Acer w510 battery drain and apps stability - solved

I have Acer w510 device (tablet + keyboard dock). I love the device - lightweight, excellent battery life, nice combination of the true tablet capabilities with micro-laptop (when connected to dock). And it runs my regular windows apps!

I bought the device last fall, when it just came out, and I'm using it daily.

However for a while I had some lingering problems with standby battery life - initially it was pretty good (few percent of battery drop per day of standby), but later on mysteriously it became pretty bad - up to 30% overnight. It was not too bad for me (I tend to recharge the device each night), but it was annoying. After a lot of research and tinkering I solved the problem, hopefully the solution will be useful for others.

(I also read the long thread on the battery life issue on this forum, the hint to look at WiFi driver actually came from there, but that thread is rather convoluted and unclear, so I decided to post my explanation of the problem and proposed solution as this separate message)

Also for a while I had a problem of some of the apps I tent to run all the time (e.g. Outlook) were crashing from time to time. Not often enough to become a real problem, but even twice a week is annoying - and worrying. Stable applications should not really crash. It turned out that the problem was the same as with the standby time, and the same solution fixed it as well.

The problem turned out to be associated with Connected Standby. This mode was enabled in the OS sometime in February or March in one of the updates, and since that I was having the problem. Here is some background information.

Connected Standby - how it works

As everybody knows, laptops (and most desktops) support Sleep state. Traditionally sleep state was essentially what the name suggests - CPU and all electronics is turned off, but RAM is powered and retains the state. On resume CPU and other hardware state is restored from RAM and the system keeps running. All apps, drivers and the OS are totally suspended while in Sleep state.

In Win8 there is new mode - Connected Standby. On hardware that supports it Win8 will unconditionally replace standard Sleep state with the new Connected Standby mode, and it works rather differently. In Connected Standby mode the CPU and hardware never actually sleeps - it is always powered. CPU is just sitting in the low-power state, waiting for the system timer most of the time. Applications are artificially suspended by a special OS component (DAM driver), and every 30 sec or so apps who need it are given some CPU cycles to execute background tasks or process incoming network data.

Network connection in Connected Standby mode is actually kept alive, and is processing data. You can actually ping machine in Connected Standby mode (but need to enable ICMP for it).

When you press "Sleep" button on the machine with Connected Standby, it does not actually go to Sleep. Instead it just turns off the screen and OS is going into the Connected Standby mode. And as I mentioned there is no way to switch Win8 to a regular Sleep mode - it is unconditional.

In most ways Connected Standby is essentially the mode your regular phone is operating in, but retrofitted to Windows.

The Problem

It is all nice and cool, but there are so many different components at play that things don't always work well. Specific problem on W510 is the Broadcom WiFi module and its driver. It just does not work too well in Connected Standby mode, and WiFi is sucking a lot of power while in Connected Standby.

It is not always the case - using powercfg tool you can see power usage reports and it varies. Sometimes power consumption in Connected Standby mode is great, sometimes it is pretty bad. It seems to depend on which network you were connected to before entering Connected Standby, and whether that network is still available while in Connected Standby etc. But quite often power consumption was bad for me.

Another problem happens when the data arrives while applications are artificially suspended. Instability with Outlook (and few other apps) I mentioned seems to be just that - new data arrives, but the app cannot process it properly when in Connected Standby mode, and sometimes the app crashes (typically on resume, but sometimes it was actually crashing the whole OS in the process of entering the Sleep state).

Solution

I spent quite a bit of time tinkering with settings, reinstalled OS few times, changed drivers etc. Eventual solution that seems to work fine for me is to use older Broadcom WiFi driver from Acer 1.01 driver pack.

Actual OS is clean install (I reinstalled the OS from Microsoft Win8 media but it should work with Acer image as well) and fully patched. Then I installed latest drivers (2.08) that also updates BIOS. Then I manually update just the Broadcom WiFi driver to that old version (device manager, update driver, manual, point to the broadcom WiFi driver in the 1.01 pack).

It seems that the old Broadcom driver behaves differently than the latest one - it disables WiFi while in Connected Standby mode. This fixes battery drain problem, and it also fixes app stability issues because there is no data transfer while in Connected Standby.

