Predator 17 G9-971 drains battery whilst gaming on power

I recently purchased a Predator 17 with a GTX980m, 16gb RAM and Q6600 which I think is fantastic, yes the style is a bit ostentatious however it's a dream to game with.

There has however been an issue with the fact that when I play any game like DotA 2, Attila: Total War, ARMA 3 etc for any length of time I've noticed that the battery starts to drain even when the power settings say no apps have used battery power. I also noticed that when I tried to play Homeworld: Remastered my screen would get graphical flickering, this stopped whenever I disconnected the laptop from the adapter.

I have tried contact Acer support via e-mail but their technical advice has been less than impressive, I have been advised that running games causes the computer to run at its maximum power (no really?) and would therefore drain the battery, I would however have thought that Acer's engineers would have provided an adapter that could cope with the load. Equally they advised me that the reason for the graphical flickering is due to the display being run at 60hz and perhaps I should reduce it, even though the option to reduce it does not exist under either the Intel or Nvidia control panels.

Basically I would like to know if anyone else with a Predator laptop has been suffering this issue or am I just looking at a faulty power adapter? Its the ADP-180MB K model adapter for reference.

Accepted answers

Cory-Acer

Hi Blizzard99,

No, this is how the system actually gets the most gaming power. The device is designed to use battery while on AC Power when the GPU is enabled. At 30% it will stop using the battery and keep it charged. You may notice a slight decrease in performance while under 30% battery power. Our content team is working to get this together in an FAQ.

Hope this helps,
Cory

All comments

Cory-Acer

Hi Blizzard99,

No, this is how the system actually gets the most gaming power. The device is designed to use battery while on AC Power when the GPU is enabled. At 30% it will stop using the battery and keep it charged. You may notice a slight decrease in performance while under 30% battery power. Our content team is working to get this together in an FAQ.

Hope this helps,
Cory

Blizzard99

Hi Cory,

Many thanks on the swift response but I have to admit that's a bit of a disconcerting design feature. I'm curious to know how much a performance drop there is because there wasn't any mention of this feature by; any of the online reviews of the laptop when I was researching it, the salesmen where I bought it, nor in any set up manual provided.

Also that doesn't seem to explain why I experience flickering on Homeworld when plugged in but none when disconnected?

Sincerely,
Blizz

tonig23

hi, same problem here, I've noticed that the battery starts to drain altough the power supply is plugged in. Is the AC power supply to weak for the laptop (I have the 15' predator G9-591-79CP) ??

unknown

The GTX 980M and i7 -6700HQ at full load needs more power than the 180 watt power adapter can supply and thus drains the laptop’s battery. A 200 watt or higher power adapter should be shipped with the GTX 980M models.

tonig23

I wrote an email to the Acer support with the question of whether they offer a stronger power supply.

Years ago I had the same problem with my Dell Studio 1747, Dell reacted very well, they shipped a stronger power supply to the customers.

nafnafff

I want to stop my laptop draining battery while i play game. How can i do it? Someone from maintance to say something.

tonig23

This is the answer of the official acer support:

'The unit runs as intended by us and within the specifications. An alternative power supply is not available therefore.'

After a google research, I can say, that also other gaming notebook manufacturer i.e. MSI follow the same schema, MSI calls it 'Hybrid Power feature'. But I would not call this "a feature".

Is it not possible to provide more than 180 W with a notebook power supply? Why not provide sufficiant power to the system?

Whitejade

Seriously, this is unacceptable. Found out about this "feature" the next day after purchase (g9-591 in my case), was not impressed. Indeed, Dell had a similar issue with their Alienware line, and they responded by providing more powerful adapters, so while other manufacturers may make similar design choices in their laptops, it's still a problem that needs to be fixed.

I'm planning to return mine asap if the vendor will take it and will surely urge anyone against buying an acer laptop.

Edit: laptop successfully returned, dodged a bullet there. Best of luck to you guys with this problem, hopefully acer does something about it.

SquishyMuffin

So if the laptop was at say 40% and you decided to play a graphically intense game, it will decrease to 30% and stay at 30% correct? When it is at this 30% 'hold steady mode' - do the games still perform as normal (i.e no throttling)?

Because you say when it is below 30% throttling may occur.

Has anyone else tested this? Is it throttling free in 30-99% range. I've had it drop to low 90's and didn't notice any change (thank god). This worried me and should be more clearly stated. No mention of this in the manual...

