External battery for Aspire Switch 10

The_M
The_M Member Posts: 1 New User
edited March 2023 in 2015 Archives

Hello everybody,

 

I will buy the Aspire Switch 10. However, I would like to extend the battery life of the product through an external battery / power bank. My question is, how do I find a compatible battery and can you recommend one?

 

As the Aspire Switch 10 is still very new, the currently available external batteries do not specify this product as compatible. Can I charge it with a battery that is compatible to a different kind of aspire laptop?

 

Thanks in advance. 

Answers

  • Blayn-Acer
    Blayn-Acer Administrator Posts: 2,355 Community Administrator

    At this time, we do not offer an external battery for this product, and no other Acer external batteries have been qualified for this product. Unfortunately, the only advice I have regarding battery life of that product, is to change the power management settings to get longer battery usage.

  • Anavnaj
    Anavnaj Member Posts: 2 New User
    Hello, Blayn, just checking in too see If maybe you guys changed your mind about not offering external batteries for Acer Aspire Switch. I mean - there are now new models out, and in spite of it being a mobile device, the battery life is very... not good. Considering the fact that it uses proprietary charger port, making it impossible to use any of the standard available USB power banks, external battery would be a real life-saver to customers who need to be productive on the go for more than 4 hours...
  • Blayn-Acer
    Blayn-Acer Administrator Posts: 2,355 Community Administrator

    At this time we still do not have an external battery for this product. I suggest you submit a suggestion to our ideas forum, as this is an easy way to bring this to the attention of our product development and support teams.

     

    http://community.acer.com/t5/Acer-Ideas/idb-p/Acer

     

  • francema
    francema Member Posts: 11 New User

    Acer-Blayn regardin battery life.

     

    Mine is less than 2 years old and suddenly Switch got stucked in a Battery Critically Low screen and the Acer logo start up screen and then goes to black screen cycle. It doesn´t matter if I charge it for hours... is always the same.

     

    I noticed that power LED keeps blinking in red when plugged in.

     

    Have two questions for you:

     

    1-Shouldn't the device be able to work plugged in if the batter is dead dead?

     

    2-Where can I get a new battery

     

    Bonus: Any idea to extend the life of this device? I am not able to access the content in it!

     

     

    Thank you!

     

     

    -francema

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer

    francema wrote:

    Acer-Blayn regardin battery life.

     

    Mine is less than 2 years old and suddenly Switch got stucked in a Battery Critically Low screen and the Acer logo start up screen and then goes to black screen cycle. It doesn´t matter if I charge it for hours... is always the same.

     

    I noticed that power LED keeps blinking in red when plugged in.

     

    Have two questions for you:

     

    1-Shouldn't the device be able to work plugged in if the batter is dead dead?

     

    2-Where can I get a new battery

     

    Bonus: Any idea to extend the life of this device? I am not able to access the content in it!

     

     

    Thank you!

     

     

    -francema


    Well I'm not Blayn, but I'll do my best. Smiley Happy

     

    1- It should work with the power connected, even with a dead battery. This leads me to think you may have a problem with the battery level sensing software rather than with the battery itself. If the software is always returning a low value, like 0 or -1, the system will respond by forcing a shutdown to keep the battery from being harmed by the lower than normal charge. I have heard from other people who have had instances of false low readings, including readings low enough to trigger the shutdown. I believe this overrides the 'AC connected' feature by default, giving a warning at 10% battery level and shutting down at 7%. Typically the fix is to fully discharge the battery, fully charge the battery, fully discharge and fully charge again. It might also be possible to repair with an OS reinstall, but I'm not certain. The value might be gotten from the BIOS instead of from a higher level driver. If so it would probably take a reflash of the BIOS to fix...

     

    2- A quick eBay search shows several offered for sale.

     

    Bonus- If we can get the battery reporting correctly or replace the battery if it really has failed, you should be good to go for another couple of years or longer. Keeping the battery fully charged with occasional full discharge/charge cycles will help to keep the battery in top shape. If there is a hardware problem in the charging circuit, requiring a motherboard replacement to repair it might be time for a replacement. In that case you would likely want to tear it apart and pull the SSD out. There are adapters for these drives that let you hook them to a USB port where you can pull all the data off, so it's unlikely for you to loose the data. Smiley Happy

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  • francema
    francema Member Posts: 11 New User

    Hi Billsey

     

     

    Thanks for your quick reply and good intentions.

     

    Can you please tell me how you suggest to do this ("Typically the fix is to fully discharge the battery, fully charge the battery, fully discharge and fully charge again.") consindering the loop on start up I described?

     

    If that doen't work I am totally okay with the next option so can you please share sore guidance for "If so it would probably take a reflash of the BIOS to fix..."

     

    I kew when buying this device that I was not going to receive a 3-4 year machine but never pictured as disposable.

     

    So I also expect to work at least plugged in (just checked, I bought it a year and 14 days ago...)

     


    Thank you!

     

    -francema

     

     

     

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer

    It might be possible to boot into the BIOS or recivery mode, by breaking the cycle before it gets a chance to start. Start with a fully powered off tablet (press and hold the power button for quite a while) and boot by pressing and holding the volume key closest to the power button, and while holding press and hold the power button until it gives you the recovery screen. If the power sensing software is built into the BIOS instead of the OS this may not work. If it does work, leave it running without the charger in recovery mode until it runs out of charge. Turn it back off and connect the charger overnight. Then repeat the process. You might be able to get it recalibrated that way.

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  • francema
    francema Member Posts: 11 New User
    Oks.... Sounds doable. I can confirm now that sometimes, not very often, you can access BIOS or even windows for just few minutes.

    I'm interest in the flash BIOS action, how should I proceed for this? I saw some videos to flash BIOS in a Acer One notebook. Is as simple as downloading the latest version and move files to the root of the USB drive?

    Thank you so much.


    -francena
  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer

    Once you are in the BIOS, if you do nothing other than occasionally moving the mouse or pressing a key so it doesn't go to sleep on you, will it run for a long time, or does it spontaneously reboot?

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  • francema
    francema Member Posts: 11 New User
    Once last for like 5 min, even unplugged. Another time, just a minute or two.

    Will that be enough to do something with BIOS?
  • francema
    francema Member Posts: 11 New User

    Another thing... I just went to BIOs briefly and got to notice that current version installed is 1.06 for the SW5 011 version.

     

    On the download section of this site there´s a 1.08 with these notes:

     

    Add "Check ProjectID" mechanism before flash BIOS

     

    Is there's something special to do before booting from the USB drive with this file?

     

    Also, I opened the device and check Battery conectivity and it is okay (I'm abroad without Acer support so no warranty barrires here) A battery is aroun 40USD but I am not optimistic about it since the notebook can't start being plugged in so I guess a new battery should be useless for now.

     

    Thank you for your time.

     

     

    -francema

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,101 Trailblazer

    francema wrote:
    Once last for like 5 min, even unplugged. Another time, just a minute or two.

    Will that be enough to do something with BIOS?

    Does it last a different amount of time when it's plugged in? It's sounding more and more like a warranty swap or repair is going to be in order. Smiley Sad

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