Acer Aspire V17 VN7-793G battery not charging (XX%, Plugged in)

Driveby

I have an Acer Aspire V17 VN7-793G. The last few days it was slow and seamed to constantly be in some low performance more. I thought it was due to overheating. I opened it up to clean and thermal repaste. I have done this some times before. 
When I put everythig back together, the laptops starts more or less normally. The red line charging light is not on. 
The laptop runs on AC and when I unplug it does not crash (it did a few hours ago). When I unplug the laptop continues to drain battery. 

I tried
- reopening and checking all connections
- reinstalling drivers for the battery (Microsoft AC Adapter, Microsoft ACPI-compliant Control Method Battery) and restarting. 
- Looking for a BIOS update. 
- boot in default F2/F9 /F10
- using battery reset botton on the back for 5 seconds and waiting 5 minutes (on the back of laptop)
- make sure all the (security) screws are properly tightened.
- cleaning the charger plug and connections.

When I reinstall drivers and start up, the battery icon shows that it is charging for like 10 seconds. (but then goes back into xx%, plugged in)
I have tried to read all the threads

The battery was already replaced once by the exact same original battery more than a year ago. 
Worth mentioning, the laptop is typically on heavy load and High Power usage due to gaming. 
The only thing that is not working is the charging itself. 

AC Plugged


AC Unplugged


I'm pretty much out of ideas here. Any help is welcome. 

JackE

>>>So what now?>>>

Not much you can do except continue using the disabled laptop the way it is. A coil failure like this is usually the tip of the iceberg as far as other mainboard damage is concerned. There are dozens of these small coils and other circuits dependent on them, all soldered to the mainboard that could've also been damaged or contributed to this coil failure. Thus replacing it, if you can locate where it blew off, is unlikely to resolve all the issues. 

While new mainboards are available, they might not be practical for this 5+ year old laptop design. So I suggest that you first take it and the coil remnants to a local laptop repair shop for an evaluation and repair estimate. While unlikely, it's remotely possible that replacing this part might resolve the issues. If not, then you can decide on whether or not you want to replace the mainboard. Sorry I can't me more optimistic.

JackE

Shut laptop off with charger plugged in. Wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. This may take several hours. Then try to turn the laptop on again to see if charging is back to normal.

Driveby

JackE said:

Shut laptop off with charger plugged in. Wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. This may take several hours. Then try to turn the laptop on again to see if charging is back to normal.

So I turned the laptop off an left it plugged in. The orange battery LeD was steady on. I waited for 14 hours and now the battery LED is gone. (Just went out). It did not turn steady blue, unfortunately. The battery did not charge 16% available (plugged in).

Driveby

Driveby said:

JackE said:

Shut laptop off with charger plugged in. Wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. This may take several hours. Then try to turn the laptop on again to see if charging is back to normal.

So I turned the laptop off an left it plugged in. The orange battery LeD was steady on. I waited for 14 hours and now the battery LED is gone. (Just went out). It did not turn steady blue, unfortunately. The battery did not charge 16% available (plugged in).

Worth mentioning. I started up Rust, heavy duty game and for some reason my CPU is running only at +-22%. The GPU is running 98% and temperaure seems to sit around 56°C, which is really a surprise because this used to be 100°C before thermal paste. Maybe this is becaus ethe CPU is running so low. 

JackE

>>>So I turned the laptop off an left it plugged in. The orange battery LeD was steady on. I waited for 14 hours and now the battery LED is gone. (Just went out). It did not turn steady blue, unfortunately. The battery did not charge 16% available (plugged in). >>>

Not normal. Search 'cmd' in Windows start menu. Right click command prompt. Click run as administrator. Enter 'powercfg /batteryreport'. Then return to the desktop. Open file explorer. Then search for' battery-report.html' in the c:\windows\system32\ sub-folder. Double-click to open it in the browser. Post screenshot of the first part of the report if possible that compares design full charge capacity with its remaining full charge capacity.

Driveby

Driveby said:

Driveby said:

JackE said:

Shut laptop off with charger plugged in. Wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. This may take several hours. Then try to turn the laptop on again to see if charging is back to normal.

