Very short Battery Life on Helios 300

thefirebirdman
thefirebirdman Member Posts: 10

Tinkerer

Hi all, I'm sure this topic has been covered a lot. I looked through the most recent questions from the last few months and didn't see anything. I have the PH315-52-78VL Helios 300, I7-9750, 16GB RAM, 256GB Boot SSD and 1TB SSD for storage. The larger SSD is the ONLY modification I have made. It was built in May 2019 and I've only had it about 9 months since purchase. 90% is average daily use, not computer gaming. I only game on it once in a while, meaning only a couple of times a month at best. I use a simple Bluetooth Mouse during regular use and an Acer Gaming Mouse/Mousepad during gaming.

Problem: During daily average use I am only getting about 1 hour and 45 minutes of battery life from 100% charge. I have not even tried to game on battery only (no real reason to IMHO).

What I am really trying to find out here, is this expected or did I get a bad battery? Its been like this pretty much since new, its not a recent change. I kept it plugged it almost 100% of the time the first 2-3 months I owned it and the first time I used it on battery I only got a couple of hours out of the battery (again, average use, not gaming). I tested it today and here's my results from 100% charge:

Total time to 5%: 1 hour and 45 minutes
- That is with Battery Saver kicking in at 20%
- It only took about 15-20mins to drop from 20% to 10% and 3 minutes to drop from 10% to 5% where it finally hibernated

Average use for me is about 3 browser windows open. One runs streaming video, the other two have anywhere from 6-12 tabs open in each browser however most are idle till I need them. That's pretty much it. I do run both an AV and Malware program in memory along with Discord, Steam, Spotify etc... but those are the only actively open apps I am using day to day.

So given that, is 1 hour and 45 minutes appropriate? If not, is this something I can get replaced under warranty? If not, would it be worth me buying and replacing the battery myself?

Thanks in advance.

Answers

  • thefirebirdman
    thefirebirdman Member Posts: 10

    Tinkerer

    Bump, anyone know if this is normal battery consumption for a new Helios 300?
  • thefirebirdman
    thefirebirdman Member Posts: 10

    Tinkerer

    Bump, still looking for feedback on this. Less than 1.5 hours charge for normal daily use doesn't seem like nearly enough. Should I request Support replace it? Buy a new one? Is there a better version available aftermarket?
  • douglasrad
    douglasrad Member Posts: 1 New User
    Mine is the same. After some research I did myself, it appears this is expected. This laptop just has god awful battery life. Not ideal for a work laptop... but unfortunately something that nobody seemed to talk about in the reviews I read prior to purchase.

    This is essentially a desktop computer that can operate unplugged for a short time. But it is meant to be left plugged in.
  • one23sleep
    one23sleep Member Posts: 2 New User
    I have an Acer Helios 300 PH315-53 model, and I do experience the same length of time with the battery performance.

    I even opted/forced it to use the internal GPU but it doesn't last for longer than 2 hours even with a regular workload like multiple tabs and youtube in the background.

    I agree with @douglasrad, the battery is more of just a backup but our device is more designed to be plugged in.

  • Easwar
    Easwar Member Posts: 6,727 Guru
    Hi @one23sleep,

    Improve Battery Life in Your Windows 10 Laptop
    1. Change the Power Mode.
    2. Reduce Screen Brightness.
    3. Turn on 'Battery Saver'
    4. Detect and Disable Battery-draining Apps.
    5. Disable Background Apps to Improve Battery Life.
    6. Change Power and Sleep Settings.
    7. Disable UI Animations and Shadows.
    8. Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi when not in use.