PSA: Alienware AW610M having charging issues? It's not defective. The latest firmware is bugged.

I've seen this come up elsewhere. Over the last several months the AW610M has had some odd charging behavior. You'd charge for hours, thinking it's full, then unplug and see something like 4%. It behaves likes it's at 4% with constant warnings in the OS for a low battery and the LEDs would remain off. But if left unplugged, it lasts over a week because the battery was actually full, just misreporting.

What's going on? The latest firmware (1.3.8.38) is bad news. You'll want to revert to 1.3.0.30.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/product-support/product/alienware-mouse-aw610m/drivers

Download the "Alienware gaming mouse firmware update for AW610M" and run it. It will automatically downgrade the firmware. AWCC will then prompt you for an update. Ignore it. Your mouse battery will resume normal behavior.

I had an AW610M behaving like this for months. Thought it was bad and requested an RMA. They sent me a new one on 1.3.0.30. It ran fine for a bit. Then I upgraded to 1.3.8.38 and upon the next recharge it began acting up. I downgraded and the problem was fixed. I then grabbed the first mouse out of storage, set it up, downgraded the firmware, and it was back to normal as well.

Good grief, Dell. I wonder how many other RMAs they're processing due to this issue?