience and experimentation as a Zune user.

Update 2: Since posting this I have seen reports of another Zune 30 battery problem where the device will not charge at all. It only shows the excalamation point of death which effectively prevents you from resetting the device [if it won't even turn on then how can you reset it?]. That is different from what I experienced, which was reduced battery life. Sorry, I don't know what to tell you.

Update 3: Added step 4 above.

~tod

¹ To see your firmware version go to settings -> about -> zune.

² Version 2.2 of the firmware was released on 11.13.2007.