Acer PH315-51 shutting down when gaming while plugged in- looks thermal but isn't

mahicks2

Hello, all, pleased to see some helpful exchanges here so far. So here's the deal. 

I'm having a challenge with my Helios 300 PH315-51. It unexpectedly shuts down when gaming. At first I thought it was thermal, so I had it professionally cleaned and re-pasted (I know, I know, but I work full time/go to grad school/have a 10-month old) and got a cooling pad. I've also optimized windows and undervolted using Throttlestop, guided by Hotel Hero’s youtube videos. BIOS is updated, and I did a clean install a few months ago. The machine does what appears to be a thermal shutdown at only about 60-75 C, unless it's unplugged. It doesn’t shut down when I’m only using battery, but as soon as it’s plugged in it shuts down within minutes. On xapim’s recommendation I ran hwinfo and found that the battery wear was 14.7%, if that helps. Any ideas?

xapim

mahicks2 so your battery is fine you can try to improve it by recalibrating it properly you could start by checking your ram compartment there should be a power kill switch by the ram thats pressed down when closed back to make sure its properly pressed add some layers of electrical tape to the bit that presses it to make sure its properly pressed while you have the cram on sight try to reseat the sodimm(s) depending if youre on dual channel or not  you could also perform a battery powerdrain followed by a bios setup defaults if the  issue persists after this my last solution would be a stock recovery clean install ALT+F10 on boot and deleting everything make sure to backup whatever u need first as this would format the drive completely to the first day you booted it to completely rule out any software issues good luck

mahicks2

xapim said:

mahicks2 so your battery is fine you can try to improve it by recalibrating it properly you could start by checking your ram compartment there should be a power kill switch by the ram thats pressed down when closed back to make sure its properly pressed add some layers of electrical tape to the bit that presses it to make sure its properly pressed while you have the cram on sight try to reseat the sodimm(s) depending if youre on dual channel or not  you could also perform a battery powerdrain followed by a bios setup defaults if the  issue persists after this my last solution would be a stock recovery clean install ALT+F10 on boot and deleting everything make sure to backup whatever u need first as this would format the drive completely to the first day you booted it to completely rule out any software issues good luck

Hey, I re-seated the RAM sticks, and I checked for the kill switch. There appears to be an opening in the case for one, but I don't see it down on the motherboard, just a blank spot where one should be. I screwed in the screw so far up that it messed with my spacebar- won't do that again. 

mahicks2

mahicks2 so your battery is fine you can try to improve it by recalibrating it properly you could start by checking your ram compartment there should be a power kill switch by the ram thats pressed down when closed back to make sure its properly pressed add some layers of electrical tape to the bit that presses it to make sure its properly pressed while you have the cram on sight try to reseat the sodimm(s) depending if youre on dual channel or not  you could also perform a battery powerdrain followed by a bios setup defaults if the  issue persists after this my last solution would be a stock recovery clean install ALT+F10 on boot and deleting everything make sure to backup whatever u need first as this would format the drive completely to the first day you booted it to completely rule out any software issues good luck

Next I'll try the battery drain BIOS thing. So I'm setting the power settings to hibernate at 5%, then rebooting to BIOS and doing "setup defaults?"

xapim

mahicks2 some newer models dont have it depends on the mobo revision as acer removed it completely should be something like this (see picture below) and the battery power drain you dont set anything juts disconnect from AC press/hold the battery pinhole for 30s+ and leave it to rest off for a couple of hours to completely drain all capacitors then connect to AC again boot into bios and reset to defaults usually it would fix most issues if not the last resort to completely rule out any software issues its to perform a stock recovery clean install as i already mentioned above any remaining issues after this process should be considered hardware fault and on any laptop you should never for any screws further than when they stop you stop dont try to force anything

mahicks2

xapim said:

mahicks2 some newer models dont have it depends on the mobo revision as acer removed it completely should be something like this (see picture below) and the battery power drain you dont set anything juts disconnect from AC press/hold the battery pinhole for 30s+ and leave it to rest off for a couple of hours to completely drain all capacitors then connect to AC again boot into bios and reset to defaults usually it would fix most issues if not the last resort to completely rule out any software issues its to perform a stock recovery clean install as i already mentioned above any remaining issues after this process should be considered hardware fault and on any laptop you should never for any screws further than when they stop you stop dont try to force anything

I completed the battery drain and BIOS reset. It improved my battery wear, but I had the issue again. I re-charged the battery back to 100% and waited a few minutes to let things cool down, then I opened a game and about 3-4 mins in the machine shut down. Last reading on TS was around 55C.

