Resolved Short Battery Life - ACER Aspire E1 771

I have an Acer laptop (Aspire E1-771-6458) that is less than two years old. Since the day I purchased it the battery life has been extremely short. I’m not sure exactly how long the battery lasted originally with normal usage – but now it doesn’t go longer than 2 hours or so.

Apparently this laptop system wasn’t designed for long battery life. (According to comments in this link .. http://laptops.specout.com/l/2866/E1-771-6458 .. anticipated battery life is only 3 hours.)

I did a ‘battery calibration’ as recommended on line – (How to Calibrate Your Laptop’s Battery For Accurate Battery Life Estimates) – and then followed up by downloading the tool CPUID HWMonitor. The tool indicates that the battery has a ‘wear level’ of 38%. (design cap. 48,400 mWh, full chg. Cap. 30,030). I don’t know how conclusive this tool is and whether it definitely shows that the battery is functioning at less than 2/3 capacity. Comments from anyone ?

The battery charges quickly – (within an hour or so if most programs and screen are shut down).

Because the battery drains so rapidly, I tend of use the laptop ‘plugged in’ to power outlet most of the time.

I’ve checked at Amazon.com and found that I can get a standard replacement battery with specification 4400 mAh / 48Wh, for about $27 including shipping. (Brand name is BATTPIT.) There is another model, which supposedly is appropriate for this laptop that has specification 6600 mAh / 71Wh for $39 including shipping. Does this mean that I should get almost 50% more life from the higher rated battery?

If someone can comment on (a) interpretation of the CPUID HWMonitor ‘wear level’, and (b) advisability of replacing the current battery with the 6600 mAh battery – I’ll appreciate it. Also, if anyone has any experience using this brand of battery, I’d like to hear comments.

Thanks in advance,

 

According to these specs, the "maximum" battery run time when new was 3 hours. It is normal for run times to decrease as the battery ages. So if you now are getting "2 hours or so", I would say that is normal.

The greater mAh rating will provide longer run time but because run times vary greatly depending on the tasks being performed, there's no way to tell if that will amount to 50% longer run time.

Note that calibrating the battery just makes sure your notebooks charging and shutdown features are in sync with the current charge rate of the battery. That How-To Geek procedure is a generic method that works for most notebooks. But you should check your notebooks user guide to see if it is the same for your notebook.

 

Thanks for the feed back. I went through the command exercise (referred in above recommendation) and it confirms that the battery is only charging to about 60% of original design. I think I'll proceed with ordering a replacement battery.