Will buying a larger power-supply stop battery discharge while plugged in?

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@Sharpshot94z

I did a gpu undervolting session tonight and i actually made it!!
I clocked the gpu @ 1800 mhz, and set it to 850mV using msi afterburner. After multiple sessions and testing of bf5 i can confirm that the battery is now beeing charged instead of discharged. The performance drop is barely noticeable (considering the gpu has about 100 mhz less now).
But i definately had to go all the way down to 850mV in order for the battery to be charging.
Plus i have an 165mV undervolt on the cpu. It’s kind of sad that acer builds something that you have to tune (down) in order for it to work to our liking...i hope they come up with a future bios update that will somehow get rid of the limitation of amps that are coming in from the brick.

All comments

I think the battery will always kick in when needed no matter which power brick u have (but a more powerful will always last longer before it kicks in) all depends if it kicks sooner or later but that is completely normal that's why the battery is there to aid the power brick when it needs to all depends of the usage more demanding or not if you are afraid to damage the battery don't because it will stop when it reaches 100% and it will only start to charge under 95% as i said that is completely normal i have mine on a/c 24/7 since i got it 6+ months ago the less advisable solution it's to disconnect the battery completely opening it and disconnecting the cable but you will loose performance if the gpu/cpu would require more power than the power brick can provide

Thank you for your response xapim

. Just to elaborate going from 230w to a 330w is 100w difference when it pulls from the battery I doubt its pulling over 100 watts so in theory shouldn't this prevent discharging while plugged in? The battery drain is about 1% per 10 mins so how much wattage would that be from that battery? I've already purchased the 330w power-supply so I will update this post with my findings.

sri369

@Sharpshot94z

Just cos your power adapter can supply does not mean your laptop will use it... your system should be capable of utilizing it. Also supplying more than your system can handle could risk frying it. Check your laptop specs on the max you can use.

@Sri369

The 330w power-supply is provided from acer and is one of the two options (230w and 330w) available for the Helios 500. I do not believe they would suggest a power-supply that would damage the computer. My main question is whether there is some type of power restriction preventing the computer from pulling more than 220 watts. I worry once I have the 330w the computer will still borrow form the battery even after it has 100 more watts to work with.

Sharpshot94z said:

Sri369 The 330w power-supply is provided from acer and is one of the two options (230w and 330w) available for the Helios 500. I do not believe they would suggest a power-supply that would damage the computer. My main question is whether there is some type of power restriction preventing the computer from pulling more than 220 watts. I worry once I have the 330w the computer will still borrow form the battery even after it has 100 more watts to work with.

Like i previously said it might still pull power from the battery in the most demanding tasks especially multitasking with loads of background processes while playing a demanding game for ex but technically it shouldn't need to drain as much as it had previously with the 220 again might drain or not only you can test it and see i only have a 135watt on my G3-572 and while playing games on ultra didn't noticed any battery draining so far maybe because i haven't doing long hours playing as i don't have the time last marathon i did was playing doom for almost 12h non stop awhile ago but also bare in mind my H300 uses much less power than your H500 that is the main reason i said battery draining while extensive gaming is normal while on A/C

Deejay_tech

@xapim,
higher wattage power supply will not fry the laptop. the laptop will use only as much as the "load" on it by the cpu, the gpu, screen & other peripherials.
330w supply does not mean it will always supply 330w. since it is an SMPS it is dynamic in nature. meaning the supply adjusts itself depending upon the load.

and generally it is the voltage which kills a circuit not watts. ( in our limited laptop usage).

@Sharpshot94z ,
calculate the 'max' power used by the cpu + Gpu + screen + other peripherials. and use a power supply which can supply 1.5 times roughly, for peace of mind.

Deejay_tech said:

@xapim,
higher wattage power supply will not fry the laptop. the laptop will use only as much as the "load" on it by the cpu, the gpu, screen & other peripherials.
330w supply does not mean it will always supply 330w. since it is an SMPS it is dynamic in nature. meaning the supply adjusts itself depending upon the load.

and generally it is the voltage which kills a circuit not watts. ( in our limited laptop usage).

