Battery not showing that it discharges

Recently I had a problem with my Acer Predator Helios 300 2019 (1660ti), basically I found that it loses power while I am gaming on it. I had actually written about it on this very forum and based on all factors concluded that this is most likely the "hybrid power" function of my laptop. Even still, I did not stop worrying, since my laptop wasn't discharging while gaming in a way that makes sense, it just jumped from 100% to 95% (previously I only checked the battery status after playing, after writing on this forum I started to check it every few minutes), and then started recharging normally. So I've had tested it even further and have found that the laptop displays different battery status when it is plugged in with A/C adapter and when it is strictly on battery. For example, it shows 100% on A/C adapter, when after disconnecting it it shows 97% and then connecting it again shows 100%. It always shows 100%, but stops doing so when the battery is on 95%. Then it charges up to 100% and the whole process repeats itself. I have actually replaced my unit for a different reason (faulty speaker), and the new one does the same thing, so it seems like it is not only my problem. My question is, what causes this effect and how can I stop it? Acer support doesn't have any explanation for now, they told me that there is a bug within windows that makes the last 3% slower to recahrge, but my problem is that the last 5% of the battery recahrge only after reaching 95%. What to do?

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MaClane

Good afternoon magicznywojtek !

There is absolutely nothing wrong.
High performance laptops use some of their battery power when performing activities such as gaming.
The percentage may decline at times up to 40%.
So you should charge the battery 100% before playing.
After applications are finished loading will return to normal.

Reset and calibrate the battery to correct any errors.

Commodore_1995#

What colleague maclane said is correct. However, you can try calibrating the battery so that the windows meter sets the correct percentage. I would like to know what the sound problem was?

xapim

magicznywojtek all predator gaming laptops batteries keep trickle charging when under 95% so as it was said theres nothing wrong the battery its only doing what it was meant to which its help the adapter to provide enough power when this one cant by itself and its normal when you disconnect from AC that the battery quickly discharges because its a gaming laptop it was not made to run on battery only if you want to run it on battery you have to weak the powerplans very well probably lock it to a single working core only to use less power draw (these are all complicated procedures that are not worth the hassle for the average user this is for advanced users only) in order to get the best battery life and of course optimize your windows properly but even after all this done do not expect you can game on battery and have a much greater battery life you will have an increase of a couple of hours at best and you can only do really light work on it

sri369

magicznywojtek said:

Recently I had a problem with my Acer Predator Helios 300 2019 (1660ti), basically I found that it loses power while I am gaming on it. I had actually written about it on this very forum and based on all factors concluded that this is most likely the "hybrid power" function of my laptop. Even still, I did not stop worrying, since my laptop wasn't discharging while gaming in a way that makes sense, it just jumped from 100% to 95% (previously I only checked the battery status after playing, after writing on this forum I started to check it every few minutes), and then started recharging normally. So I've had tested it even further and have found that the laptop displays different battery status when it is plugged in with A/C adapter and when it is strictly on battery. For example, it shows 100% on A/C adapter, when after disconnecting it it shows 97% and then connecting it again shows 100%. It always shows 100%, but stops doing so when the battery is on 95%. Then it charges up to 100% and the whole process repeats itself. I have actually replaced my unit for a different reason (faulty speaker), and the new one does the same thing, so it seems like it is not only my problem. My question is, what causes this effect and how can I stop it? Acer support doesn't have any explanation for now, they told me that there is a bug within windows that makes the last 3% slower to recahrge, but my problem is that the last 5% of the battery recahrge only after reaching 95%. What to do?

The last 5% is set aside to not turn on charge-discharge cycles - this helps prolong battery life. Windows sends signal that battery is full any value between 95 to 100.
Almost always, like when carrying laptop around from one place to another and connecting to supply there, there would be a slight discharge of battery and it wouldn't be effective to start charging battery when it is barely even used, like when at 99% or 98%. But once its hits 95 or less, it starts charging again.

magicznywojtek

Acer support informed me that this is abnormal and I should send my laptop for a checkup. I have recorded the thing that is happening, this is definately not hybrid power... THe weird part is that this is my second (I mean this model, the previous one had a problem and was replaced by this one) laptop and the same thing is happening... The recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12kqP4dIYhcRq5yWTbFOQZ8y93NDoy0sJ/view?usp=sharing

Commodore_1995#

OK! The fact that the notebook uses the battery even though it is connected to the power adapter is normal. Now, about the video, do the following:

a) uninstall these drivers and then restart windows and test:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/ub/ncfoazwasv9m.png

b) Then try calibrating the battery:

https://youtu.be/eoEOg-q_Dgg

I still think this is not a hardware problem.

magicznywojtek

egydiocoelho said:

OK! The fact that the notebook uses the battery even though it is connected to the power adapter is normal. Now, about the video, do the following:
a) uninstall these drivers and then restart windows and test:

b) Then try calibrating the battery:
https://youtu.be/eoEOg-q_Dgg
I still think this is not a hardware problem.

