Battery degradation Acer Swift 3(Acer Swift 3 SF314-51)

Acer Swift 3 SF314-51 bought in April 2017. Just noticed not having a good amount of battery life during long heavy loads, then yesterday I checked with different softwares and I discovered that they gave me the same exact low value of full charge capacity: 39.946 Wh. It's the third time I have an issue with this laptop since I bought it. The first time in summer, Storage disk (M.2) got corrupted, and I thought almost immediatly the disk was defective. I brought to service and after 30 days they told me that it was done a fresh install of windows 10 and update bios. After 2 months, in october/november similar issue (but worse). Windows 10 doesn't work anymore, tried drive recovery with usb as adviced by the guy where I bought the laptop. During installation something went wrong at the moment showing Cortana before privacy settings. Suddenly BSOD and quick restart, Same process, after finish booting same screen and then again BSOD, in a loop. 1 Month during the time I couldn't use a laptop for java coding at university. Then now this issue with the battery. What can I do? I can't bring it where I bought it and wait another month during the time I can't use anything stuying. Thanks
PS.: Sorry for my english if there are some errors.

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JackE

The figures you posted look like a normal wear level to me. What is the issue? Jack E/NJ

TheJack185

JackE said:

The figures you posted look like a normal wear level to me. What is the issue? Jack E/NJ

Under full load and maximum performances the battery discharges in less than 1 hour and 15 minutes.

JackE

That also seems OK. Jack E/NJ

TheJack185

JackE said:

That also seems OK. Jack E/NJ

Ok, thank you very much.

TheJack185

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/04/zu1amlwtnl64.png

Still increasing battery wear level. I noticed temperatures up to 92°C on the cpu cores and the fan is quiet and not spinning at max rpm.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/we/sw7px0pgkufp.png

I'm worried if the laptop can last as much as I can before upgrading for better performances.

JackE

Battery wear level usually tapers off with time so it still seems OK. Temperatures are high but still below 95°C where shutdowns are possible. I would keep it on a balanced power plan. If you set it to a performance, I suggest you try to use the laptop on a hard surface to help air circulation. Jack E/NJ

TheJack185

JackE said:

Battery wear level usually tapers off with time so it still seems OK. Temperatures are high but still below 95°C where shutdowns are possible. I would keep it on a balanced power plan. If you set it to a performance, I suggest you try to use the laptop on a hard surface to help air circulation. Jack E/NJ
Ok I'll try with balanced power plan, but I cannot use 100% the cpu with heavy loadings during simulations. I always use my laptop on the desk, soo there is nothing preventing air circulation. Thank you very much.

tomgadgets

You are using your swift in an environment too hot for it. i guess you play lots of games for it to get so hot? You need to keep the laptop cool when using it. Heat kills battery quickly, especially when batrery is at 100%. See reference:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

You could lose 60% battery capacity in 3 months!

TheJack185

tomgadgets said:

You are using your swift in an environment too hot for it. i guess you play lots of games for it to get so hot? You need to keep the laptop cool when using it. Heat kills battery quickly, especially when batrery is at 100%. See reference:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

You could lose 60% battery capacity in 3 months!

By environment you mean the room or the software i daily use? For the first it's 24°C. For daily usage I write java-based applications and test them. I choosed a 13.3 inch laptop for portability. I'm not using it for gaming (except some from internet like curvefever for example).

JackE

@TheJack185 Don't worry too much about declining capacity at this stage. Just use it, code to your heart's content, recharge when it gets low, and try to forget about the checking the battery wear meter too much for a month or two. Besides, new replacement batteries are currently less than $50 with free shipping and prices continues to drop.

Jack E/NJ

TheJack185

JackE said:

@TheJack185 Don't worry too much about declining capacity at this stage. Just use it, code to your heart's content, recharge when it gets low, and try to forget about the checking the battery wear meter too much for a month or two. Besides, new replacement batteries are currently less than $50 with free shipping and prices continues to drop. Jack E/NJ

Ok, thank you very much. Unfortunatly in my country price are pretty high. I saw batteries at 80€ for the cheapest up to 130€ (all SF314-51 original batteries). I keep an eye to see if they drop prices a little bit.
PS.: I always use it on hard surfaces for keep it ventilated.

