Boy am I glad I found this site and this thread. I’m new to Nikon, but not to photography.

I bought a D300, and the MB-D10 battery grip. I’m the kind of user who reads the manual (no matter what it’s for) from cover to cover. I was following along with camera in hand.

I got to the section about showing battery voltages, and how there should be a ‘BP’ icon on the top control panel when the battery grip was attached and had batteries. Only I was never seeing the ‘BP’ icon on top, nor did ‘Battery info’ from the menu show anything other than the internal battery.

I tried several sets of AA batteries, both rechargeable NiMH and disposable Duracell Lithium Ultra; all with the same results.

I read this thread several days ago, and tried the various troubleshooting steps that people outlined. The one thing that kept stumping me was that if I took the internal EN-EL3E battery out of the camera and just attached the battery grip; the camera wouldn’t power on. It displayed a small battery icon on the top control panel that only had the bottom corner filled in. This icon flashed several times.

I called Nikon, and two different people there told me that it was not possible to run the D300 without a battery in the camera, even if that battery was completely drained.
I called Nikon back this evening and spoke to a different person. He again said the camera would not run if there was no battery in the camera; and that either my battery grip or my camera or both were defective and in need of service.

Reading this thread again, suggested to me that sending my camera to Nikon would probably not net me anything other than a repair bill and a week or two without my gear. So I decided to try a closer inspection of the AA sled, the contacts, the bottom of the camera, etc. one last time before sending it in.

I can now definitely report that it IS MOST ASSUREDLY POSSIBLE to run the D300 with no internal battery and just the MB-D10 battery grip, despite 3 different Nikon Tech Support reps telling me that it’s not possible.

For the moment, my battery grip is recognized by the camera, and I can shoot in CH at the full 8 fps. I spent the better part of an hour and a half with a high powered light, a head mounted magnifier, a bottle of non-conducting contact cleaner and several foam-tipped “Q-tips”. I gave the contacts on the battery grip a very good cleaning, along with all the contacts on the bottom of the camera. I did the same thing to the AA battery sled, checking for the ‘sagging plastic’ mentioned by one poster in this thread.

I have to say, I’m more than a little annoyed at Nikon! Does anyone from Nikon read this site? I would very much like to talk to a Nikon manager or person higher up the food chain than their Tech Support phone people.

I’m very thankful that some Google searching turned up this site and this thread. Clearly I am not the only one who is having this issue with the D300 and the MB-D10. Thank you to everyone who posted their experiences and their troubleshooting tips! I’m pretty sure that I do NOT need to send my camera and battery grip in to be serviced at this point. For me, the problem *seems to be* a simple matter of dirty contacts somewhere. At least for now.

For those who are having this same problem, if you haven’t already tried a good contact cleaning on the camera and the battery grip; perhaps this will help your problem as well..?..?

So this leads me to believe that the very small drain(to keep the card count on) even when camera is off for a few days , is enough to lower the overall AA batteries to not have enough juice to always get the 8 fps.

So my solution was to switch the battery order when not in use. That is to use the primary camera battery as first priority while in the bag, thus whatever small drain is put on that battery not the AA’s. Then when shooting – put the order back to the MBD10 as first. It seems this has worked for me.

What I dont know is at what level of drain the AA batteries start developing the hit and miss syndrome.

So you just have to remember to make the switch when starting to shoot and putting away. I created a shortcut on “my Menu” so I dont have to dig for the menu item.
I think the moral is that the battery strength indicator on the camera does tell the real story. AA’s may in fact have a decent charge left, but maybe not enough to constantly be recognized.

Adobe put the fix on your site WTF?

Haven’t even attempted the 8fps rate yet.

Using firmware 1.10

I had an after market EN-EL3e 7.4v 2200mah in the camera. While the standard nikon 7.4v 1500mah in the power grip. The after market battery works fine in the camera and the power grip when I am not doing long exposures, so I dont think the battery itself is a problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

It looks like firmware 1.01 may solve this.

I attach the MB-D10 with fully charged AAs and a BP (Battery Pack) logo appears next to the battery indicator on the top LCD.

However, very randomly, after a period the BP logo will then disappear, just showing the status of the internal battery. Turning the camera off and on makes no difference, BP only returns when the AA battery tray is slid out and back in.

In the custom options, d11 is correctly set to Ni-MH and d12 to use MB-D10 first.

My assumption is that I’m not achieving 8fps when BP is missing.

Any ideas?

I’m on D300s 1.00 firmware.