The drawback is that it takes 10-20 sec to re-establish WiFi connection after wakeup, but it is a small price to pay for not having other problems.

I'm using this solution for over a month now with absolutely no problems with app stability or battery drain. If you are experiencing similar problems - try it out.

(I would also suggest Acer to get the Broadcom driver fixed, and maybe push the old driver in the mean time)

With best regards

Tony

Accepted answers

All comments

didopido

Thank you, Tony-home

I followed your instructions and so far so good - the sleep works good for me with Win8.

Acer, please look at this issue and provide fixed and updated drivers. It looks like this issue is more frequent with systems with keyboard dock.

supersoul

Thank you for your cogent explanation of this problem and your solution. It appears to be a good workaround. Unfortunately for Acer W510 owners, the workaround is, as the term implies, just that; A solution that solves one problem, but requires the user to accept something less than a complete fix.

This workaround solves the important problem relating to battery drain, yet disables one of the the essential benefits of connected standby, specifically full time WiFi connectivity. As such the workaround is unsatisfying to any owner of the W510 who purchased the tablet specifically for use as, say, a full time, connected standby Skype receiver. Of what use is the W510 to anyone who paid good money expecting this machine to fulfill it's promise as a truly fully functional, connected standby device only to discover that Acer has sold us all the proverbial "bill of goods"?

I will go one step further. When one considers the fact that early adopters of this tablet's keyboard dock were furnished with a substandard, poorly engineered keyboard and trackpad, together with a myriad of Mind boggling driver and firmware issues, many of which persist to this very day, the sheer number of ways Acer has failed its customer base with this particularly poor product is infuriating and unacceptable.

Any decent, self-respecting, and fair-minded company would have attempted to deal with this engineering disaster with class and style, recognizing and acknowledging their failures as quickly as possible and providing quick and decisive solutions so as to allieviate their customers' concerns and to engender good will. Has Acer done anything that resembles this?

(Rhetorical question: add laugh track here)

Today I find myself the not-so-proud owner of a not-ready-for-prime-time Acer Iconia W510-1422. The keyboard and touchpad are borderline unusable and the connected standby features are either battery draining or emasculated via workarounds such as presented in this thread. (No offense intended to the OP...at least his fix works).

To say that I am disappointed by Acer may very well qualify as the understatement of the century. Having worked my entire thirty year career as a software and hardware engineer for a major international IT corporation, I believe I have the chops required to recognize a product that has been properly engineered and tested before production release. Similarly, because the corporation I work for is a top tier, world class organization, I know one when I see one.

Sorry, Acer....both you and your Iconia W510 fail on both counts.

Should anyone want to buy a $700 convertible tablet with additional functionality as boat anchor, please feel free to respond.

yumms

This solution doesn't seem to work with the Windows 8.1

Tony-home

Win8.1 might've change things.

Actually I tried to put Win8.1 on Acer w510, but I was having problems with the sleep button and with closing the keyboard dock - the machine can get locked up in a sleep state. But IMO it is a different problem from WiFi issue in connected standby.

Tony-home

To: supersoul

Actually I'm not sure if I would count Connected Standby as a major capability I would buy Win8 for. Most apps don't support Connected Standby yet, and practically the only observable difference is the speed of WiFi reconnect on wakeup. With connected standby it is instant, while without it reconnect takes 10-20 sec. I can live with 10-20 sec delay.

I agree, Acer should've fix the problem - at least to avoid battery drain and app crashes. The problem is that Acer basically stepped back and let users deal with the issue.

Fall

the problem os Acer and ther **** drivers. O owned the 32gig version sonce Feb and like a dummy would go to the Acer sore and immeditialy start downloading the latest drivers ..and giess what? Battery life and performance got worse woth every revision !! From start up to **bleep** down to touch...card reading even typing ...I took it nack to Walmart yesterday and swapped it for a new one little did i realize when i got home they gave me the 64 gig model lol...but anyway now this was acts brillent with the origainl firmware it came with 1.0 or 1.01 I'll double check but be dammed if i will update this via the Bios/fireware drivers from Acer cause once you do there is no going back !! unless of course you send it to them and even than not sure if they will do it

Tony-home

I agree. It seems that Acer is not really testing the drivers/firmware updates they are releasing, otherwise they will not push out crappy updates.