@Sharpshot94z ,
calculate the 'max' power used by the cpu + Gpu + screen + other peripherials. and use a power supply which can supply 1.5 times roughly, for peace of mind.

@Deejay_tech when did i mentioned that i think you miss read what i posted for sure

you must be replying to @Sri369 not me

Deejay_tech

oops sorry xapim, pl accept my apologies.
it is meant for @Sri369.

Deejay_tech said:

oops sorry xapim, pl accept my apologies.
it is meant for @Sri369.

:P no worries m8

Sharpshot94z said:

I recently purchased the Predator Helios 500 and when gaming for long hours my laptops battery will fall down to 30% while plugged in. I see the message on my battery icon that the battery is discharging while plugged in. The laptop comes with a 230w power-supply and it doesn't seem adequate. I understand this is not a malfunction and is designed to pull form the battery when the power draw exceeds the power-supply. My question is if I buy the 330w power-supply sold by acer that is compatible with the Helios 500 will this stop this discharging while plugged in feature? Or is there some type of limit for the laptop to only accept 230w from the power-supply?

Hi,
did you resolve the discharging issue with the larger 330W PSU? i am encountering the same problems with my helios 500 (230W stock PSU), and hoping the 330W will fix this!

@helios500user
I ordered the part 2 days ago so it hasn't arrived yet but once I get the 330w power-supply ill put it through a day of testing and update my post and also another update after a couple of weeks of use.

Hi,
I also noticed that when the battery is 100% charged and plugged in the a/c socket, and i start gaming, it will discharge
-and not even try charging. My battery Status in the Windows taskbar says it´s 100% charged, even if i´ve played Battlefield 5 for an hour or so. But as soon as i disconnect the charger, it jumps to 93% charge in this case. And when i plug the charging cable in, it charges again. That´s how I even noticed that my battery is discharging in the first place...

@helios500user

I usually have my system off before I unplug so I have not noticed this but I will try it myself and see if i see a similar result. If I'm at 100% and I start gaming for 3-4 hours my battery usually is at around 60-70%. I'm not sure why your battery doesn't update as it uses its power until its unplugged but I wouldn't worry about that to much. Also I just accidentally clicked your comment as the answer to my original post so yeah that's fun... lol

So I accidentally clicked the wrong post as the answer to my question and I cannot find a way to remove it as an accepted answer and I cannot edit my original post to mention this mistake so yeah....

@helios500user

I just played a game for an hour and saw battery at 100% pulled the cord and it jumped down to 91% so yeah I have the same occurrence. I really hope that 330w will stop this but if it doesn't its ok just have to work around this issue its more of an annoyance than anything. Will update you =D

Sharpshot94z said:

@helios500user

I just played a game for an hour and saw battery at 100% pulled the cord and it jumped down to 91% so yeah I have the same occurrence. I really hope that 330w will stop this but if it doesn't its ok just have to work around this issue its more of an annoyance than anything. Will update you =D

I also ordered a 330W PSU and see

helios500user said:

Sharpshot94z said:

@helios500user

I just played a game for an hour and saw battery at 100% pulled the cord and it jumped down to 91% so yeah I have the same occurrence. I really hope that 330w will stop this but if it doesn't its ok just have to work around this issue its more of an annoyance than anything. Will update you =D

I also ordered a 330W PSU and see

Thanks for the info! I also ordered a 330w psu and it will arrive today. Will keep you updated!

@helios500user

Oh wow yeah I did the free shipping haha. I'm excited to hear your results. Ive been playing Fortnite for 4 hours and the battery went below 40% and dropped my FPS down to 30 from 200+. I had to tell my friends goodnight even though I could have played for a few more hours. So yeah not happy about that. I'm returning the laptop if this doesn't solve the issue.

@helios500user
Hey do you have the problem where you let the laptop go into rest mode while its open and when you move the mouse or type on the key the screen stays black and you have to hold the power button to restart the pc? I have that issue and wonder if its for all of the Helios 500 users.