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My camera is an Olympus FE-360 digital camera from 2008. I have never had any problems with it but recently my camera will turn on and work completely fine for about a minute, but then will either turn off or go completely green and weird on the screen. When trying to upload pictures from it to my computer, the source cuts out very quickly because again, the camera will shut off. I am not very educated on cameras, but after doing a little bit of research online, many sources tell me it is an issue with my battery, which definitely would make sense. My current battery is an Olympus Model: LI-42B. I have looked up possible alternatives and many new batteries with chargers show up. Is it worth purchasing a new battery and charger? Could this really be the issue? If I was to order a new battery what brand or website would you recommend buying from? Please help!! I love this camera!!!!!!

(I have attached a picture of what shows up on the screen)

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    \$\begingroup\$ If a battery dies, I would expect the camera to power off - not for the screen to display this noisy signal. All consumer electronics die eventually (unfortunately) and 15 years is old for a digital camera. I personally wouldn't be too hopeful for this camera in this situation \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Commented Jun 27, 2023 at 12:31

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2008 is old for a battery. If it's still the original battery it would be surprising if it was maintaining charge well (not impossible, but surprising).

I'm not seeing a negative outcome - beyond the cost of a new battery - to trying a different one. If that was the problem, it's resolved. If it wasn't the problem, you're no worse off than you were. Beyond the cost of a new battery.

Batteries branded with the camera manufacturer's name are likely to be the most expensive, but also the least likely to have compatibility issues. Next will be the big battery brands (Duracell do a lot of camera batteries). Cheapest will be lesser known brands and often unknown brands. The risks are the usual ones - camera branded batteries from a camera shop will cost more but have better support if there are problems, while cheaper alternatives will depend as much on the customer support of where you bought them as on the name that's on them.

[Edit : Good comment from Michael C - a genuine Olympus Li-42B is likely to have been around for a few years too.]

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    \$\begingroup\$ And they can even return the new battery, if that doesn't fix the problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – GrantRobertson
    Commented Jun 27, 2023 at 16:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ @GrantRobertson Depends on the location and the policy of the retailer. If you buy something and there's nothing wrong with the item, I don't think you always have an automatic right to a refund. \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Commented Jun 27, 2023 at 18:48
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    \$\begingroup\$ It's rare to be able to find new batteries from the manufacturer for cameras 15 years old. If you do find a real Olympus battery, it's probably been sitting in a warehouse for almost 15 years and wouldn't be much better than the one that came with the camera. Third party batteries from reputable brands are usually a better choice for very old cameras, as they're more likely to be recently manufactured. The exception would be something like Canon's LP-E6 series of batteries that have been around for 15 years and there are still current models that use the most recent version, the LP-E6NH. \$\endgroup\$
    – Michael C
    Commented Jun 27, 2023 at 20:03
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Another possible cause for a seemingly random glitch like what you've described could be the camera's RAM going bad. A digital camera has a computer inside that (in many ways) is similar to a regular desktop computer. And like a regular desktop computer, components can fail.

I helped out with my high school's IT department during the school year and during the summers. Occasionally we'd see a computer that would have random crashes and BSODs, and we'd run Memtest86 on it and find that its RAM was going bad. It wasn't a frequent problem, but I saw it a handful of times across the 150-200 computers in the school during the 4 years I was there.

Unfortunately if that starts happening to your camera, there's likely not a feasible solution to replace the RAM, unless you want to take a deep dive into hardware engineering. One possibility would be to replace the camera's motherboard entirely -- perhaps from a donor camera on EBay with a separate problem like a broken lens -- but that would still require a bit of disassembly work.

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