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Commodore_1995#

OK! When you turn off the notebook and unplug the power adapter and then turn on the notebook using only the battery, what percentage appears?

sri369

magicznywojtek said:

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Does it show a battery percentage under 94% when you take it off the charger. As long as it shows between 95 to 100 you are good. It is NOT a hardware problem. And it will NOT be solved no matter what you do on any major OS. This is a safety feature to extend battery life.

On the other hand, if you pull it off charger when it says fully charged and it shows something under 94%, then you have a problem either with battery or with battery calibration.

sri369

egydiocoelho said:

OK! When you turn off the notebook and unplug the power adapter and then turn on the notebook using only the battery, what percentage appears?

@magicznywojtek
If you do the above, give a tolerance of about 2-3% from whatever it was - there is some power used by laptop to power up itself. So if it showed full when at 96% and you shut it down and powered it up on battery, you could expect it to be lower than 96 by a few digits.

XdxD

sri369 said:

magicznywojtek said:

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Does it show a battery percentage under 94% when you take it off the charger. As long as it shows between 95 to 100 you are good. It is NOT a hardware problem. And it will NOT be solved no matter what you do on any major OS. This is a safety feature to extend battery life.

On the other hand, if you pull it off charger when it says fully charged and it shows something under 94%, then you have a problem either with battery or with battery calibration.

Checked in my G3-572 and it shows 97% without adaptor and 100% with adaptor.

magicznywojtek

egydiocoelho said:

OK! When you turn off the notebook and unplug the power adapter and then turn on the notebook using only the battery, what percentage appears?

The same percentage (so 100% with adapter and 96% without one).

magicznywojtek

sri369 said:

magicznywojtek said:

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Does it show a battery percentage under 94% when you take it off the charger. As long as it shows between 95 to 100 you are good. It is NOT a hardware problem. And it will NOT be solved no matter what you do on any major OS. This is a safety feature to extend battery life.

On the other hand, if you pull it off charger when it says fully charged and it shows something under 94%, then you have a problem either with battery or with battery calibration.

I still think that this is extremly weird and doesn't make much sense. I used to have Acer Nitro V with gtx 960m and it did not have any safety features of this kind, it just showed the accurate percentage no matter what. I also do not think that this is too healthy for the battery, since when I am gaming the laptop takes some power from the battery discharging it a bit and only after reaching below 96% starts to charge it again, essentially using 5% out of the battery life cycle for no apparent reason. Especially, since after reaching below 96% it has no problem charging the device even on full load, so it has anough power to keep the device on the turbo mode and charge it at the same time, why not just keep the battery at 100% then, and focus on keeping the hardware running?

magicznywojtek

sri369 said:

magicznywojtek said:

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Does it show a battery percentage under 94% when you take it off the charger. As long as it shows between 95 to 100 you are good. It is NOT a hardware problem. And it will NOT be solved no matter what you do on any major OS. This is a safety feature to extend battery life.

On the other hand, if you pull it off charger when it says fully charged and it shows something under 94%, then you have a problem either with battery or with battery calibration.

I still think that this is extremly weird. I used to have Acer Nitro V and it did not have any safety features of this kind. It just showed the right percentage no matter what. I also think that this just doesnt make much sense. When I am gaming the laptop uses some power from the battery, and only after reaching below 96% it starts to charge the laptop, essentially using 5% percent of the battery life cycle each time I play. And it is not like it has any problems charging the device on full load, which proves that it has enough power to both keep the hardware running at full speed and charge the battery. Why not have stop using the battery then? Keep it at 100% at all time? If it is for battery's longevity why not do what Asus does, letting users block charging beyond 75%? This would make everyone happy

magicznywojtek

I am going to send my Helios to Acer support no matter what, since it seems like they don't know what causes the laptop to show different percenatages when on adapter and when it is on battery (which makes me feel a lot less comfortable calling such behiavour a feature of any kind, since Acer themselves should be able to recognize it, and they obviously don't). Probably I will send it next week, after two I should get it back and tell you how it went, but if other helios laptop have the same thing, then probably nothing can be done about it. I am starting to regret my purchase, since I bought a laptop to casually play some games without having to worry about such things

((

magicznywojtek

XdxD said:

sri369 said:

magicznywojtek said:

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Does it show a battery percentage under 94% when you take it off the charger. As long as it shows between 95 to 100 you are good. It is NOT a hardware problem. And it will NOT be solved no matter what you do on any major OS. This is a safety feature to extend battery life.

On the other hand, if you pull it off charger when it says fully charged and it shows something under 94%, then you have a problem either with battery or with battery calibration.

Checked in my G3-572 and it shows 97% without adaptor and 100% with adaptor.

