Acer Spin 713 CP713-2W-54PK. Chromebook won't switch on - battery or charge circuit dead?

petertheshark

Acer 713 Chromebook, 14 months old (2 months out of warranty), won't switch on.

Power adapter fine, plugging into either of the two charge ports causes the orange charge light to illuminate, but not charge the battery or switch the Chromebook on.  The only way to power on is to remove the cover, disconnect the battery, connect the charger, re-connect the battery and power it on (I'm fine doing that, I work in IT, but wouldn't recommend others reconnecting batteries with live power).  All other methods of holding the power button, doing a reset key combo, etc. don't work.

The Chrome power charts show the battery isn't charging.  So, for anyone else who's suffered this issue, is it likely to be a dead battery or dead charge circuit?  

Thanks for any tips.

Thread was edited to add model name to the title

billsey

Which model is it? It should be something like CP713-xxx-xxxx and the full model number is likely on the same sticker as the SN and SNID. I can sometimes look up info on the way they're doing the charge circuit, but it tends to be different for different models.

petertheshark

Thanks billsey - It's CP713-2W-54PK.

billsey

OK, the two charge ports have one on the motherboard and the other on a daughter card, so it's unlikely to be a bad connection. They didn't put a battery reset button on it so it's less likely to be corrupt data in the battery itself. That puts us where we started, either the battery itself has failed early or the charge circuit isn't doing it's job. Check the output voltage on the battery if you have the tools. If it's too low charging will be disabled as a safety measure. When the Lithium-ion batteries drop too low they grow metal whiskers internally, and those can penetrate the spaces between cells, causing shorts that create heat. Worst cases in that were the causes of fire and explosion in early designs, years ago. If the battery shows good voltages (nominal is either 11.25V or 11.5V depending on manufacturer) try manually hooking up a power source to see if it will take a charge. If it's able to charge we've got it pinned down to the charging circuit, which means a MB swap. If it's too low or unable to take a charge it's much more likely to be the battery itself.

petertheshark

Thanks again billsey.  Fascinating stuff.  I've never got the hang of multimeters, but have some friends who may be able to test the battery.  It's not swollen that I can see, but seems the most likely cause.  I can't see any obvious motherboard damage, and have given it a good sniff in case of any burning smells.

billsey

Yeah, swelling is a different thing... I'm going to bet the voltage is really low.

petertheshark

Brand new replacement battery arrived today - pop it in, and... it's doing exactly the same (battery has been on charge for over three hours).  It'll only boot up if battery is removed, power plugged in, battery plugged in, power button pressed.  If the power is removed the laptop dies instantly.

billsey

That pretty much gets us down to the charging circuit itself. Did you ever measure the voltages on the old battery?

itsamorey

Hello.
I have the same symptoms as described above.
Have bought a new battery and installed it - same problems.
Wont charge and stuck "Calculating at 74%"

If it is the Charging Circuit, what can be done?

Many thanks.

petertheshark

I ended up removing the battery and just using the Chromebook plugged into the power. Really frustrating being tethered to the wall of course. Once Lenovo release their Duet 3 I'll bin the Acer, and won't be buying their hardware again. When it works it's good, but such a shoddy design and lack of support is unacceptable. 

spin713user

Another user with same problem.
Wont charge and stuck on 'Calculating at 43%'  

713paperweight

One more 713 owner with the same issue here. 

Sodgim

Yes - same issue here as well.  This seems to be a faulty device - the number of folks with this issue is extremely high.

Chromebookman1148

Thank all of you for your contributions. I have a spin 713-2W-5874 with the same issue. Two technical questions, With the multimeter, what contacts are touched to measure the battery's output and secondly what is a  MB Swap & how is it done ?
Has anyone recently had Acer "repair" their Spin 713 and was it successful and cost effective given what we all paid for this laptop.
The Spin 713 responds just as petertheshark references with the disconnect, reconnect with live power. 

billsey

I am assuming you have one of the CP713-2W SKUs rather than the CB713-2W versions. The battery is an 11.4V 4200mAh 48Wh design. The wiring from the battery to the motherboard should have two red wires and two black wires. Those are the power and you should be able to measure the voltage across them. If possible measure both without a load (it should be very close to the 11.4V) and under a load (it will likely be less, but not a lot less).

