Battery degradation acer swift 3 SF314-56G

JohnCVM
JohnCVM Member Posts: 3 New User
edited November 2023 in 2020 Archives
Hi, 

I bought acer swift 3 SF314-56G in March and it has been a fast laptop so far, but it has always have problems with battery, lasting 7 hours, then 4, 2, 3, etc... I didn't try to find a solution before because I was really focused in online classes, but a week ago I decided to follow the instructions of a youtube video about how to calibrate it and the result was really bad. The full charge capacity decreases from 45000 (it had always been around there) to 40000 and designed capacity is 48944. The worst thing is that the battery now doesn't last longer than 2:30 hours, I am really worried about it because doesn't have a year yet. My use have been almost all for studies, have experimented some high temperatures while gaming, but to be honest I haven't played more than 50 hours in this laptop.

I would aprecciate a lot if you can give me an advice.

Answers

  • FelGate
    FelGate Member Posts: 61 Devotee WiFi Icon
    edited November 2020
    Good day My Friend.

    Consider how battery degrades from time to time and this is how it goes.
    QA Section:
    Q: How to prevent battery degradation?
    A: You cannot prevent battery degradation but you can slow it down.

    Q: How does the battery degrades?
    A: Frequent Charge and Discharge can absolutely degrade your battery.

    Q: How can I slow it down to preserve my battery?
    A: There are many thing you need to know how to preserve a battery.
    Fact 1:
    1. Whenever you plug your laptop and use it. Don't ever unplug it when it reaches 100% and drain it again. As I said, Frequent charge and discharge can destroy it. It's better to stay it plugged while using it.

    Q: Does using my laptop plugged with 100% battery then use it destroy my battery?
    A: No, Laptops nowadays are smart enough to shut/slows the current down that is getting in to your battery and the adapter itself can provide much power to power up your laptop. So why bother remove it when your laptop is full? ehh.

    Fact 2:
    I've been doing this a long time ago. And I discovered this technique on battery when I have my Toshiba laptop (Toshiba laptops have Smart UEFI BIOS). And I really consider this in many of my devices, From my laptops to my smartphones. And this is how it goes.
    To preserve your laptop's battery whenever you are using it.

    For ADAPTER remover kind of persons whenever their battery gets full charged and DRAINER kind of persons that always drains their batteries.
    (The CHARGERman)
    If you are the kind of person the charges your laptop up to 100%, then don't ever go below 40% or even drain it to 0%. By charging it to 100% and draining it below 40% or even 0%. You are just absolutely destroying your battery. To preserve it, Charge it to 100% and never to let your battery pass down 40% to charge it again. Make it a habit.

    (The DRAINman)
    If you are the kind of person that always drains your battery up to 0%. Then don't ever try to charge your battery to 100%. By Draining it to 0% then charge it up again to 100% then drain it to 0% again. You are absolutely destroying it again. To preserve your battery from this kind of battery destroying technique that most people do. From 0%, Just charge your laptop until 80% if you ever have the plan to drain it to 0% again. By this. You can preserve your battery life (mAh).

    Notes:
    I will repeat this again. If you charge your laptop up to 100%, don't unplug it until you are done with everything and plan to shut it down.
    If you ever do to unplug your adapter every time your laptop battery gets full, just don't drain it pass 40% and below.
    If ever you like to empty your battery, Then just try to charge it up to 80% if you plan to empty it again.
    Lastly, Don't consider your laptop battery like a smartphone battery that whenever it's full you unplug it. They work in different ways. Laptop's battery have voltages ranging from 11V to 20V with capacity ranging from 10Wh to 100Wh or so on, and your adapters ranges from 18V-25V. While every smartphones/phones you can encounter has a voltage of just around 3.5 to 3.85V with an Overvoltage of 4.2 to 4.7V.

    Battery drain: Data irrelevant
    Always know your Battery Wh (watt-hours) and your laptop consumption in W (watt).

    Simple Maths
    Wh/V=Ah, Watt-hours/Voltage=Amp-hours
    Wh(Battery)/W(Laptop Consumption)=Hours of usage.

    Example. Your laptop consumes 16W of power and has a Battery of 40Wh with a voltage of 12V. Calculate amp-hours and remaining battery time of usage.
    Calculate Amp-hours
    Wh/V=Ah
    40Wh/12V=3.33Ah or 3330mAh

    Calculate Remaining Battery Time
    Wh/W=h
    40Watt-hour/16Watts = 2.5 Hours

    How to determine or calculate Laptops consumption? Use a freeware called Open Hardware Monitor. It shows the information you need on how much power does your laptop use.


    I hope this helped you with your questions regarding laptop batteries. Have a great day!
  • FelGate
    FelGate Member Posts: 61 Devotee WiFi Icon
    Additional Notes:
    1Wh=1000mWh
    40Wh=40000mWh
    Which means your battery with the design capacity of 48944mWh.
    48944mWh=49Wh
    and now it only have 40000mWh. Which is 40Wh left.

    All you have to know is the Consumption of your laptop in watts. And you will get the answer on how many hours can you still use it with that remaining capacity.

    To determine your consumption by just imagining it. Consider having a discrete GPU with a power draw of 15W when you have that 40Wh capacity left. that GPU alone will make your battery time less than 2hours and 35 mins. Add the power draw of your Motherboard, Processor, HDD, SSD, Monitor, Keyboard, Touchpad and External Devices. With those it could take as much as 1 hour and 30 mins left or so.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,206 Trailblazer
    There are two different things you can do to get the battery correctly calibrated. First is a battery reset, which removes learned data internal to the battery. Batteries often get that data somewhat corrupted. Shut the laptop down and disconnect everything. Use something like a bent paperclip to press and hold the button under the battery reset pinhole on the bottom of your system for 15-30 seconds. Release the button and wait 15-30 minutes then plug power back in. Wait until the charge indicates full and turn it back on. Second is the Windows calibration, which resets how Windows looks at the battery, so it will show you more accurate numbers as to battery life left. With the laptop running disconnect power and run until Windows turns the system off due to low battery. You might have to change your power options to disable sleep if you're not actually using it during this time. Once it's off plug the power back in and wait for a full charge. Turn it back on and then repeat the procedure. It usually is pretty close after a couple of iterations, but the more times you do it the more accurate it should be. Plan to redo this every few months...
    Let us know your results.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

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