So, whatever was happening with the machine before is def. happening again. Apparently plugging in a second monitor means you have 3 hours of battery life, end of story. You can't push an external monitor with the internal graphics card.
I've got the machine sitting on my desk here, it's not doing much of anything, and looks like it's going to get just a hair over 3 hours of battery life total.
Given that, I think I'll be returning this machine today or tomorrow. (last day to do it) and exchanging it for a previous model.
Ugh. Annoying and time consuming.
