Helios 300 won't charge while using Nvidia GPU (Power and Charging lights blinking)

Hello,

I have had my Helios for about 8 months, and had this issue intermittently, but in the past week this issue has become constant. Whenever I'm using my Helios "normally", either surfing the web or playing low demand games such as Hearthstone, my experience is fine, but whenever I play something more demanding,(such as Destiny 2, the game I am having my primary issues with) I am unable to play. My uneducated assumption is the more demanding games involve the Nvidia GPU drawing too much power.

My issue is that shortly after launching a game, my laptop stops charging and the power and charger lights on the side start blinking. In the past my band-aid solution was to just unplug and re-plug the charger until it worked, but recently that has stopped working. I initially thought the error was with my charger, but I have tried several other chargers with the same result.

Any help is much appreciated!

Accepted answers

Red-Sand

I created a video to undervolt the Nvidia GPU which you may find useful.

https://youtu.be/nYW7ROFx2Kk

It simply lessens the voltages to maintain set clock speeds for improved performance and less battery draw.

The "Max Q" profile for example maxes the GPU voltage to 800mV (opposed to 1050mV) all while maintaining a solid 1721mhz clock speed. FYI this is better performance and less voltage than an actual Max Q GPU uses.

There are other profiles to use as well all in which lessen stock voltages and either keep performance the same as stock (Stock profile) or increase it (Undervolt/Overclock profile).

All the profiles given use less then 1000mV (Even the overclock profile only uses 900mV)
In my personal experience using the "Max Q" profile while on battery and the undervolt/overclock while plugged in gives amazing performance and lowers CPU & GPU by -10 C (Due to shared heat sink) while increasing performance.

The games shown at the beginning of the video are all set to maximum graphic settings with V Sync off and you can see the On Screen Display information for each game shown.

Enjoy!

All comments

Sharanji

Uselesslime
This seems to be normal, however you may perform a power reset. However, please try a simple power reset. Disconnect the charger. Please check for a battery reset PIN hole at the bottom of the device. The reset hole would have a battery symbol next to it. Insert a paperclip into the hole and press for four seconds. Let the computer sit for 5 minutes with no power. Reconnect the charger and check the issue.
When your computer requires more power than the AC adapter can provide, it will stop charging to allow it to draw additional power from the battery. The system will resume charging the battery when the power demands are lower. This may occur during heavy gaming sessions. If the battery discharges below 30% while using the AC adapter, the system will stop using power from the battery until the charge is above 40% again.

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Uselesslime

Thanks for your reply,

I followed your steps on performing a power reset, but unfortunately my problem is still there. You said that this seems to be normal, but the fact that the computer heavily limits performance when unplugged really makes it unreasonable while gaming, especially as I didn't have this problem in the past.

Sharanji

Uselesslime
Thank you for your response.
Depends on the laptop, my laptop can perform at the same performance while on battery, however it greatly reduces the amount of battery time, due to running at max performance during this. You can play games while plugged in even if the battery reaches 100%.
Try going into NVIDIA Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > Global Settings > Power Management > Prefer Max Performance. Then Apply, and then try running your game on battery.
You may also need to go to Control Panel (or click on your taskbar battery icon) and change the Power Options Profile to High Performance.

This could also be an issue with windows update.
Windows 10 v1709 introduces a new power-saving technology called Power Throttling. A unique feature of this technology is that while still giving users access to powerful multitasking capabilities, it improves battery life by running background work in a power-efficient manner. If you do not find it useful, you can disable it.

To check which apps and processes are power-throttled, you will have to open the Task Manager, select the Details tab, right-click on it and click on Select columns. Here select Power Throttling to display the column, where you will be able to see the details.

>>>Enable/Disable Power Throttling

To disable Power Throttling in Windows 10 you will be required to change the active power plan from Balanced to High Performance. You can do this via the ‘Battery Indicator’ visible on the taskbar.

When you click the icon, it displays a slider with the selected power mode. It includes four positions, as shown in the image below when you move from left to right:

Battery saver, Better Battery (Recommended), Better performance, Best performance

To disable Power Throttling, simply move the slider to the right to enable the Best Performance power plan. This will disable Power Throttling but it will increase the power consumption significantly as power saving functions are disabled as well in that mode.

>>>Enable Power Throttling for Background Apps

You have complete control over your Windows 10 apps. As such, you can decide which apps should be throttled. You can choose to stop Windows 10 from managing the CPU resources for a these apps. To do this, open Settings > System and select Battery option.

Next, choose Battery Usage by App from the left panel and locate the app you want to exclude from Power Throttling, and uncheck the option “Let Windows decide when this app can run in the background”. Once you disable the option, a new checkbox will appear, “Allow the app to run background tasks“. Check this option to allow the app to run in the background.

With Power Throttling, when background work is running, Windows 10 places the CPU in its most energy efficient operating mode and gets the work done in the best way using minimal battery usage. Hope you find the feature working well for you.

Hit 'Like' if you find the answer helpful!

Click on 'Yes' if the comment answers your question!

Uselesslime

Thanks for your in-depth reply, I seem to have solved the issue(hopefully not temporarily) by changing some Nvidia control panel settings and lowering the in-game settings.

Sharanji

Glad that the issue is resolved. I appreciate all your efforts in fixing the problem.

Red-Sand

I created a video to undervolt the Nvidia GPU which you may find useful.

https://youtu.be/nYW7ROFx2Kk

It simply lessens the voltages to maintain set clock speeds for improved performance and less battery draw.

The "Max Q" profile for example maxes the GPU voltage to 800mV (opposed to 1050mV) all while maintaining a solid 1721mhz clock speed. FYI this is better performance and less voltage than an actual Max Q GPU uses.

There are other profiles to use as well all in which lessen stock voltages and either keep performance the same as stock (Stock profile) or increase it (Undervolt/Overclock profile).

All the profiles given use less then 1000mV (Even the overclock profile only uses 900mV)
In my personal experience using the "Max Q" profile while on battery and the undervolt/overclock while plugged in gives amazing performance and lowers CPU & GPU by -10 C (Due to shared heat sink) while increasing performance.

The games shown at the beginning of the video are all set to maximum graphic settings with V Sync off and you can see the On Screen Display information for each game shown.

Enjoy!

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