Battery Problems with E 15 being caused by external hard drives

MightyIceberg

I have been having problems with my battery discharging at a fast rate (about 5% discharge per hour) when the Laptop is switched off and the power cable unplugged. I have discovered the cause was an external hard drive plugged into the USB port. If I left the external drive plugged in when the laptop was switched off the battery keeps trying to power it, even though every thing else is switrched off. The immediate solution is do not leave external drives plugged in when the laptop is switched off. However Acer needs to address this for a permanent solution. 

philetus

Some USB ports have power when the laptop is off for powering and charging phones, etc. It is not a hardware problem, it is made that way. Unplug the USB drive.

MightyIceberg

That's fine, however it is something that should have been more clearly advertised when buying the laptop. I am sure you will say it is in the manual, but it is something that new owners need to be a aware of, especially when switching from an older model where such functions were not installed.

 

Plus, while it can be a useful thing to have on a laptop for when you may be somewhere without direct access to a power socket to charge your phone, most of us are rarely in that position: and those people who do often find themselves in such a position usually take the precaution of having a portable charger for such eventualities (something I in fact have for just those moments). So a function like this is not a necessity and as such it should be an option that we can choose to switch on if we need it, not a standard feature that most customers may not know about. I should be able to switch it off as I will probably never need it.

 

Also it is not that difficult to set it up so it recognises phones and tablets from external hard drives that only need power when the computer is switched on. Even though the computer may see both as mass storage devices there are ways to differentiate between external hard drives and phones or tablets (the name of the device for example is often a bit of a giveaway)

 

It is a a useful function to have, but poorly thought out and delivered by your company. While handy to have 'just in case' it is only of only minor significance and should be an option that can be selected when needed, not standard.