Laptop dies when game is started while on battery power

lordzsolt

Honorable
Aug 19, 2013
2
0
10,510
As the title says, when I start a game while running on battery, the laptop just shuts down instantly.
Ths happens regardless of battery charge %. When the power cord is plugged in, everything is fine. When I'm not playing a game, it works fine.

My assumption is that it's unable to provide enough power for the dedicated GPU.

The whole story:
I've had this laptop for 4 years. After 3 years, the battery it came with lost all its charges, so I bought a new one. A month ago the laptop died while gaming. I remembered I hadn't used the battery for a week, so I wanted to do a charge cycle. I unplugged the power cord, let it drain for a few minutes, but the battery died at 60% and refused to charge.
I sent it back for repair and when it came back, it started doing this. It's working fine when I use it for normal activity like browsing the internet, but as soon as I start a game without the power cord plugged in, the laptop shuts down. The repair report says the PCB was stuck and it was replaced along with the battery case.

Here's a GPU-z log right when I start the game. I don't really see any problem with it. The temperature went up to 50, but I doubt 49->50 would be the reason.
http://puu.sh/qQEcJ/a2ef6429d0.txt

Here's a BatteryInfoView log, though it's missing like 10 seconds worth of information before the laptop shuts down. However, I was looking at the BatteryInfoView window when the laptop shut down, but there wasn't anything specific. The Voltage was around 10,900. It says 11.1V on the battery.
http://puu.sh/qQECn/1689ed8ecd.txt


Is there any other way I could determine if the battery or the laptop is the problem?
Also, is this sort of thing eligible for warranty? (I still have about a month's worth of warranty time left).
 
Solution
Well, it is really hard to determine root of the the problem. I had a similar situation with my laptop, although not necessarily from gaming.

If it only happens when you game, your guess might it correct that your battery is simply not fully charged (the more number of charges the battery has been, the smaller its capacity will be, generally speaking.) and when you game, the GPU dried up the battery and a laptop with no power of course shuts down.

This is probably why it doesn't happen with an ac adapter.

Another possibility is that with the battery slice, the laptop gets too hot (fans get older and don't work as well) from the heat of the battery, and that can cause shut downs as well. You can try lower the room temperature and...

apisorder

Honorable
Jun 19, 2012
18
0
10,570
Well, it is really hard to determine root of the the problem. I had a similar situation with my laptop, although not necessarily from gaming.

If it only happens when you game, your guess might it correct that your battery is simply not fully charged (the more number of charges the battery has been, the smaller its capacity will be, generally speaking.) and when you game, the GPU dried up the battery and a laptop with no power of course shuts down.

This is probably why it doesn't happen with an ac adapter.

Another possibility is that with the battery slice, the laptop gets too hot (fans get older and don't work as well) from the heat of the battery, and that can cause shut downs as well. You can try lower the room temperature and see if this helps.

Lastly, it may simply be the motherboard is dying and hence the instability. My laptop died on me this year, after the warranty expired, but the solutions I had offered above did help reduce the frequency of its shut down, but it can only prolong its life.

Hope this helps,
 
Solution

lordzsolt

Honorable
Aug 19, 2013
2
0
10,510
- The battery wasn't dying of heat, because it was shutting down the INSTANT the GPU wanted to draw power (at boot time, or when starting a game)
- It wasn't motherboard related, because it was working with other batteries.

Took it to a couple of Services, all of them said pretty much the same thing:
- The battery can/does hold the charges (ie. there's no problem with the capacity), but it is unable to deliver at a high enough current required for the GPU (ie. the amperage is too low).
^ Now I only have a basic understanding of physics :) Someone could probably explain this better.

What happened was that I got refunded the price of the battery after I've threatened the company with legal actions.