So I turned the laptop off an left it plugged in. The orange battery LeD was steady on. I waited for 14 hours and now the battery LED is gone. (Just went out). It did not turn steady blue, unfortunately. The battery did not charge 16% available (plugged in).

Worth mentioning. I started up Rust, heavy duty game and for some reason my CPU is running only at +-22%. The GPU is running 98% and temperaure seems to sit around 56°C, which is really a surprise because this used to be 100°C before thermal paste. Maybe this is becaus ethe CPU is running so low. 

I applied Throttlestop 9.4 https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop/ to try and solve the CPU 0.79Ghz issue, unselected BD PROCHOT and saved. The CPU kicked back in. 





The battery is still not charging. 

Driveby

Driveby said:

Driveby said:

Driveby said:

JackE said:

Shut laptop off with charger plugged in. Wait for the battery charge LED to turn from steady orange to steady blue. This may take several hours. Then try to turn the laptop on again to see if charging is back to normal.

So I turned the laptop off an left it plugged in. The orange battery LeD was steady on. I waited for 14 hours and now the battery LED is gone. (Just went out). It did not turn steady blue, unfortunately. The battery did not charge 16% available (plugged in).

Worth mentioning. I started up Rust, heavy duty game and for some reason my CPU is running only at +-22%. The GPU is running 98% and temperaure seems to sit around 56°C, which is really a surprise because this used to be 100°C before thermal paste. Maybe this is becaus ethe CPU is running so low. 

I applied Throttlestop 9.4 https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-throttlestop/ to try and solve the CPU 0.79Ghz issue, unselected BD PROCHOT and saved. The CPU kicked back in. 





The battery is still not charging. 

JackE said:

>>>So I turned the laptop off an left it plugged in. The orange battery LeD was steady on. I waited for 14 hours and now the battery LED is gone. (Just went out). It did not turn steady blue, unfortunately. The battery did not charge 16% available (plugged in). >>>

Not normal. Search 'cmd' in Windows start menu. Right click command prompt. Click run as administrator. Enter 'powercfg /batteryreport'. Then return to the desktop. Open file explorer. Then search for' battery-report.html' in the c:\windows\system32\ sub-folder. Double-click to open it in the browser. Post screenshot of the first part of the report if possible that compares design full charge capacity with its remaining full charge capacity.

JackE

With laptop turned off and plugged in, is battery charge LED unlit? Lit orange or blue? Blinking or steady?

Driveby

JackE said:

With laptop turned off and plugged in, is battery charge LED unlit? Lit orange or blue? Blinking or steady?

When I closed yesterday afternoon it was steasy Orange. It stayed like that for at least 6 hours. Than I went to sleep for 7 hours and this morning it was out. No battery Led at all. No color anymore. 

JackE

Does it come back on immediately after re-seating the charger plug?

Driveby

JackE said:

Does it come back on immediately after re-seating the charger plug?

My Computer is on now since this morning. The charger is plugged. There is no charger led on. 

JackE

>>>I went to sleep for 7 hours and this morning it was out. No battery Led at all. No color anymore. >>>

Try it again after the laptop's been off and before you turn it on again. There are circuit breakers on the mainboard, inside the battery pack & inside the charger to prevent overheating and possible fire hazards if something goes wrong with any of the circuits. Before you to it apart to re-paste, did you disconnect the battery from the mainboard?

Driveby

JackE said:

>>>I went to sleep for 7 hours and this morning it was out. No battery Led at all. No color anymore. >>>

Try it again after the laptop's been off and before you turn it on again. There are circuit breakers on the mainboard, inside the battery pack & inside the charger to prevent overheating and possible fire hazards if something goes wrong with any of the circuits. Before you to it apart to re-paste, did you disconnect the battery from the mainboard?

Try what exactly? Leave it shut down and plugged in for several hours? Do I need to perform a battery reset again after shutdown? Plugger or unplugged?

Yes, when I take it apart, the first thing I do is disconnect the battery from the Motherboard. When I repasted, I had disconnected everything. Wireless chip, speakers, SDD, Fans, Tobie Eye Tracker, etc. 

