Spin 5 (SP513-55N-726T) overheating if charged when closed

I have a new Acer Spin 5 . I've discovered that it gets really (dangerously?) hot, if you plug it in to charge while it's asleep and closed.

The problem seems to be: closing the lid puts the laptop to sleep. However plugging in the charging cable wakes the laptop up again (always - and I don't know why laptops do this). Now that the laptop's awake and on AC it seems to start doing stuff which uses the CPU, but it seems because it's still closed it doesn't allow the fans to come on. So it starts getting really hot; almost too hot to touch.

As soon as I open it up again while it's in this state, only then does it realise it's cooking itself and immediately puts the fans on full blast until it's recovered.

Basically I have to remember never to plug in the charging cable when it's closed because I'm scared something's gonna get damaged inside.

I know that it's the not just the battery getting hot from charging because

1) All the heat is coming from the back of the unit where the vents & CPU are, not where the battery is (under the touchpad) and
2) It doesn't heat up at all if I shut it down completely before charging.

I'm on the "Acer" power plan and have manually upgraded tht bios from 1.05 to latest 1.11, but it's still the same.

Comments

billsey

Check the settings on the power plan to make sure they aren't set to never sleep while on AC power. Also check to see what closing the lid is supposed to while powered.

SR901

Thanks for the reply. I've done a some more investigating.

I've found that when on AC, the laptop usually doesn't actually sleep after pressing the power button or closing the lid (Modern Standby - it goes to the "screen off" state but not the actual "sleep" state). I can't find any setting to indicate it should do this. In the Control Panel, all actions (power button/sleep button/closing lid) are set to "Sleep" for both battery and plugged-in.

I've also found that it does occasionally work correctly (plugging in the cable while it's closed/asleep causes it to wake up for a couple secs but then go back to sleep again), but I certainly can't trust it enough to just plug it in and walk away. It really is the problem that for some reason, the fans are disabled while the lid is closed.

gerstlauer

Yes, I too have found this, and it's a terrible oversight or bug on Acer's part. I can't reliably charge the laptop or keep it plugged in, unless I fully shut down the PC.

This issue is independent of any power plan settings (which are also severely limited on this laptop), and would need someone at Acer to issue a bug fix.

Easwar

Hi SR901,

Try to do power drain,

1. Shutdown the unit.
2. Unplug the cables connected to the unit.
3. At bottom of the unit there will be a small tiny pin hole with a battery symbol close to it. Take a pin or a paper clip insert into it you feels like pressing a button hold it for 20-30 seconds.

gerstlauer

Easwar said:

Hi SR901,

Try to do power drain,

1. Shutdown the unit.
2. Unplug the cables connected to the unit.
3. At bottom of the unit there will be a small tiny pin hole with a battery symbol close to it. Take a pin or a paper clip insert into it you feels like pressing a button hold it for 20-30 seconds.

This is an issue within the charging profile/bios. Resetting battery etc does nothing to help.

billsey

Actually, if the battery is confused enough it could be attempting to overcharge, causing the heating issues, so it could be a battery issue. Although it would be better to try the full reset, which include waiting for a while (15-20 minutes) after the button press before plugging the charger back in, and waiting for full charge indication before turning it back on. Skipping those steps won't always get the internal data reset in the battery.

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