Acer Predator G9-792 - battery not charging while gaming, laptop will shut down

Hello,

My Predator is 4 years old and only started having this issue recently, last year or so.

This only happens when playing graphic intensive games (Witcher 3, The Division 2, etc). I keep it plugged in most of the time and when I start playing the battery is 100%.

In an hour or so of gaming it goes down to 5%, and sometimes the laptop will shutdown if I miss the low battery notification.

The battery status is just "Plugged in" but it is not charging. It will only start to charge when I quit the game, or alt+tab to desktop.

Maybe someone here can help me with this, I have checked numerous forums but couldn't find a solution.

And whatever anyone is saying, this is not normal behavior - it is normal for the battery to drain faster when playing games, but it is not normal for the laptop to shutdown.

Accepted answers

andylb

Simple answer. 4 year old battery, it’s done, get a new one, surprised it lasted that long

xapim

andylb exactly what i said above lol 4 year old its a miracle a lithium-ion battery lasted so long they usually go for 2/3 if well (maintained) taken care of and resuming the laptop will not work properly if the battery its faulty/damaged neither without it

All comments

Balatekie

Hi!

@Hexenwahn

Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery driver is a critical driver software to communicate your laptop battery with Windows system. Under two circumstances you should update your Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery driver:

Your battery is not working properly, and you’re having problems with your laptop battery such as “plugged in not charging“.
Keeping your battery driver up to date can bring you the best possible experiences when charging with your laptop battery.

Follow the below steps:
On your computer keyboard, press the Windows logo key and R at the same time to invoke the Run box.

Type devmgmt.msc and click OK to open Device Manager.
Double click Battery to expand the category, and right click your Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery driver, then click Uninstall device.
Confirm your choice if you see a popup notification.
Restart your laptop and Windows will reinstall the driver for you.

xapim

Hexenwahn thats correct and completely normal the battery will not charge while on AC gaming **** will only start to charge when it gets under 40% the battery main purpose its to help the adapter to provide enough power to the cpu/gpu when this one cant provide enough for the best performance my advice is always make sure the battery its 100% charged before you start playing any game and always on AC also if you have many usb devices attached they would be draining power form the battery as the adapter its trying to make sure all power goes to the cpu/gpu

<< I keep it plugged in most of the time>>
U should never play on battery at all as i already mentioned above by doing this youre deteriorating your battery to a point when this one becomes faulty and will not recharge anymore as the cells are dead check your battery wear either via battery report/hwinfo/battery bar pro if you have more than 10/15% wear you need to replace your battery because it will not work properly neither with a faulty battery or no battery at all as i said above the adapter needs the battery to be completely healthy to make use of it when needed

<<And whatever anyone is saying, this is not normal behavior >>
Of course it is if you knew exactly how gaming laptops work with the internal batteries and use them along with it to provide extra power for the more demanding tasks you would know that its completely normal behavior also 4 years im pretty sure youre battery should be faulty by now internal batteries wont last long especially when not proper care is taken ( like gaming on battery) to make sure they dont get faulty and they should be re-calibrated every 3 months or so to make sure the cells stay healthy and they dont loose any significant charging power

Hexenwahn

@Balatekie
I have already reinstalled the Microsoft ACPI, no improvement.

@xapim
Thank you for the insight, but I have already read the article you're quoting - it doesn't cover my issue (https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/570278/faq-common-questions/p1).
I said it is not normal behavior for the laptop to shutdown. The laptop doesn't charge AT ALL while gaming, not at 40%, not at 20%, the battery just goes empty and the laptop shuts down. As soon as I ALT+TAB to desktop or I quit the game, the battery starts charging. And I always start playing when the battery is fully charged.

Has anyone else encountered this behavior?

xapim

Check your battery for wear if the battery is fine get your adapter checked to see if its outputting the correct voltage and lastly if nothing works get it checked at a repair centre

andylb

Simple answer. 4 year old battery, it’s done, get a new one, surprised it lasted that long

xapim

andylb exactly what i said above lol 4 year old its a miracle a lithium-ion battery lasted so long they usually go for 2/3 if well (maintained) taken care of and resuming the laptop will not work properly if the battery its faulty/damaged neither without it

andylb

Hexenwahn said:

@Balatekie
I have already reinstalled the Microsoft ACPI, no improvement.

@xapim
Thank you for the insight, but I have already read the article you're quoting - it doesn't cover my issue (https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/570278/faq-common-questions/p1).
I said it is not normal behavior for the laptop to shutdown. The laptop doesn't charge AT ALL while gaming, not at 40%, not at 20%, the battery just goes empty and the laptop shuts down. As soon as I ALT+TAB to desktop or I quit the game, the battery starts charging. And I always start playing when the battery is fully charged.

Has anyone else encountered this behavior?

Yes I have encountered it, when the battery is old and shot to pieces, as my colleague @xapim said, it’s a miracle it’s lasted this long. Get a new one and all will be good

Hexenwahn

Thanks for the feedback.

I checked the battery, its health was indeed ~50%. But even with a faulty battery, why would the laptop shut down while plugged in?

Isn't it supposed to work even without the battery, if it is plugged in? I've seen and had laptops with faulty battery or with no battery at all, that kept going while plugged in.

Anyway, I just replaced it with a new, original, Acer AS15B3N battery, and the battery now takes longer to deplete while gaming, but it still goes empty and the laptop still shuts down. It will only charge when not gaming. At this point I can only assume the charger is also faulty, so I'll need to find a multimeter to check its output.

andylb

Sounds like you have the nightmare combination of bad battery and charger. No your laptop uses a combination of battery and charger, this is why the battery must always be at 100% BEFORE gaming and KEPT plugged in while gaming. NEVER let your battery discharge completely as you have described, you will drastically reduce its life. I hope that you conditioned the new battery as described in your user manual. Charge it to 100% then use it on battery alone until it has discharged to just below 10%, recharge fully then repeat for a total of 3 times. To keep your battery healthy do this every couple of months.

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