Brand new Acer Swift SF314-511 Battery problems

Matmot

Hi,
I just bought 2 days ago a new Acer Swift SF314-511 With Windows 11. The battery is supposed to last for 10 hrs.
I would understand if it lasted only 6/7hrs with normal usage but it only last 2/3hrs at last.
Nothing is plugged, nothing is draining the battery just normal usage surfing the internet. 
Attached are the screenshot of the battery report, not sure if they look alright.
looks like there are sudden drops of the battery.

If anyone can help me with this issue, would be great 

Thanks

Athwart

Well the good news is that the battery capacity if fine. The "battery capacity history" reports that the full charge capacity is 54,370 mWh - the same as the design capacity so the battery is OK.

It does however look like the drawdown is overly high. You can use Task Manager to get an overview of which programs/apps are consuming the most power. Click on the Power Usage column to see the main power consumers. The most common culprit is anti-virus software. If you have Norton's running, it is a notorious power hog that you can do without. Uninstall it and use Windows in-built anti-virus or install an alternative if you prefer. If there are other programs using high power, consider whether they are needed and disable or uninstall any that you can do without.

You can get a highly detailed analysis of power usage by opening an admin Cmd prompt window and running:
powercfg /srumutil
Open the resulting CSV file and sort the data on Timestamp+TotalEnergyConsumption. It's a bit difficult to analyse but does point to any high power users. The only limitation is that a lot of system resources are lumped together as "unknown" so it doesn't help pinpoint specific culprits.

Some general tips:
- lower screen brightness
- turn off Bluetooth if you aren't using it
- disconnect devices from the USB ports that might be drawing power
- turn off, disable or uninstall any apps or services that you don't need
- increase your low battery level to 30%. It looks like you have it at the default 15% which I think is too low and leads to faster battery degradation. Right click on the battery icon on the task bar, select Power Options, select Change Plan Settings then Change advanced power settings. Select Battery then Low Battery Level to change when a low level alarm is activated.
- use the laptop on power as much as you can. The repeated battery discharge/recharge cycles is what causes battery degradation over time.

Athwart

Well the good news is that the battery capacity if fine. The "battery capacity history" reports that the full charge capacity is 54,370 mWh - the same as the design capacity so the battery is OK.

It does however look like the drawdown is overly high. You can use Task Manager to get an overview of which programs/apps are consuming the most power. Click on the Power Usage column to see the main power consumers. The most common culprit is anti-virus software. If you have Norton's running, it is a notorious power hog that you can do without. Uninstall it and use Windows in-built anti-virus or install an alternative if you prefer. If there are other programs using high power, consider whether they are needed and disable or uninstall any that you can do without.

You can get a highly detailed analysis of power usage by opening an admin Cmd prompt window and running:
powercfg /srumutil
Open the resulting CSV file and sort the data on Timestamp+TotalEnergyConsumption. It's a bit difficult to analyse but does point to any high power users. The only limitation is that a lot of system resources are lumped together as "unknown" so it doesn't help pinpoint specific culprits.

Some general tips:
- lower screen brightness
- turn off Bluetooth if you aren't using it
- disconnect devices from the USB ports that might be drawing power
- turn off, disable or uninstall any apps or services that you don't need
- increase your low battery level to 30%. It looks like you have it at the default 15% which I think is too low and leads to faster battery degradation. Right click on the battery icon on the task bar, select Power Options, select Change Plan Settings then Change advanced power settings. Select Battery then Low Battery Level to change when a low level alarm is activated.
- use the laptop on power as much as you can. The repeated battery discharge/recharge cycles is what causes battery degradation over time.

Matmot

Hi,

Thank you very much for your help and quick answer.
I already checked which programs are draining the battery, I was online so I understand that Chrome drained the most of it but the system? It wasn't even open...
And the background of chrome taking 53% of it, I know you don't work for Google but what is it? And how do you think I can lower that?

Thanks for any help

billsey

Typically a browser like Chrome uses the most power when it is updating pages, so if you have tabs open to sites with active content they will try to update regularly and that uses the network, which uses power. Take tabs that you tend to leave open and place them in favorites instead of leaving them open at all times, so you are only using the network for new pages as you browse.

Athwart

Matmot said:

Hi,

Thank you very much for your help and quick answer.
I already checked which programs are draining the battery, I was online so I understand that Chrome drained the most of it but the system? It wasn't even open...
And the background of chrome taking 53% of it, I know you don't work for Google but what is it? And how do you think I can lower that?

Thanks for any help

"System" is a catch all for things like system software & processes, interrupts, drivers, etc. so doesn't really tell you anything meaningful. Even having Chrome usage at 53% is only meaningful if the mWa drawn is also high but it does look like it may be the culprit.

I guess you could try using a different browser to see if that makes any substantial difference. As I understand it, MS Edge is now an integrated part of the OS so is running (at least in part) in the background in any case. Maybe try using MS Edge for a while instead of Chrome. If your battery life jumps from 2hrs to 6hrs, maybe you can learn to love it.

The other thing you could try is running in safe mode with internet for a few hours to see what effect that has. If your battery life is substantially better, you know that the drain is due to some piece of software rather than hardware. Trying to find the culprit may be a bit tedious & hit and miss however.