Thank you for checking this! Could you also confirm that your laptop uses battery when on turbo mode and has to charge after about and hour (sometimes half) of gaming?

XdxD

magicznywojtek said:

XdxD said:

sri369 said:

magicznywojtek said:

Reinstalling drivers and recalibrating, sadly, did not help, battery still shows different percentage when not plugged in

Does it show a battery percentage under 94% when you take it off the charger. As long as it shows between 95 to 100 you are good. It is NOT a hardware problem. And it will NOT be solved no matter what you do on any major OS. This is a safety feature to extend battery life.

On the other hand, if you pull it off charger when it says fully charged and it shows something under 94%, then you have a problem either with battery or with battery calibration.

Checked in my G3-572 and it shows 97% without adaptor and 100% with adaptor.

Thank you for checking this! Could you also confirm that your laptop uses battery when on turbo mode and has to charge after about and hour (sometimes half) of gaming?

My model has no turbo mode. I play PUBG PC Lite (coz friend has this game only + I use my mobile hotspot which gives me 3GB/day so can't download PUBG PC) for 2 hours. Before starting the game, Battery % with adaptor would be at 100% and after 2 hours, it will be at 96%. Happens everytime.

sri369

magicznywojtek said:

I am going to send my Helios to Acer support no matter what, since it seems like they don't know what causes the laptop to show different percenatages when on adapter and when it is on battery (which makes me feel a lot less comfortable calling such behiavour a feature of any kind, since Acer themselves should be able to recognize it, and they obviously don't). Probably I will send it next week, after two I should get it back and tell you how it went, but if other helios laptop have the same thing, then probably nothing can be done about it. I am starting to regret my purchase, since I bought a laptop to casually play some games without having to worry about such things ((

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there is nothing Acer, or for that matter, any laptop manufacturer, would be able to help you in this matter. This 5% feature is inherently present in Windows. And it has been there for many years now.
Let us know if you hear otherwise or are able to solve this - this would help in my learning too.

magicznywojtek said:

And it is not like it has any problems charging the device on full load, which proves that it has enough power to both keep the hardware running at full speed and charge the battery. Why not have stop using the battery then? Keep it at 100% at all time? If it is for battery's longevity why not do what Asus does, letting users block charging beyond 75%? This would make everyone happy

True, some manufacturers provide some battery management software, some don't.
When you play, power from adapter is used when adapter is connected. Power from battery is used if power from adapter alone is not sufficient to meet the energy needs of the laptop - hybrid power utilization.
If you do not want this to happen, you need a bigger power brick - mine is a G3-572 and i got the 180W adapter (not the 135W one), and it rarely goes down under 95%. I am connected to power 100% of the time.
Charging of battery occurs only when the adapter supplies more than the PC can use - that excess is used to charge the battery.

magicznywojtek said:

When I am gaming the laptop uses some power from the battery, and only after reaching below 96% it starts to charge the laptop, essentially using 5% percent of the battery life cycle each time I play.

Does it charge when you are playing or after you are done playing?
Also, while in menus and such, the power needs reduce therby leaving some excess power from adapter for other uses.

magicznywojtek

sri369 said:
Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there is nothing Acer, or for that matter, any laptop manufacturer, would be able to help you in this matter. This 5% feature is inherently present in Windows. And it has been there for many years now.

My Acer Nitro V did not have any problems of this kind.

If you do not want this to happen, you need a bigger power brick - mine is a G3-572 and i got the 180W adapter (not the 135W one), and it rarely goes down under 95%. I am connected to power 100% of the time.

180W should be enough according to this laptops tests (

https://youtu.be/FW1b8EUQ0xQ around the 7th minute). It is perhaps borderline 180W, but I still should not see amy battery drain or at least a small amount, not 5% every half an hour. It also used 2% when I left it for around 20 hours (I wanted to download games from my steam library). That was certainly not a demanding task

//

Does it charge when you are playing or after you are done playing?
Also, while in menus and such, the power needs reduce therby leaving some excess power from adapter for other uses.

I was talking about charging in-game (not in menus, just while playing). It is not fast, but it does charge (2% after an hour of gaming). I once had a situation when it did not charge tho and got to 87%, but after further testing it was an anomaly, after reaching belowe 96% it always charges slowly.

Thank you all for giving suggestions though, I am just really frustrated with the whole thing. It was the most expansive computer I have ever bought and I was expecting the very best for this price... I wanted a laptop, because my previous experience with the much cheaper Nitro V was really positive, and now I have problems with the battery... I really think that I could have just bought a PC with 2070 super, i7, 16 gb of ram, 2tb of space and a expansive mechanical keyboard, though I really wanted the comfortability of a laptop...

Commodore_1995#

I still think this problem with percentage is not a hardware problem. In my opinion, you should not worry about this problem. To rule out a battery problem, download hwinfo64 and check this:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/rx/sn9vd1260g69.png

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