Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45 : Laptop restarting while playing games with charging

Jr_Stark

Hello!

This might seem a usual (or not) problem but I have been facing this for months. So when I play games with Graphics Card enabled and charging, the laptop immediately restarts. This happens even when connecting the charger during the middle of the game. I faced this issue stage by stage if I can explain,

1. When I got the Laptop first 10 months ago, I installed Valorant and the laptop would shut down sometimes generally just while launching the game, sometimes while playing. I uninstalled it.
2. Then I installed eFootball 22 which faced the same issue so I uninstalled that too and stopped playing games for a few months.

I reinstalled eFootball 22 three months ago and now the game works fine but whenever I start charging the laptop while playing, it immediately restarts. At the same time, if I DISABLE the Graphics card and play the game (very slow & laggy) the laptop works just fine and I can continue playing even while charging. 

SO, I feel as if it's a problem with my graphics card but not sure what exactly. Would really like some insights and help. Posting my laptop configurations below,

Model: Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45
OS: Windows 10 (21H1)
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600H
Memory: 8GB 
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (4GB)
Storage: 1TB HDD + 256GB SSD 

If need more details, I can share them. 

JackE

Open Control Panel. Search 'power plan'. Click 'edit power plan' in left pane. Click advanced power plan settings. Expand 'process power management' folder. Try reducing maximum processor state in 10% decrements until problem goes away.

Jr_Stark

@JackE Tried up until 5%,(both plugged in/on battery). Didn't solve the problem.

JackE

OK. Put states back to where they were. Then post a battery report as follows

(1) Search 'cmd' in Windows start menu.
(2) Right click command prompt near top of menu.
(3) Click run as administrator.
(4) Enter 'powercfg /batteryreport' at command prompt.
(5) Then return to the desktop. Open file explorer.
(6) Then search for' battery-report.html' in the c:\windows\system32\ sub-folder. Double-click to open it in the browser.
(7) Post screenshot of the first part of the report if possible that compares design full charge capacity with its remaining full charge capacity.

Jr_Stark

@JackE PFA screenshots

JackE

>>>now the game works fine but whenever I start charging the laptop while playing, it immediately restarts. >>>

Do you recall if the battery was at or below the 50% charge level when you plugged the charger back in?

Jr_Stark

I mostly charge only when it gets below 30% but I can confirm this problem occurs even when I plug in the charger at 80%.

JackE

>>>I can confirm this problem occurs even when I plug in the charger at 80%. >>>

Charger may not bet properly grounded or isolated from the AC mains. Can you try 80% again? Does it do the same thing at 90% charge?

Jr_Stark

Tried again at 95% and the same issue repeats. If I may add a few more details,

1. I got a Stop Code error while trying to open the game at 95% and charging, "DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION".
    Now I have had this error pop up before (when I had issues initially with games a few months ago) and contacted the Microsoft support team. Their assistance helped to an extent to be able to play the game (which was previously not even opening) by running scans in CMD and resolving a few issues. 

2. I have once reset my Laptop (3 months ago) as they (the MS Support team) suggested it should solve all problems if any.

3. Now today, after the restart a process was running called "COM Surrogate". Not sure exactly what it is but it might help you to know.

JackE

Press WIN+R. Enter 'mrt'. Follow directions to do a full malware scan. May take several hours. Report back on results.

Jr_Stark

After the full scan (3 hours), the result is "No malicious software was detected".

JackE

Does the charger's AC plug have a separate 3rd grounding spade or is it a polarized 2-spade plug, meaning with one spade is wider than the other? 

Jr_Stark

If you mean the plug I connect to the socket, it is a 3 - Pin (round cylindrical) plug, with 1 terminal (top) bigger than the other two. 

JackE

>>>>the laptop immediately restarts>>>This happens even when connecting the charger during the middle of the game.>>>

Do you have a wall AC mains receptacle in another room, preferably on another AC breaker or fuse circuit? Test if the same  thing happens whenever you plug in the charger in the middle of the game?

Just for your information, you should NOT be trying to play power demanding games on battery alone because it is NOT GOOD for the battery or for the charger when you plug it back in on low battery. The battery should be 100% charged and charger also plugged in BEFORE starting heavy gaming load for the health of the battery and the charger. 

bitsandbobs

Hi did you manage to find a fix for this? I'm having the same issue the laptop has hardly been used.