SF314-53G-89D1 battery depletes completely when I turn it on

I have a wierd issue with my acer swift 3. My laptop battery will completely deplete itself the moment I turn it on (from close to 0% where the notification says "your PC battery is low", to instant shutdown) . I will then have to charge it up again back to 100%. Now, this only happens in a specific instance (but it's somewhat common). I would have to be using my laptop without it being plugged in for about 10-20 mins before I shut it down (at that point my laptop goes from 100% charge to 90-80% when I turn it off). The moment I turn on my PC 1-2 hours later, the battery would be completely depleted. On the other hand, if I just use the laptop normally without it being plugged in, it can last for 3-4 hours no issues before I need to charge it. This doesn't happen if I charged the laptop to full power beforehand (96-100%) and I turn it off. It only occurs when I use the laptop when I am not plugged into AC.

I searched all over but can't find an answer why. If it helps, my battery capacity is currently 37,405 mWh of it's original 50,730 mWh design capacity. I also have a habit of not using my laptop battery when I can, but having my laptop plugged into AC at 100%. I don't think it would spoil the battery as the laptop should have an automatic cut-off function to prevent overchanging and spoiling the battery? My laptop battery can easily last 3-4 hours on full charge, but when shutdown and turning it back on again even with a gap of 1 hour doing absolutely nothing, it would completely deplete...

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title and issue detail]

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William_mk2

@CsduSwift

I am really sorry for the inconvenience.. Let us do the basic steps first..

Doing the power drain and bios defaults will really help. Kindly follow the steps given below:

Turn off the laptop. Disconnect or unplug the charger cable, devices or any other cables connected to your laptop. Close your laptop. Turn it upside down. On the bottom of the laptop, you can find a pin hole. It is a tiny hole. You can a find a battery symbol indicator next to the hole. It is like a + and – sign symbol as though somebody is trying to shift the battery out. Insert the pin on to the hole for 30 seconds. Remove the pin. Flip the laptop. Connect the charger cable, turn on the computer. Only on laptops where the battery is inbuilt you can find the battery reset hole on the back of laptop.

If you don’t find a pin hole on the back of laptop then you might be using removable battery. There is no need to unscrew anything to remove the battery. Turn off the laptop. Disconnect or unplug the charger cable, devices and any other cables connected to your laptop. Close your laptop. Turn it upside down. On the bottom of the laptop, please look at the top or bottom depending on the way you look at it. You can find a long door. It is a battery removable door. Just below that you can find a latch. If you move the latch you can remove the battery door. Once the battery is removed, flip the laptop. Open the top cover, press and hold the power button for 1 minute. Connect the battery back on the back of computer. Connect the charger cable back and then turn on the computer.

If you don’t see a reset pin hole on the back of laptop or if you are not able to remove the battery (if it is inbuilt) then please unplug all the cables and devices out of laptop. Hold the power button for 1 minute. After releasing the button you should wait a while before plugging in power. Just because the button has been pressed doesn’t bleed off all the residual electricity on the motherboard. Wait 15-30 minutes before plugging in power. Then once power is connected wait for a full battery indication before turning the system on. That allows the battery to fully reset it’s internal statistics.

Connect all the cables back and restart the computer.

While turning on the computer, tap f2. It will go to bios. Press f9 once. It will show load bios defaults with a yes or no popup. Press enter. Popup screen will disappear. Press f10 once. It will show save changes popup with yes or no. Press enter. Computer will restart and it will load into windows.

It might also be the issue with battery, charger or power outlet. Try to use the charger in a different room on a different power outlet. Try to bypass the surge protector and connect it directly to power outlet. Try to use an alternative charger if possible. Try to turn on the computer without the charger and check it ( as long as the battery is not drained out )

Try windows x

go to device manager

expand Battery

right click on all the items below battery – uninstall

Restart the computer

It should work fine..

William_mk2

@CsduSwift

If it is still not working, so it's likely the battery meter needs to be recalibrated. If your AcerCareCenter does not have the option to calibrate the battery meter, follow these directions

With the laptop turned off, connect the AC adapter and wait for the battery charge LED to turn from solid orange to solid blue.
Turn the machine back on.
Disconnect the AC adapter.
Use battery power until the battery-low warning appears.
Reconnect the AC adapter and fully charge the battery again.
Follow these steps again until the battery has been charged and discharged three times.

If it is still not working then you might have to replace the battery.

If your laptop is in warranty you can contact the warranty dept. Go to the website support.acer.com - chose your country. On the new page - scroll down - click on "contact support". Scroll down. You can find the phone no to contact the warranty dept.

If it is out of warranty, please contact local store

Additional info to contact Acer Store: Please visit the website - support.acer.com - chose your country - click on shop. You can buy desktop, laptop, monitor and accessories. Alternatively, on the top right corner you can find the phone no to contact Acer store. For the parts which are not available on Acer store, you have to contact local store.

billsey

First of all, which Swift 3 model do you have? It should be something like SF3xx-xxx-xxxx and it should be displayed on the same sticker as your serial number. Whe you did the battery reset, did you do the full procedure where you do the reset with the buteton for 15-30 seconds, then wait several minutes before plugging in the charger, then waiting again for the full battery display? That will force a full reset of the internal battery stats which do sometimes get confused. If that didn't make a change the next step is a Windows calibration as described above. With a reset battery and a recalibrated Windows then we can dive into other possibilities.

CsduSwift

Hello good sirs, thanks for the assistance thus far.

