Aspire V5-431 drains the battery when powered off

I've owned this laptop for several years. A bit under-powered, it is still quite usable. Since I bought it, however, I found that even if fully charged when I shut the laptop down, the battery still runs down in a day or two without it being used at all. No other laptop I've ever owned has done this. I expect the amount of charge to decrease slowly and maybe even fully discharge after a month or so but not in a day or two. If I run the laptop off a fully charged battery, I get a few hours use, as I'd expect.

The fact that the battery goes flat if not used for a few days has never really bothered me that much. I now want to give the laptop to someone else and would like to know if there's a fix for this - assuming anyone else has observed this behaviour.

Thanks for reading.

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JackE

Open Control Panel. Search 'button'. Click 'change what the power buttons do' in left pane. Click 'change settings that are currently unavailbable'. Scroll down and UNcheck the box for 'fast startup'.

Raichea

I have tried that but didn't seem to make much, if any, difference. Thanks anyway.

JackE

You probably either have a short in the battery pack or its energy capacity is very low.

Go to the elevated command prompt. 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.

Raichea

It doesn't look too bad, considering the laptop is 7 or 8 years old:

Installed batteries

Information about each currently installed battery

	BATTERY 1
NAME	AL12A32
MANUFACTURER	SANYO
SERIAL NUMBER	43121
CHEMISTRY	LION
DESIGN CAPACITY	37,000 mWh
FULL CHARGE CAPACITY	30,621 mWh
CYCLE COUNT	-

JackE

>>>the battery still runs down in a day or two without it being used at all. >>>

When you plan on not using it for a day or two, fully charge the battery. Then remove the battery and set it aside. Then see how much charge remains the next time you plug it back in and boot up. That way we can see how fast it's self-discharging due to internal leakage.

Some older machines like your's will run fine on the charger alone without the battery plugged in. So it's possible to test the battery separately and still use the laptop on the charger alone if you have to.

Raichea

I've tried that before (and, you're right, the system will run without the battery present). The battery is good as its charge holds up well when it is out of the system. There's definitely something in the system that's drawing current when it's supposed to be off. I've taken a look in the BIOS settings and there's no setting for power to USB or similar, so I think I'm stuck with it.

JackE

Do you have anything plugged into any of the external ports when you shut down including a mouse dongle, external display, lan port, etc?

Easwar

Hi @Raichea,

Did you try to update the driver.

Raichea

No to devices plugged into ports.
What driver are you referring to, Easwar? I believe all drivers (and the BIOS) are up to date.

JackE

>>>The fact that the battery goes flat if not used for a few days has never really bothered me that much.>>>

Barring a ground short or hardware problem, the most likely cause is that the Windows version fast startup option isn't compatible with this laptop. The likely fix is to reset the machine from the hidden ACER OEM Windows reset partition if it is still accessible or intact. This however would mean that the original factory installed Windows version would be re-installed.

Raichea

Thanks, for your input. I guess I'm just going to have to live with it.

JackE

Press WIN+R. Enter 'msinfo32'. Please post a screenshot of result if possible.

Raichea

MSInfo provides a huge amount of data. Which do you think is relevant?

JackE

That's why a screenshot of the first msinfo32 image might be helpful if possible. I most interested in seeing the right pane.

Raichea

Here's the data from msinfo32 first page, but I don't see anything relevant (I think)

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

Version 10.0.19043 Build 19043

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name ASPIREV5

System Manufacturer Acer

System Model Aspire V5-431

System Type x64-based PC

System SKU Aspire V5-431_0724_2.18

Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU 987 @ 1.50GHz, 1500 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies Ltd. V2.18, 21/06/2013

SMBIOS Version 2.7

Embedded Controller Version 1.23

BIOS Mode UEFI

BaseBoard Manufacturer Acer

BaseBoard Product Aspire V5-431

BaseBoard Version V2.18

Platform Role Mobile

Secure Boot State On

PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible

Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS

System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Locale United Kingdom

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.19041.1151"

Username ASPIREV5\mainuser

Time Zone GMT Standard Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 7.80 GB

Available Physical Memory 4.21 GB

Total Virtual Memory 9.05 GB

Available Virtual Memory 5.29 GB

Page File Space 1.25 GB

Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Kernel DMA Protection Off

Virtualisation-based security Not enabled

Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and the device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA-capable bus/device(s) detected, Disabled by policy, TPM is not usable

Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions No

Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions No

Hyper-V - Virtualisation Enabled in Firmware No

Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

JackE

Remove battery pack. Inspect battery pack connector and corresponding mainboard battery pack connector. Mainboard connector should have closely spaced gold-plated wire pins. Make sure all pins looks straight with none touching an adjacent pin.

Raichea

Pins are all good.

JackE

F2 into the BIOS menu on startup. In the BIOS Main tab make sure the NetworkBoot & Wake on all Networks options are disabled. F10 to save settings and exit. Test battery drainage again overnight.