Acer S7 Fan control? Also ... Battery degradation is fast

AlwaysWalking
AlwaysWalking Member Posts: 5 New User
in 2013 Archives

Hi

 

I have a S7-191-6640. Would anyone know of any software that could help control the vacuum like fans on the S7? I have tried speed fan and other applications but no change.

 

Will very much appreciate any help.

 

Also, I have noticed that the battery's max capacity has been degrading everytime i charge it. By using the Windows 8 battery report (powercfg /batteryreport), from the design capacity of 28,934mWh, it is now at 28,253mWh. I really find this weird since this notebook is not even a month old and yet the battery has degraded nearly 3%. So it means that in 33 months (holding the same degradation speed) the battery will not have any capability to charge at all? I have accepted that this has a 3 hour life (which is short for ultrabooks) without the extended battery but the rate of degradation is just unacceptable. 

 

I recall that Windows will inform you that you will have to change batteries when it cant hold 40% of its charge, so in 20 months I would be told to get a new battery for this and by that time the charge would not even reach 2 hours of use?

 

Sorry for a bit of the rant but I was so happy with the build, looks and performance of this but the battery is just making me go crazy.

 

 

 

Answers

  • sbirsen
    sbirsen Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    I have the same battery problem on a S7-391, and the battery wear is just going to get worse, last week it was 5%, today it increased to 8% after 6 weeks. I've started looking up battery conditioning articles, to understand whether this is down to calibration, or just pure wear. Worst case I will need to buy a genuine battery after a year or so.

     

    Re fan, I tried out a few programs before I settled on NoteBook FanControl, which can be found here :

     

    http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1070494.

     

    I tried the config for HP ProBook 4710s, and it works. You need to set up your thresholds (at which temp you want which fan speed to kick in), but the manual is in English, even though the forum is in german, so you should be able to understand how the software is supposed to work.

     

    Also I had to reset my laptop for other reasons 2 days ago, and when setting up firefox again, I made sure that non of the extensions use too much resources, as firefox and adobe flash were constantly at the top of the task manager process list wrt to CPU usage. I installed adblock plus and flashblock, to make sure that even with 20+ tabs open, I don't see the same usage from firefox and its extensions again. It seemed to have worked. Unless I use something like Prime95, the fans never go in high spin anymore. Even reloading all tabs doesn't increase the CPU temp above 52C.

     

    Keep an eye on the programs that use a lot of CPU resources, yours might not be Firefox but something else, with the same impact.

     

    Hope it works for you too.

     

    Hope this helps

  • AlwaysWalking
    AlwaysWalking Member Posts: 5 New User

    Thanks for the reply sbirsen.

     

    So far I think I was able to slow down my battery's degradation, the Full Charge capacity has been constant for the past week at 28,164mWh (according to the battery report on Windows 8). The "trick" that I'm doing is just charging it to 96% then i unplug it. Now, I am confused as to the quality of the current battery. People are saying that newer batteries, like the ones in our laptops, are supposed to be capable of handling continuous power from the power outlet due to the programming that on computers to bypass the battery so the power doesn't pass through it when it is fully charged. Also, if it is running in a cool environment degradation due to heat shouldn't be bad. I work in an office with an ambient of 20C (due to air conditioning) and the S7 doesn't feel hot or even warm to the touch so degradation due to excess heat shouldn't be this fast. 

     

    I am guessing that the quality of the battery installed is a bit questionable or maybe other manufacturers have placed the full charge of the battery a bit lower than 100% (like my firend's vaio is defaultly set to max charge of 80%, he still gets 6hours of use though) I think this is the only way for us to be able to lengthen the life of the battery. Please do tell me if this method works for you.

     

     

    On the CPU resources most of that goes to Chrome and MS Excel. I do a lot of calculations and some spreadsheets or flash heavy sites will really load up my resources quite quickly. Ill try the program you mentioned and will give feedback. Thanks again

  • sbirsen
    sbirsen Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    Yes I also read about your trick re charging only until 90-95% somewhere else, however even when trying this, my battery wear still reached new heights of 13% today !! (It's going up by 2% every other day I think)

     

    Ok, this laptop was an ex- display, so assumingly it always plugged in while on the shelf in the shop. However, since I bought it, I used it carefully, tried not to overcharge etc, but it's still gone up from 4% to 13% within 6 weeks... I am not sure what to think of tha. I guess I'll just use the laptop as normal, and 8-10 months later buy a spare internal battery as a replacement.

     

    Did your charging up to 96% trick help to stop your battery wear ?

     

    Thanks

  • AlwaysWalking
    AlwaysWalking Member Posts: 5 New User

    So far it has stopped but I forgot to unplug it the other day when I left it downloading some large files and the drop was huge compared to the previous rate. I'm not sure if the huge drop was an accumulation due to the method but it just was surprising to see the immediate reduction in the full charge capacity. 

  • sbirsen
    sbirsen Member Posts: 9

    Tinkerer

    Something weird is going on with my battery. The wear % is fluctuating. It was as high as 13%, last night it dropped to 8%. Then up to 10% around 30 mins later. Now back to 10%.

     

    I always thought calibrating only corrects the reading of the remaining charge of the battery. But the wear level can never be reduced. However, in my case it seems the wear reading also needs calibrating, it's all over the place (see min / max of the wear level).

     

    Any battery experts out there who can explain what is going on with my battery ? Btw, Batterycare also reports the same values, just a little delayed.

     

    Untitled.jpg

  • Leho
    Leho Member Posts: 525 Mr. Fixit WiFi Icon

    For more than you ever wanted to know about batteries, access batteryuniversity.com.

    Leho

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