And adding "live updater" was really bad idea on Acer's part - if you don't test your updates well, don't push them.

supersoul

At this point I would have expected Acer at least to admit that they had engineered a seriously flawed keyboard/dock and offered a recall. I get the impression that if an owner complains enough and is willing to send back both the tablet (why???) and the keyboard/dock, then Acer will do something. I'm not certain what that "something" is, but it almost certainly cannot be a driver/firmware fix or they would simply release the fix on their website and everyone would be happy.

Does anyone know for certain if they are secretly replacing the old keyboard/dock with a newly engineered version?

Tony-home

Actually for me the problem with the mouse touchpad in the keyboard dock went away after the BIOS update sometime in feb-march.

Occasionally I still see small hiccups on horizontal mouse movement (mouse appears to be a little bit sticky when moving horizontally), but these hiccups are so small and infrequent that it is not causing any problems.

supersoul

I did not intend to hijack this thread, but since we all seem to have driver/firmware problems, I hope the OP will be understanding.

My W510 is current with all recommended driver/firmware updates, but my keyboard still has the two major issues with the keyboard and trackpad. Specifically, repeating letters and a squirrely track pad.

Once again, if none of Acer's patches have fixed this (and they haven't in my case), I would like to hear from anyone who sent their unit back to Acer and can confirm that they actually replaced the keyboard docking unit with a new one. I believe mine is just bad.

didopido

I got a refurbished unit and so far haven't noticed any issues with the track pad or the keyboard. The keyboard dock has a weird bowing in the middle, like it was open and incorrectly put back together, so I don't know if some hardware changes were made. Also noticing that the keyboard dock battery lasts a lot less than the tablet, is this common?

I did some tests with Win8 and the WiFi driver from the OP and it looks like the connected sleep works fine at home, anytime I call my skype (from another account) it will ring even if the tablet is closed and sleeping.

I'm curious if this fix will work with Win8.1, but for now is good with Win8 and really makes a difference - this is what this tablet should have been from the beginning without all the "hacking" necessary.

Thank you, Tony-home for getting this tablet back to normal (at least for me).

padgett

To be fair it seems that Acer produces few drivers and relies on their vendors (Intel, Broadcamm, Qualcom, etc) for most.

Further when two from different vendors start beating on each other (like WiFi and Graphics) their only answer seems to be "reload everything".

It really makes me wonder if Acer is acting as an assembler only & not doing much integration. No/little testing is done at all (that is the purpose of the forum...)

Tony-home

Acer is the OEM and integrator. I would expect them to do integration testing and publish drivers on Acer web site only if all tests look good. This is essentially what Apple is doing - they don't just accept drivers from Broadcom or some other vendor, they take full responsibility for the overall quality and do all the testing.

If Acer does not have resources to do the ongoing testing, it may be better not to publish drivers on the Acer web site, and especially don't do LiveUpdater.

tri0xinn

The driver fix didn't work for me either.. I'm on win 8.1 . **bleep**! Will have to back up and restore back to win8. Is hibernate an option on these or am I missing somthing? If in power options I could hibernate when screen closes or power buton pressed that might tide me over for a bit.. but it's not an option in the drop down. Right now I have it shut down when I close the lid or hit th power which obviously helps but of course is inconvenient at best.

Tony-home

To: tri0xinn

So you have to come up with your own fix for Win8.1 :-)

I'm running 8.1 on a different machine, but waiting for the final 8.1 before I put it on the Acer tablet - I had some problems when I tried it before, and frankly speaking I don't see anything super-appealing in the preview to make me try to squeeze it in right now.

Hibernate option could be enabled on Win8 on this tablet, there are instructions on the web. You need to enable the button via explorer policy (in the registry), and then need to enable it in the registry to show up in the power manager. I didnot do it because hibernation of 2gig RAM takes several seconds (way longer than sleep/resume), also it will eat the life of the SSD drive quickly - the number of cycles you can write to NAND is limited.

billsey

Control Panel; Power Options; System Settings. Click on the Hibernate checkboox under Shutdown settings and hibernate will be shown. You might have to 'change settings that are currently unavailable' first.

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