The rechargeable battery firmly clicks into place, I plug the cord into the controller and I plug the other end into the USB port. Then the light turns red for about 15 seconds, then green for about 5, then the light goes out.

Isn't it supposed to stay green when it's fully charged? I'd think it was fully charged only it's clearly NOT since it may play for an hour or may not play at all. It's not the controller since it works fine with batteries.

I figure I must be doing something wrong here--or something--because the play & charge is brand new and it just ain't workin'.

Help?

yea, that's weird, the light goes off when the charging is done. it doesn't stay green for me. no problems with my controller

i think it's the lithion battery itself. you might wanna buy another one just to see if the same problem occurs. if the same problem happens, it's the charge kit.

Slightly off topic: does anyone know if the battery from the quick charge kit is interchangeable with the play and charge kit? I really want to quit using that USB cable, but don't want to have to get all new batteries.

Well that's good to know the light is supposed to go out when the charging is done. I do have another I haven't yet tried (still on the original batteries) so I'll try that. Thanks--

P.S. And yes the Quick Charge kit charges the same batteries--2 at a time--and this will likely be my next purchase.

Same batteries. I bought the Quick Charge kit and put away the cable. Works great!

Yeah the one time I used the usb port on the 360 for this my play and charge seemed to take forever to charge from the 360. I would see that red light for a long time. I plugged it into my PC's usb port(just ignore the new hardware message)and it seemed to charge right up. Granted, it could've been mostly charged by the 360 and the PC just finished it off.

One thing I didn't know...I assumed the usb cable would be the way the controller commands would get to the 360 while it charged the battery. According to the instruction booklet the controller still uses its wireless signal as you play while it charges. So it seems the cable -just- charges and nothing else. I wonder if one could hook it to their pc while playing a gaem on the 360?

you're right. right now, only the wired controller can work with the PC, but MS already announced that they will have a wireless adapter for the PC for the wireless controller by the end of the year.

you can actually keep playing and charging the controller. my controller actually charged up fully even when i was playing a game. and giantrobo's right, you can charge on a USB hubw ith the PC if you don't feel like turning on the 360 to initiate the charging. i was reading about that on a xbox live dev team blog.

Actually, what I was wondering was can one play the 360 while the controller is charging from the PC instead of the 360 usb port since the wireless controller uses the wireless signal while charging.

oh, that's an interesting idea, maybe someone here can try it and let us know. but like you said, since the wireless is still working with the 360, i think that will work. although i'm not sure if it takes longer to charge with the PC than the 360.

i guess if you plug the charge kit into the PC and start charging, try turning on the 360 with the controller. that should confirm your idea.

I just bought 2 of these today at Gamestop with their buy 2 used get one free and I can confirm that you can used while plugged up to a computer. I plugged it up to my laptop that sits next to my recliner and played wireless until it charged.
Hope this helps.

Cool. It does help because I haven't had time to test my theory.

It actually was a bum battery. I bought a Quick Charge (that comes w/1 battery), tried the bum one on that, no light, tossed it, put both good batteries on that baby and I'll never look back to the corded play & charge (unless I'm in the middle of a game and one goes dead).