Bit of an odd negative feature really. Unless Acer can put a postive spin on it like saving energy. Would prefer a more powerful power supply of 200watts.

It is confirmed as normal right?

ChevyCam94

Come on guys. Using the battery for a "second power supply" really doesnt hurt anything. It wouldnt make any sense to crank it up, and have MORE power consumption than you already have in the AC supply.

Think of it this way. You have your 180watt supply of power. You need more? Take it from the battery. Your STILL only using 180watts of power, because the AC adapter only draws that much, but you got help from the battery.

They COULD have made it so you were always UNDER powered, and not use the battery at all, but that would have lessened the gaming experience.

Also, there is no need to run anything over 200watts into the AC port. Unless your do NOTHING but play games 24/7/365, the 180watt power supply is MORE than enough. Im not sure what the package draw is on these laptops during regular use, but Im POSITIVE, its far less than 180watts.

So no, making a higher powered AC supply just doesnt make sense. You already have all the components you need to make gaming smooth when necessary. Those are your factory 180watt AC power supply, and the laptops battery. All they did was make use of the other forms of power already present. Thats smart.

SquishyMuffin

I'll buy your logic as it puts my mind at ease.

gr_reaper_20

Experiencing a similar issue on acer A515-51G.

Nitro_UK

Please fix this issue for the PH317-51 Helios 300!

Flame

Same !! PH317-51 Helios 300 for 3 months i did not have a single problem, now my lap top shut down 3 times after gaming in last week. Please help!

ZeusHera

I have Predator GX-792, 32Gig Ram, i7 7820HK, nVidia GTX1080. When I start to play Assassin's Creed Origins, the fan speed increases and my battery start discharging. After a while, the game becomes slow and fan goes even faster. Then the game freezes or kicks me out and the computer is frozen. I have to restart it everytime. I have read some posts about this being for the battery but this is ridiculous. The battery has gone done to 30% and even less and this is where I get kicked out and the PC freezes. Is there a setting to turn this off?

Loggos

ChevyCam94 said:

Come on guys. Using the battery for a "second power supply" really doesnt hurt anything. It wouldnt make any sense to crank it up, and have MORE power consumption than you already have in the AC supply.

Think of it this way. You have your 180watt supply of power. You need more? Take it from the battery. Your STILL only using 180watts of power, because the AC adapter only draws that much, but you got help from the battery.

They COULD have made it so you were always UNDER powered, and not use the battery at all, but that would have lessened the gaming experience.

Also, there is no need to run anything over 200watts into the AC port. Unless your do NOTHING but play games 24/7/365, the 180watt power supply is MORE than enough. Im not sure what the package draw is on these laptops during regular use, but Im POSITIVE, its far less than 180watts.

So no, making a higher powered AC supply just doesnt make sense. You already have all the components you need to make gaming smooth when necessary. Those are your factory 180watt AC power supply, and the laptops battery. All they did was make use of the other forms of power already present. Thats smart.

This isn't a smart design at all. You can play it that way to make yourself feel better about buying this laptop, but I would had very much appreciated knowing about this "design feature" ahead of time. Every single gaming session will cause drain on the battery and thus a recharge cycle will occur, so each and every gaming session will cause a recharge cycle. These batteries don't last forever and have limits on how many times you can recharge them, and it tends to be harder on the battery doing partial discharges than full discharges. So instead of giving us power supplies that can handle the load we have been given something that will eventually fail when its battery is gutted by all the discharge cycles. That's WHEN... NOT IF this happens. So all of us who bought this laptop will eventually have to buy a new battery just so we can have "the best gaming experience" once again... assuming the battery is offered and still manufactured. Its not a "smart" design, but a design built to die sooner rather than later. If I had known of this before buying the laptop I assure you I would had avoided it like the plague, full stop. Oh and mind you since the laptop IS designed to run this way you cant just remove the battery or even leave the dead one inside. Every time you try to game it will come up short and shut down due to the battery being dead. So either you get a replacement battery or the laptop would be BRICKED.

xapim

Loggos said:

ChevyCam94 said:

Come on guys. Using the battery for a "second power supply" really doesnt hurt anything. It wouldnt make any sense to crank it up, and have MORE power consumption than you already have in the AC supply.

