Aspire 5 Slim [A515-54] Gets considerably slower while charging

Kiaan

Hi all, first post. Tried to get in touch with Acer support several times but either i'm on hold for 60+ mins or i get disconnected from their chat service. So i'm hoping someone here can help me. Just bought this laptop a few days ago and everything's great except for one thing. When the battery gets low and I plug in the charger, my cpu ghz drops to .04-.05 range. At this point its seriously unusable. I can't open anything, even file explorer. As soon as I unplug the charger though, boom! Everything loads up instantly regardless of battery %, even from when I tried to open them with the charger still plugged in. This basically makes the laptop unusable when the battery is low and needs to be charged. I tried making my own power setting in the window settings and set everything to maximum performance but it makes no difference. However recently I've realized that when charging my cpu ghz will actually jump back to 4.0 the normal range ONLY when it's charging ABOVE 40%. This is so bizarre and I cant find any fixes. Thank you for any help!

JackE

Open DeviceManager. Click 'battery' folder. Uninstall all the device drivers you find in that folder. Exit DeviceManager without reinstalling anything. Shutdown Windows. Turn the machine back on. Jack E/NJ

Kiaan

JackE said:

Open DeviceManager. Click 'battery' folder. Uninstall all the device drivers you find in that folder. Exit DeviceManager without reinstalling anything. Shutdown Windows. Turn the machine back on. Jack E/NJ

Thank you! I'll try this as soon as my battery gets low again and let you know how it went!

Kiaan

JackE said:

Open DeviceManager. Click 'battery' folder. Uninstall all the device drivers you find in that folder. Exit DeviceManager without reinstalling anything. Shutdown Windows. Turn the machine back on. Jack E/NJ

I tried this to no avail, it still is locked at 0.40ghz with the battery drives reinstalled on the next windows launch, any other ideas?

JackE

>>>my cpu ghz drops to .04-.05 range.>>>

>>>t still is locked at 0.40ghz>>>

There's a 'factor of ten' difference here now? Is this a mistake or an actual result of uninstalling all the battery drivers? Jack E/NJ

Ruben_filipe07

I have the same problem on my Aspire 5 a515-54 with i5 10210U. I realized that when I connect the charger and the battery is less than 40% charged, the processor hangs at 0.40 Ghz. When I disconnect the charger or exceed 40% of the battery, the processor returns to normal.

You can see the difference in these photos:

https://imgur.com/5YMhlcO (39% battery and is connected to the charger. Processor blocked at 0.40 Ghz)

https://imgur.com/a/3f6mwA5 (40% battery and is connected to the charger. The processor returns to normal)

I'm sorry for the bad English, I'm Brazilian and I'm using the Google translator.

JackE

Battery must be near 100% charged, charger plugged in, and power plan set to performance mode for maximum CPU performance time. If battery drops below about 50% charge, battery charging takes precedence over CPU speed to limit battery depletion. Jack E/NJ

Gabriel3108

I have almost same problem, I have an Acer A515 with a Ryzen 4700U, if I'm using it unplugged it works fine, but when I plug it in, if the battery is under 40%, the laptop starts lagging like if it had a 10 years old Celeron processor, literary it flickers to scroll in a browser, in a non demanding game that normally runs 60FPS without drops with VSync, it goes under 5FPS, is literally unusable until the battery reaches 40% of charge. I saw in Aida 64 that the battery charge at 30W until it's at 40%, then it drops to 25W, and at 60% it drops to 20W. I also notice that when playing more demanding games that uses CPU and GPU at 100% with the laptop plugged in, the battery looses capacity, between 6-8% per hour, I never played enough time from once to get it under 50% from the 80% that I have set it Care Center to extend battery lifespam. Maybe we have a bad charging brick, or a not powerful enough one that can't keep up with the power that the laptop needs to run.

JackE

A 65watt charger is also available for this model. Jack E/NJ

JoelcioVJr

I also have the same problems.

It makes a lot of sense what Gabriel3108 says. Could a powerful charger fix the problem?

JackE

Yes it would help Jack E/NJ

Ruben_filipe07

My version came with a 45 W charger, so this problem is due to low power? It makes sense, since to a certain extent it charges very fast, as Gabriel3108 said, "battery charge at 30W until it's at 40%, then it drops to 25W, and at 60%" and the lack of power would cause the bottleneck ... but it is a major engineering problem for acer if this really is it, she is responsible for the notebook working well during the warranty period, without having to buy an additional product for it to work like this.

Sorry for the bad english, i'm using google translator

Thomasluigi07

I've got a 65W charger and this still happens. This is a huge pain for me, as I use programs that require the CPU and the GPU to be at their best.

JackE

Thomasluigi07

It might help to extend high load use times by starting out with a 100% charged battery & plugged in before opening the high load apps. Because once the battery drops below about the 50% charge level while plugged in, charging the battery takes precedent over supplying CPU/GPU power demands and their performance drops off.

AtomicHobo

Was there a fix for this? I am experiencing the same issue with A515-44. 

JackE

Yes. As mentioned earlier you can try to extend high load use times by starting out with a 100% charged battery & plugged in BEFORE opening the high load apps. Because once the battery drops below about the 50% charge level while plugged in, charging the battery takes precedent over supplying CPU/GPU power demands and their performance drops off.

deV14nt

If you use ThrottleStop utility, you can see that the PROCHOT signal is triggered when charging, though it shouldn't be. You can disable BD PROCHOT. As you can see in the utility, the processor is not high temp when it is throttling. When I bought this laptop for my mom, I thought it was that recertified Acer sent me a bad power adapter. But if you google "lag charging acer aspire 5" you can see this is a common problem with A515-54g in several results on the first page (without even searching specifically for this model). Anyway, that utility is a band aid for the problem and needs to be set to start up with your computer to reapply it on boot. It also isn't a service so it has to run on only 1 user account in the tray.

JackE

Thanks for tip.