Chromebookman1148

Multimeter tested & verified with app DevInfo Pro. App confirms 13019mV with battery not charging with Power cable plugged in to both side ports. Tested Acer power cable with USB-C to cell phone. Indicator confirms cable & male USB-C charging. Spin 714 will stay on with referred sequence of: battery disconnect, then power cable insert then battery reconnect. I have not tested how long the Spin 713 will last with repeated shut downs but if attempting to come back the next day it will not come back on. Battery is a replaced OEM. So I guess it's the circuitry ?

billsey

So, the battery reads 11.4V DC on those wires? With the battery disconnected measure the input voltage at the USB-C ports. Are you seeing 20V there or less? With battery connected does the voltage at the USB-C ports change? There are four additional wires on the battery connector... I believe two of those provide the charging current and two are sense wires for the system to measure the battery with. The chip in common with both USB-C ports is a NPCX796FC0BX which takes the power from both USB-C ports and feeds it to a single BQ25710 that is the actual battery charger. So, assuming the issue is somewhere in the charging circuit, it's got to be either the NPCX796FC0BX not feeding the USB-C power input to the BQ25710, or the BQ25710 not forwarding that power to the battery. Since the system seems to run with power connected and the battery removed I believe the NPCX796FC0BX is working and it's either the BQ25710 or the wiring from it to the battery, though the battery connector. From that data sheet we should be able to see where to measure charging voltage getting out of the BQ25710 chip and verify it gets to the battery connector. At that point it needs to be correct for charging, so likely something like 14V, though it could be anything over 11.4V that doesn't go too high...

Justnewlistings

Mine spin 713 also quit charging. I paid a lot of money for a top chromebook for work so I'm [Content removed]. What's Acer going to do about this?

[Edited the contnet to hide sensitive information]

thexunw

Hi, I have the exact same problem CP713-2W-5874 here.

Initially the OEM battery stopped charging, so i thought it was the battery. Ordered an OEM battery, and replaced it. Initially it seemed to work, fine battery charged to full.

But a couple of days later, the device failed to boot when pressing the power button. After finding this post, I tried disconnecting the battery, with power plugged in, it was able to boot. Then reconnecting the battery, seemed to work.

After this, it would be fine running while on battery or connected to charger. It seems like the battery can charge in this state while connected to the charger.

But after some time it gets back into this state where it won't boot. I'm not sure what causes it to get back into this state, it's not obvious, or it's inconsistent.

@billsey @petertheshark

Does anyone know if there is any kind BIOS setting that controls any of this behavior?

billsey

There is no real BIOS settings available on Chromebooks... :(

harrythecat

Hi all,

I've been reading the thread with interest. I had the same problem as most people here, in that one evening I plugged in my cp713 2w to charge and the next morning it was completely dead, no charging lights and not turning on.

I looked around for idea's here and on the web without any luck. I decided that I would completely strip and rebuild the cp713 but again with no luck.

I decided that I would not buy another acer and tried a lenovo which is very good, but I couldn't bear the thought of binning the cp713 because of the quality of the screen.

I decided to look again at the cp713 and tried different chargers and key combinations until I had some success, I want to just add that I have read lots of comments about li ion batteries dropping below a certain voltage and being unrecoverable, my battery was reading 1.4 volts.

I have now got my cp713 working better than new but I can't be sure this was just a fluke or whether I have come across the answer for many on this forum.

I am looking for someone to provide me with a cp713 2w donor machine for me to test the theory. The donor machine should be one that has no charging light when plugged in, not dropped or seriously damaged.

I am happy to pay a small sum for the machine plus postage and should I get the machine going you are welcome to repay the original amount I paid you plus a small repair fee and postage.