Driveby

Driveby said:

JackE said:

>>>I went to sleep for 7 hours and this morning it was out. No battery Led at all. No color anymore. >>>

Try it again after the laptop's been off and before you turn it on again. There are circuit breakers on the mainboard, inside the battery pack & inside the charger to prevent overheating and possible fire hazards if something goes wrong with any of the circuits. Before you to it apart to re-paste, did you disconnect the battery from the mainboard?

Try what exactly? Leave it shut down and plugged in for several hours? Do I need to perform a battery reset again after shutdown? Plugger or unplugged?

Yes, when I take it apart, the first thing I do is disconnect the battery from the Motherboard. When I repasted, I had disconnected everything. Wireless chip, speakers, SDD, Fans, Tobie Eye Tracker, etc. 

This is what I get now with Game running. 
The Clock says 3,45 Ghz, but the CPU does not go above 35% anyway.
GPU Temp sits around 60°C, Fans are definitely rotating. 
My Wifi is Ping 14ms and 200 MBps on laptop speedtest
My Game FPS does not go above 20 FPS. 
Battery still 17% available (Plugged in)

JackE

Just leave it shut down for several hours with the battery charge LED lit steady orange. See if it goes out again or turns steady blue. If it goes out again, keep laptop off then pull the plug. Then after a minute or two, insert the plug again to see if the LED comes back on.

FYI. When the battery is below about the 50% charge level plugged in, charging it automatically takes precedent over any other high power demands by other devices in the laptop. Accordingly, you practically can't run high power apps & games at 17% charge level plugged in because there's not enough power available from the charger to both charge the battery and run  the games at the same time.

Driveby

Ok. I just did that. Shut down and waitee but Led was still out. I unplugged and plugged again and the Orange Led is now back. I'll just keep it turned off now until tomorrow and monitor the Led.

Thanks already for your help so far. 

JackE

>>>I unplugged and plugged again and the Orange Led is now back.>>>

OK. Good. It's acting like a circuit breaker. If the orange light goes out again turned off, see what happens when you re-seat the plug still turned off.

Driveby

JackE said:

>>>I unplugged and plugged again and the Orange Led is now back.>>>

OK. Good. It's acting like a circuit breaker. If the orange light goes out again turned off, see what happens when you re-seat the plug still turned off.

So I shut down and closed the laptop about 12 hours and left it plugged. Orange Led on. Stayed on for at least 6-7 hours. 3 hours ago I noticed the LED had gone out. I unplugged and plugged again and the Orange LED came back on.  

I restarted the laptop to see If anything had changed. The only thing I see is different is that the Orange LED stays on while laptop is on. Yesterday it was out when I restarted and stayed out during the day. Now still 16%available ( plugged in)

JackE

If it wasn't for the fact that this charge-circuit breaking seemed to happen right after re-pasting, my best guess would be the built-in breaker in the battery pack. However, the mainboard charging circuit also has a breaker as well as the charger itself as additional protection due to the high risk of overheating and fire hazard associated with Li-ion battery chemistry. So I can't tell you which breaker is being tripped with any kind of confidence.  If it was mine, I'd probably trust that the machine was properly re-assembled after re-pasting and first try a new charger since it's the cheapest component of the charging system. If still no joy, then perhaps another replacement battery.

Driveby

JackE said:

If it wasn't for the fact that this charge-circuit breaking seemed to happen right after re-pasting, my best guess would be the built-in breaker in the battery pack. However, the mainboard charging circuit also has a breaker as well as the charger itself as additional protection due to the high risk of overheating and fire hazard associated with Li-ion battery chemistry. So I can't tell you which breaker is being tripped with any kind of confidence.  If it was mine, I'd probably trust that the machine was properly re-assembled after re-pasting and first try a new charger since it's the cheapest component of the charging system. If still no joy, then perhaps another replacement battery.

I found these 3 pieces on my table after opening the last time. I also tripped over the charger on the day I opened. 

JackE

Are these fine copper wires? If yes, this is a choke coil likely overheated & popped off the mainboard. The picture on the right is what they're supposed to look like