Pulling stuff off onto a mobile HD so I can try the system reset. 

mahicks2

mahicks2 said:

xapim said:

mahicks2 some newer models dont have it depends on the mobo revision as acer removed it completely should be something like this (see picture below) and the battery power drain you dont set anything juts disconnect from AC press/hold the battery pinhole for 30s+ and leave it to rest off for a couple of hours to completely drain all capacitors then connect to AC again boot into bios and reset to defaults usually it would fix most issues if not the last resort to completely rule out any software issues its to perform a stock recovery clean install as i already mentioned above any remaining issues after this process should be considered hardware fault and on any laptop you should never for any screws further than when they stop you stop dont try to force anything

I completed the battery drain and BIOS reset. It improved my battery wear, but I had the issue again. I re-charged the battery back to 100% and waited a few minutes to let things cool down, then I opened a game and about 3-4 mins in the machine shut down. Last reading on TS was around 55C.

Pulling stuff off onto a mobile HD so I can try the system reset. 

Ok, I did the system reset. Formatted back to day one. Here goes nothing. 

Commodore_1995#

Can you check battery wear with hwinfo64? Also, can you verify if the same problem occurs using another power adapter with similar characteristics?

mahicks2

mahicks2 said:

mahicks2 said:

xapim said:

mahicks2 some newer models dont have it depends on the mobo revision as acer removed it completely should be something like this (see picture below) and the battery power drain you dont set anything juts disconnect from AC press/hold the battery pinhole for 30s+ and leave it to rest off for a couple of hours to completely drain all capacitors then connect to AC again boot into bios and reset to defaults usually it would fix most issues if not the last resort to completely rule out any software issues its to perform a stock recovery clean install as i already mentioned above any remaining issues after this process should be considered hardware fault and on any laptop you should never for any screws further than when they stop you stop dont try to force anything

I completed the battery drain and BIOS reset. It improved my battery wear, but I had the issue again. I re-charged the battery back to 100% and waited a few minutes to let things cool down, then I opened a game and about 3-4 mins in the machine shut down. Last reading on TS was around 55C.

Pulling stuff off onto a mobile HD so I can try the system reset. 

Ok, I did the system reset. Formatted back to day one. Here goes nothing. 

Well, the problem has occurred again, after the system reset. Are we thinking it’s hardware now? What sort of repair does it need, you think?

mahicks2

egydiocoelho said:

Can you check battery wear with hwinfo64? Also, can you verify if the same problem occurs using another power adapter with similar characteristics?

Battery wear is at 14.7% according to hwinfo. I haven’t tried it with a different adapter. 

Commodore_1995#

Have you tried to calibrate the battery, as the colleague xapim mentioned earlier?

mahicks2

egydiocoelho said:

Have you tried to calibrate the battery, as the colleague xapim mentioned earlier?

I did, yes.

Commodore_1995#

Can you check battery wear with hwinfo64? Also, do you have how to check for the same problem when using another power adapter?

mahicks2

egydiocoelho said:

Can you check battery wear with hwinfo64? Also, do you have how to check for the same problem when using another power adapter?

Just got new adapter in the mail.

mahicks2

mahicks2 said:

egydiocoelho said:

Can you check battery wear with hwinfo64? Also, do you have how to check for the same problem when using another power adapter?

Just got new adapter in the mail.

xapim said:

mahicks2 some newer models dont have it depends on the mobo revision as acer removed it completely should be something like this (see picture below) and the battery power drain you dont set anything juts disconnect from AC press/hold the battery pinhole for 30s+ and leave it to rest off for a couple of hours to completely drain all capacitors then connect to AC again boot into bios and reset to defaults usually it would fix most issues if not the last resort to completely rule out any software issues its to perform a stock recovery clean install as i already mentioned above any remaining issues after this process should be considered hardware fault and on any laptop you should never for any screws further than when they stop you stop dont try to force anything

Hey all, bad news. I got my new AC adapter in the mail, and the shutdown problem is still happening. 

Any idea what kind of hardware issue would cause this, and what to do about fixing it?

Commodore_1995#

I suggest you check the temperatures: Red-Sand ThrottleStop Undervolt Profiles Pre-Made — Acer Community

mahicks2

egydiocoelho said:

I suggest you check the temperatures: Red-Sand ThrottleStop Undervolt Profiles Pre-Made — Acer Community

I'm afraid it's still happening, even after I did the throttlestop settings from Red-Sand's (hotel hero) video. 

I'm wondering what to tell the repair shop to give them some idea of what to fix, or replace. 

Commodore_1995#

Does the windows event viewer log any specific errors?

mahicks2

egydiocoelho said:

Does the windows event viewer log any specific errors?

Good question. I'm not sure exactly what to look for. 

Commodore_1995#

Are there any errors called kernel power?

mahicks2

egydiocoelho said:

Are there any errors called kernel power?

Yes, there's one. There's also thousands of these:

The NVIDIA Display Container LS service terminated with the following error: A generic command executable returned a result that indicates failure.


 If that helps.