Acer Aspire 5741 Battery Charging 18% but will last hours at 0%

G

Guest

Guest
My battery will only charge to 24% at a full charge. It will last maybe an hr then go to sleep at 3%.
I am unable to turn it on unless I attach the power adapter for a quick charge just to initiate the power on.
Once booted windows will measure the power down to 0% after a few minutes but it will last for about 2 hours.
I've tried to update the drivers offered from the Acer website and Battery Care to calibrate the battery. Neither made any difference.

Any thoughts?
 

ratedk

Distinguished
Acer will insist that you have the latest bios update.
"BIOS revision 3309 (and later) has a fix for battery charging particularly the 6-cell batteries, however if you have the latest BIOS and your battery still isn't charging a good solution is to power down the computer, remove the battery and unplug the AC power cable then push and hold the power button for a whole 2 minutes (nothing will happen, we're trying to completely drain all residual voltage from the mainboard to reset it), then release the power button, install the battery and power up the computer, it should now recognize the battery and begin a normal charge cycle.

I have read other posts that claim to hold the power button in for 1 minute which I tried and it did not work, you must hold it in for the whole 2 minutes."

Many others are having the same issue, and a single solution does not really exist. If your still having problems, take a look at these links for some advice:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/468091-acer-aspire-5740g-owners-lounge.html
 

popasmurfy

Honorable
Apr 16, 2013
1
0
10,510
I have tried all of the above. No change. I think the controller or whatever measures the battery may be the issue. Due to the fact the battery continues to function properly after reading 0% and 0.00 time left. Would it be a hardware or software/driver issue?
 

LEDPros

Honorable
Jun 5, 2013
5
0
10,520
Your cheapest/easiest route to troubleshoot will be to get a spare battery. If that one does the same thing, you can be pretty sure its your computer's problem. If the bios is updated it might be a bad motherboard. Laptop batteries all have smart cpu's built in them that never shut off, and they control certain aspects of the battery system, so it might just be a bad battery.
 

elzey24

Estimable
Dec 27, 2014
13
0
4,560
Acer knows that their Aspire Laptops have battery failures and they still sell them without fixing the problem. The only resolution is to spend your own money shipping the Laptop back to them and wait two weeks to get it back. They know there are problems and the elected to keep shipping faulty product because it's cheaper than fixing it. Acer believes it's cheaper because most people don't understand PC's. DO NOT BUY ACER LAPTOPS!!!