Spin 13 charge is slow and increases in time at about 80 percent mark

Brian2550

This is my second Spin 13 after sending the first back to Amazon. With this second unit, I sent it to Acer to fix a reported known battery issue. Still, it's not resolved!

At 20 percent left, the computer told me it it would be an hour to charge. At 80 percent, it was at 33 minutes. At 91 percent, it required 70 more minutes!

What is the matter with this computer and with Acer for being unable to fix this?

billsey

It's not really a problem with Acer or with the battery, it's a problem with the way ChromeOS calculates charging and battery life. When your system is new it just uses some defaults to figure out how charged the battery is, what time you have left and how fast it's charging. Until the system has gone through several full charging cycles those numbers will be mostly meaningless. Eventually they'll get better as it adjusts itself each cycle. You can speed up the process by doing full cycles, run it on battery until it shuts down at 5% or so, then charge it fully without it being on, rinse and repeat. After several iterations the numbers will get so they closely match the real world. It will get there eventually with normal use, it's just faster with a few full cycles.

billsey

Yes, we've been fighting with this type of issue now for a long time. Every time I think Google finally has it cleared up a new model comes where it goes back to the same old behavior. It happens on Android devices too.

billsey

It's not really a problem with Acer or with the battery, it's a problem with the way ChromeOS calculates charging and battery life. When your system is new it just uses some defaults to figure out how charged the battery is, what time you have left and how fast it's charging. Until the system has gone through several full charging cycles those numbers will be mostly meaningless. Eventually they'll get better as it adjusts itself each cycle. You can speed up the process by doing full cycles, run it on battery until it shuts down at 5% or so, then charge it fully without it being on, rinse and repeat. After several iterations the numbers will get so they closely match the real world. It will get there eventually with normal use, it's just faster with a few full cycles.

Brian2550

Billsey, thank you kindly for your explanation. You'd think Acer's tech team could communicate this because I've been thinking the battery's bad. I will test it out over the next few weeks. Enjoy your day!

billsey

Yes, we've been fighting with this type of issue now for a long time. Every time I think Google finally has it cleared up a new model comes where it goes back to the same old behavior. It happens on Android devices too.