The model of my Swift 3 is SF314-53G-89D1. I tried the steps outlined above and unfortunately, the errors still persist. I tried to do some recalibaration of my battery but that did not help either.

Some of the things I tried thus far:

Battery reset with the pinhole. Held it down for 30 seconds before plugging in the charger, and only turning it on when it it fully chareged. Entered the BIOS and initiated windows with BIOS default loaded.
Uninstalled the battery drivers in the device manager and restarted the PC
Reinstalled Acer Care Centre, but there wasn't the option for battery caliberation.
Re-entered the bios again to look for a battery caliberation option, but seems like this PC doesn't have it.
Charged and discharged my laptop 3 times, putting the critical battery warning at the minimum 5%.

Are there other options out there that you recommend that I could possibly fix this?

Commodore_1995#

Have you disabled USB port charging by quick access? It is possible that the usb port is drawing power from the battery.

billsey

Yes, your model has one USB port that supports offline charging, so it will always provide power to anything plugged in, regardless of whether the laptop is on or off.

So, do you have something plugged in there? It doesn't look like the Main tab in the BIOS has an option to stop that behavior, but perhaps hitting a Ctrl-S on that screen will give it...

CsduSwift

Hello,

I see. I only use that port when my laptop is on and I need to charge something (like my phone). Aside from that, I always leave that empty and unplugged whenever my laptop is turned off. It's a habit for me to unplug everything when my laptop is off and I am moving around.

Commodore_1995#

Have you disabled USB port charging by quick access? It is possible that the usb port is drawing power from the battery.

CsduSwift

Hi, I did, but unfortunately the same symptoms perisist. I took the week to test it out, but to no avail. I left the USB port charging off.

Athwart

It appears you've done everything that might be the culprit - battery reset; battery calibration; USB charging off & no devices connected. It doesn't seem like it's some errant software still running when asleep as the timings you mention for the drain from 80%-90% in 1-2hrs don't agree with normal on-battery use of 3-4hrs. Nor the fact that the problem doesn't happen when the laptop is shutdown with a full battery.

I guess there's a small chance it could be related to the Wi-Fi card having Wake-on-Lan being on. It seems unlikely for the reasons above but might be worth checking.

I think it points to a problem with the battery itself. Your battery life is down by 26% which isn't too bad but you might have to get a new battery if you can't live with the inconvenience.

The only other thing I can suggest before buying a new battery is to run "powercfg /batteryreport" in an admin Cmd window. Do it under the full power shutdown scenario where it doesn't drain and the 80%-90% battery life shutdown scenario where it fully drains. I doubt whether batteryreport will tell you anything more than you already know but maybe it will be helpful.

Athwart

Another thought occurred to me. Have you measured how long it takes to recharge in the scenario when it appears to be empty after shutting down with 80%-90% charge compared to if you run down the battery normally then recharge?

If the recharge time for the 1st scenario is significantly less than for the 2nd scenario, it points to a logic problem in the battery circuitry. The battery is reporting itself as being empty when it really isn't. Probably doesn't help you solve the problem but at least points to the cause.

Commodore_1995#

You can also check battery life with the hwinfo64 program?

CsduSwift

Hello, thanks for your contributions. I have previously looked at powercfg /batteryreport, and now looking at hwinfo64, both reports about the same thing. Full design capacity 50730 mWh, current capacity 39942 mWh. Wear level is at 21.3%.

Regarding the difference in charging, I am not too sure, but both seems to take about the same time. Gotta test that out again.

Battery report shows a huge gap in the charts when the laptop starts to "shutdown" when turned on, from 80%.

Hmm I also have "fast startup" enabled, not sure if that consumes power when the laptop is off - but again, the shutdown issue doesn't happen when the battery is above 90%, there is almost no depletion, but at 80% it will surely deplete to 0.

I guess it may be an issue with the battery circutry itself and the only fix is to change the battery haha? I am leaning towards the idea that the battery has actual juice (78% left to be exact), but somehow below 80% when turning on the laptop reports it as 0%.

Athwart

@CsduSwift faststartup being on won't use any battery when you shut down. It just stores the system state to the hibernation file then hibernates. There can sometimes be an issue with drivers that don't handle hibernation well & give problems when the laptop restarts. Having faststartup turned off can help in those situations as it causes the drivers to reload & initiate. Assuming you have an SSD, there's negligible performance difference whether faststartup is on or off.

BTW, how are you shutting down - full shutdown, hibernate or sleep. If you are using sleep when you shutdown, that can sometimes be problematic. If you are using sleep, try hibernation instead to see if that makes any difference.

CsduSwift

Hi, I use full shutdown when turning off my pc. I don't really touch the sleep or hibernation.

billsey

Fast startup does use power, as part of the wake on LAN function. It also leaves the WiFi radio enabled, in a low power state.

CsduSwift

Hi, I have tried recalibrating the battery and all that, still doesn't work. I am suspecting it is the laptop's own battery meter that is dysfunctional. At this stage, I can leave my laptop fully charged when I turn it off, but when I turn it on again the next day, it will definitely drop back close to 0% until I charge it. And I only need to charge it/connect to power for 15 seconds to a minute before it becomes fully charged again and I can use it for 4 hours at least on battery power alone, unplugged.

Is there a way I can replace the battery meter (some hardware thing that reads my battery power), or I have to change out the whole battery?

Still using this acer and everything else is going strong except for this minor inconvenience.

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