Can I use a higher wattage charger for my Acer Aspire E5-576G to deal with fps issues?

tpreb

I am looking to purchase a higher wattage charger (90W) for my Acer Aspire E5-576G to deal with the FUNCTIONAL FAILURE that Acer refuses to inform its customers about.

I now understand after doing a tremendous amount of research and taking multiple support tickets, that the Acer Aspire E5-576G has a horrendous functional flaw that causes the computer to suffer severe performance issues when plugged-in and charging below 40% battery. Specifically, the FPS will drop from a consistent 60fps to about 15 fps the moment I plug my laptop in and the battery is below 40%. To quote from another Acer community response, "The charger simply can't keep up with charging a near fully-depleted battery and playing a game full tilt at the same time."

First off, the fact that an Acer laptop which is designed to have gaming capabilities (i5 processor, 8GB ram, 2 graphics cards, an SSD) has an issue like this, is absolutely absurd. It's even worse that Acer DOESN'T EVEN TELL ITS CUSTOMERS about it, so when people like me spend $600 to buy a computer for my homework and visually-basic video games (i.e. League of Legends), I get completely screwed. I'm trying not to get furious as I write this, the concept is just so ludicrous.

Second off, there is seemingly no solution to the problem. I have seen suggestions for a BIOS update, but my laptops current BIOS version is V1.47, and when I go to the Acer support page for downloading drivers and BIOS packages, the provided BIOS update is V1.43, so clearly that won't work. Changing my laptop's performance settings also does nothing, because as I mentioned before, the consensus is that the laptop simply cannot play a game when charging a "near fully-depleted battery" (which is 40% and below... hmmm, is that a nearly depleted battery level?).

SO MY QUESTION IS: CAN I BUY A HIGHER WATTAGE CHARGER TO PROVIDE ENOUGH POWER FOR MY COMPUTER TO ACTUALLY FUNCTION LIKE ITS SUPPOSED TO?

Following this link: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/548752/horrible-performance-drop-when-charging-on-low-battery-acer-aspire-e15-e5-576g-54kg

I learned that a higher wattage charger may solve the problem. So now I want to buy this charger:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QJ2CKM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3RPN0HBLXDN8Z&psc=1

When I go online, most sources say this shouldn't be an issue. I decided to ask about this in an Acer live chat to make sure, and some useless support person told me that we should not use higher wattage chargers, but could not give any reasons why.

Please, I just want to be able to use my god ***** computer. The purchase of this laptop and subsequent support has been one of the worst experiences I've ever had, so I just want to buy a higher wattage charger to play my League of Legends in peace.

Will I destroy my computer by doing so?

Jack22

@tpreb
Acer always recommends to use the charger which came along with the unit.
Incase if you going to use a high wattage charger and because of that something happens to the unit than i think it will not be covered under warranty.

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

tpreb

So you're telling me that there is NO way to fix the fps issue, and I will just have to deal with it until this stupid laptop breaks and I need to buy a new one?

tpreb

That's the type of service Acer provides?

billsey

The problem is likely that Windows tries to save energy when running on battery, especially as the battery level drops. A higher wattage charger won't do anything to help, the charge circuit is designed for a specific draw and that's all it'll pull through the charger.

Karp-Acer_Retired

See what other users have been sharing about this topic: https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/548752/horrible-performance-drop-when-charging-on-low-battery-acer-aspire-e15-e5-576g-54kg

Some users have reported using 90 watt adapters with no ill effects, but Acer has not tested this and can't recommend using a charger with higher wattage than the one provided with his system.

Sterces

Is OP still having this problem or is it solved?

Thick8

A device will draw the power that it is designed to draw. A 60 watt bulb uses 60 watts even though the wall socket is capable of supplying 1800 watts. I sometimes use my 65w Lenovo laptop charger to charge my phone. The phone would explode if it charged at 65 watts; the internal circuitry limits how much of that 65 watts of power available it allows in. The phone will actually display "Turbo Charging" as it is capable of charging at a faster rate than a standard 2A USB charger can supply.

So you can of course use a higher wattage charger. It may or may not be a waste of money. You should let us know if you see a performance increase. One thing to note is that charging a battery at a higher than optimum rate on a regular basis will shorten the lifespan of the battery. So don't leave it plugged in to the 90 watt charger for normal charging.