Think of it this way. You have your 180watt supply of power. You need more? Take it from the battery. Your STILL only using 180watts of power, because the AC adapter only draws that much, but you got help from the battery.

They COULD have made it so you were always UNDER powered, and not use the battery at all, but that would have lessened the gaming experience.

Also, there is no need to run anything over 200watts into the AC port. Unless your do NOTHING but play games 24/7/365, the 180watt power supply is MORE than enough. Im not sure what the package draw is on these laptops during regular use, but Im POSITIVE, its far less than 180watts.

So no, making a higher powered AC supply just doesnt make sense. You already have all the components you need to make gaming smooth when necessary. Those are your factory 180watt AC power supply, and the laptops battery. All they did was make use of the other forms of power already present. Thats smart.

This isn't a smart design at all. You can play it that way to make yourself feel better about buying this laptop, but I would had very much appreciated knowing about this "design feature" ahead of time. Every single gaming session will cause drain on the battery and thus a recharge cycle will occur, so each and every gaming session will cause a recharge cycle. These batteries don't last forever and have limits on how many times you can recharge them, and it tends to be harder on the battery doing partial discharges than full discharges. So instead of giving us power supplies that can handle the load we have been given something that will eventually fail when its battery is gutted by all the discharge cycles. That's WHEN... NOT IF this happens. So all of us who bought this laptop will eventually have to buy a new battery just so we can have "the best gaming experience" once again... assuming the battery is offered and still manufactured. Its not a "smart" design, but a design built to die sooner rather than later. If I had known of this before buying the laptop I assure you I would had avoided it like the plague, full stop. Oh and mind you since the laptop IS designed to run this way you cant just remove the battery or even leave the dead one inside. Every time you try to game it will come up short and shut down due to the battery being dead. So either you get a replacement battery or the laptop would be BRICKED.

All gaming laptops use the built in battery to aid the adapter when this one cant provide enough power with demanding tasks/games (plus the newer the cpu/gpu is the more power it will consume) this is completely normal i recommend to have it always on AC and only start gaming or doing any demanding tasks when the battery is at 100% mine has been on AC 24/7 since i bought in almost 9 months ago and the battery is not discharging neither overcharged i have a 6% battery wear on battery bar pro which is nothing i don't game to much now as i don't have time but when i do i spend 9h+ gaming non stop (heavy games) and my battery never discharged even once while i'm gaming i have undervolted and repasted and no performance lost at all my max temps are cpu 70-75 gpu 65/70 doesn't matter which games latest or older temps are same every time so regarding the above statement i only have one thing to say gaming laptops are not suitable for this user better getting a desktop

And PS: you can disconnect the battery internally but you will loose performance when the adapter cannot provide the enough power that the gpu/cpu demands it would throttle so if the issue it's about the battery being used while on AC better get a desktop and this issue is over and that smart idea of providing a powerfull adapter it's nonsense the mobo would not support it anyway and even trying a more powerfull one it might just fry the mobo if the wattage cap would fail just an observation to those who think that they have an easy way to solve all issues

xRamRodx

I just bought the Helios Predator 500 17 with an i7 8th gen and gtx 1070. I have the same issues.... Thought this problem would be fixed with this newer version but definitely not! Even when the battery is at 100%, I will only get 2 hours of game time until it drops to less the 40% which then drops fps in game. Turned my battery settings, and Nvidia settings to power save mode (battery optimal settings) which gave me maybe an extra hour. No reviews or on Acer's website said anything about this feature. Has anyone heard of any fixes?

xapim

I already stated above as also @Acer-Cory what is the battery purpose and it's not an issue its doing what was supposed to help the adapter to provide enough power for more demanding games/tasks as you all might know the higher the cpu/gpu it will require even more power

hamidsh

my laptop : acer - aspire 7 A715-71G-71Y3 (intel core i7;16G RAM; GTX 1050Ti 4G VRAM GDDR4)
same problem !
this feature which is seems to be more defect, is really on my nerve, and if I knew it, I'd never ever had bought it.
I searched to find out if it's just mine and if i can fix this in any way, but it turned out that all acer's and msi's gaming laptop have this precious gift!

imagine every time you are playing a game instead of having fun you are concerning about the charge of your battery, beside that you don't know how many more times you can play a game since your battery has a limit recharge time.

i really want to see the one who invented this solution, how ingenious !

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