Yajat

JackE said:

@TheJack185 Don't worry too much about declining capacity at this stage. Just use it, code to your heart's content, recharge when it gets low, and try to forget about the checking the battery wear meter too much for a month or two. Besides, new replacement batteries are currently less than $50 with free shipping and prices continues to drop. Jack E/NJ

I have somewhat of the same problem with a newer model of the same laptop (sf3 14). can you let me know where I can purchase batteries for this laptop?
i have been using my laptop for just 2 months and lost more than 60% battery life because of heat. thank you in advance.

billsey

Depends on where you are located. Both eBay and Amazon usually have replacement batteries available.

TheJack185

JackE said:

@TheJack185 Don't worry too much about declining capacity at this stage. Just use it, code to your heart's content, recharge when it gets low, and try to forget about the checking the battery wear meter too much for a month or two. Besides, new replacement batteries are currently less than $50 with free shipping and prices continues to drop. Jack E/NJ

After few months the laptop died. It was sent to service to get it repaired and after a month without it, they told me it was unrepairable. After almost 2 months without the laptop finally arrived a brand new one as a replacement. Guess what? Connecting a 2.5 external usb hdd (I needed for Linux, because I hadn't enough space in disk C:) was bricking the bios. The brand new laptop didn't power on even after disconnecting the usb hdd (tried even without linux installed in the external disk). Only after bios reset it could power on. I checked if my usb hdd was faulty, but with other laptops (thanks to my friends) it was never happening and the hdd was always working.

After talking of all the issues to the owner of the shop where I bought the first one, he took the laptop and told me to choose a new one as a replacement. I even had no choices because the prices were high and I couldn't afford to add extra money for something that was costing more than the old one without major performance improvement.

JackE

YajatGo to https://www.lazada.com.my for ACER laptop batteries. Should be same or similar battery to ACER E3-111, E3-721, E5-771, E5-771G, ES1-311, ES1-711, ES1-711G, R3-131T, R7-371T, V3-111, V3-111P, V3-112, V3-112P, and TravelMate B115, P236, P276 X359 X349 B115-M B115-MP Series laptops. Jack E/NJ

JackE

TheJack185>>>Guess what? Connecting a 2.5 external usb hdd (I needed for Linux>>>

You didn't mention this. Were you trying to boot Linux from a USB-connected MBR partitioned HDD in legacy BIOS? This is usually NOT recommended for UEFI bootstrappers. It should be GPT partitioned in UEFI only. Jack E/NJ

TheJack185

JackE said:

TheJack185>>>Guess what? Connecting a 2.5 external usb hdd (I needed for Linux>>>

You didn't mention this. Were you trying to boot Linux from a USB-connected MBR partitioned HDD in legacy BIOS? This is usually NOT recommended for UEFI bootstrappers. It should be GPT partitioned in UEFI only. Jack E/NJ

When I was pressing the power button it didn't do anything (nothing happen) and after some tries I discovered resetting the bios was the only way to make it boot again. I formatted the external HDD (without installing linux), and it happened again. So it wasn't even linux the issue, just the usb port where it was connected my hdd. I tried both ports, again bricked the bios and needed to reset to make it boot.

JackE

Was the external HDD MBR or GPT partitioned? Changing the BIOS to Legacy mode to accomodate booting from an external MBR HDD is a very hazardous maneuver. Jack E/NJ

TheJack185

JackE said:

Was the external HDD MBR or GPT partitioned? Changing the BIOS to Legacy mode to accomodate booting from an external MBR HDD is a very hazardous maneuver. Jack E/NJ

I don't remember if it was partitioned in MBR or GPT. But I never changed bios setting between UEFI and legacy mode. I tried pwoer on the laptop on windows as normally with the hdd connected (without linux, or any kind of file, just a fresh formatted disk), but it never started. It was always blocked until I reset the bios from the hole and then power it on without any usb connected device.

Yajat

JackE said:

YajatGo to https://www.lazada.com.my for ACER laptop batteries. Should be same or similar battery to ACER E3-111, E3-721, E5-771, E5-771G, ES1-311, ES1-711, ES1-711G, R3-131T, R7-371T, V3-111, V3-111P, V3-112, V3-112P, and TravelMate B115, P236, P276 X359 X349 B115-M B115-MP Series laptops. Jack E/NJ

Another thing that I just wanted to make sure before buying the battery, I need to make sure that the new one won't have the same problems. I use my laptop for school and play a lot of games on battery. so is that just generally bad for the battery life for the laptop? Also, is the serial number of the a stated on the battery?

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