I'm resurrecting this topic because I recently got one of these cameras from someone. I had the same problem.
The long story:
As I figured out, the problem is not the actual batteries.
I tried NiMHs fully charged and got the low battery error.
I tried new AA Alkalines and they only worked for a few pics.
Things to note (possibilities of problems):
- there may be an imperfect contact
- there may be something wrong in the settings (unlikely though)
- there may be a problem with the clock battery (internal)
So I took things step by step.
I checked the contacts and there were in very good shape, powerful pressing on batteries so arcs or insufficient current was excluded.
I checked the internal settings and made sure that the setting is for Alkalines when I used Alkalines.
Since the above did not solve it, only one thing remained: the internal battery. The clock reset upon changing batteries was an indicator of this. The original owner confirmed that he did not use the camera for a long time, so that confirmed my hypothesis. Then the problem was that the internal battery is relatively hard to reach and an inexperienced person with precision disassembly may break things. So I decided not to open it. I took the best Alkalines I had fully charged brand new at 1.6V and let them in the camera for a few days. After a few days, I was able to take over 100 pics without any error. Then, the error came back. The Alkalines were still at around 90% indicator.
After a few more days of doing nothing, it started to work again and I was able to make more pictures with no error.
Conclusion: the internal battery re-charged slowly from the normal Alkalines until it reached a sufficient level to cause no more errors.
So the fix, if contacts and settings are both fine, is to let new Alkalines in there for a while (a few days) for the internal battery to recharge or, in the case or rechargeable batteries, let them connected to charger while inside about 3h more than the duration of a normal charge.