Hey. I recently started to play in VR and I noticed something strange. I noticed, that when I am playing in VR, the battery would lose some energy, when plugged in. Should I worry about it?

I have the Predator Helios 300 with i5 7th gen, 1050ti and 12gb ram, in case someone would ask

5 years ago

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I know one person who has mentioned this issue.

They were endulging in "VR" "Adult" experiences.

They stopped.

It stopped.

5 years ago
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ti hi giggle

5 years ago
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I wouldn't be surprised if your rig is pulling more juice out of the battery than your power supply can put in.
Just take a break every hours or so :)

Discussion in Acer forum

5 years ago
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Laptops come with tradeoffs unfortunately, and this would be one of them. Whenever you do top tier stuff on a laptop you are pushing it beyond its limits, and this will show in reduced lifetime, overheating issues, weird crashes and glitches, power drain beyond what the charger can provide, and so on. All of these things are things telling you that you are operating your laptop at levels you need a desktop to do comfortably.

Laptops are awesome but don't mistake the "gaming" marketing they do as meaning that laptops are a good choice for gaming. If you don't absolutely need the laptop formfactor always go for a desktop first - and if you absolutely need the laptop formfactor be aware of those tradeoffs I mentioned and don't expect it to perform as a desktop would.

5 years ago
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That is a good advice +1

5 years ago
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About those "overheating issues"... I've heard, that Intel CPUs tend to go up to max 90°C when in-game. Is that normal, that when I play any game, that is not using CPU that much, that it jumps to 80°C during playing?

5 years ago
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Does it run when you remove the battery and just plug it in?
A constant charge/recharge cycle will kill the battery.

5 years ago
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+1 m3rc's right if it will run without battery in it will be much better for you in the long run! =)

5 years ago
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But the problem is, that I cannot remove the battery in my case

5 years ago
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I'm not sure how common it is, but I know all my recent laptops have had a manual switch above the battery for toggling a bypass to it. As implied by others recommending battery removal, toggling that switch can theoretically be useful for optimizing efficiency when using the laptop while it's plugged in, and it's also useful for testing or working around certain battery issues. I believe it also continues to attempt to charge the battery when using this method, so you don't end up having to pop the battery back in on its own to charge it, after you complete your un-batteried usage. [I'd test that on my laptop, but I'm currently already bypassing the battery 'cause it's dead. :P]

That said, I believe there's a general assumption that any laptop with a non-removal battery is rather low-end, which makes it a bit surprising if such a laptop is able to run anything meaningful on it to begin with. Which is to say, are you confident the battery can't be removed, or did you just make an assumption based on not finding any release lever? I'm only asking 'cause I've seen some laptops hide the lever in tricky ways, or even make it so you simply have to pull hard on the battery to release it.

If you can't remove it then, well- it seems like it'd definitely stress the battery, but as noted by others, the process itself is perfectly normal (rather, the drain-and-recharge happens any time you have the laptop plugged in with the battery active, it's just that the recharge typically exceeds the drain). As long as you're not draining it to the bottom and crashing your game midway in, it's the same decision anyone with a lower-spec computer has to make: What trade-off am I willing to make between hardware wear and my approach to usage?

For example, I try not to exceed 40C hardware temperatures too much while gaming, wherever possible, while others totally don't hesitate to hit 80C (Generally, 90-110C is where your computer forces an auto-shut-off [though I believe some do it as low as 70C] while 60C is considered a reasonable maximum temperature by most, so both 40 and 80 are pushing expectations in different directions, with keeping below 50C being considered to be best for maintaining hardware longevity). Computers are designed to keep risks to hardware in mind, so most of the time your considerations are based less in "omigosh, am I gonna break it now" and more in "how soon will be an okay time for me to replace my computer".

5 years ago*
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Gaming in VR? Offcourse that's gonna drain your laptop, big time.

Even draining for the energizer bunny.

5 years ago*
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Get a pc :P haha

5 years ago
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The next time when I will upgrade, I will get one. Thank you for your concern.

5 years ago
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ahahha you are welcome :D

5 years ago
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:D I am not sure, if you were trolling or something. I know that PCs are better at gaming but back in the day (Feb 2018) I just wanted a better gaming unit and the local store happened to have a good enough upgrade for me in form of this laptop. I had a pc with some AMD FX with GTX 760 and 8gb ddr3 I guess. And that CPU was annoing as hell, because of it I had to get an other fan to keep it cool. It has such an issue, that if it hits 65°C, it does half the performance and it cools down to 60°C and it works normally again. And then the cycle keeps going and going. And then some day I built in a fan into the case and then the issue stopped. It was loud af but it worked :P Sorry for the story time

5 years ago
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You can perhaps adjust those throttling settings but then, you really don't want to be exceeding 65C to begin with. Especially with processors, since they're designed to limit themselves before any temperature that'd be dangerous to them.
Upgrading the quality and quantity* of your fans is definitely preferable.

*Though having too many fans can create problematic suction, actively drawing in outside dust.

5 years ago*
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no problem well about cpu temp problem i have it also but my cpu when hit like 81 then its rly bad restart pc and drop down at 65 so good enough to keep gaming ^^ btw didnt change cpu paste idk 5 years from when i bought this pc anyway have another cpu near this pc will set it next month must buy ram and motherboard for it :P PC MASTER RACE haha :D

5 years ago
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It will drain up to a certain point, then start throttling to reduce power consumption. So don't worry, your battery won't completely drain. But you will start to notice a reduction of frame rate.

5 years ago
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The drain on the battery during gaming is faster than the charger can replenish it. The longevity of the battery may be slightly reduced but I wouldn't worry too much about it. If it dies after a few years then buy a new one . I assume you have enough money anyway (VR, good laptop specs) ;)
Enjoy your games.

5 years ago
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Thanks. I noticed, that my charger is 135W and the battery loses its energy when playing Beat Saber or VRChat. Do you think, that if I'd get a new charger, 180W for instance, the issue would not happen so often?

5 years ago
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That's just not how chargers work. Any appliance is based around taking in a certain amount of energy, chargers have to match that energy expectation. If you use an improper charger, your laptop not only won't be able to handle the difference in input (since it's expecting something very specific), but it'll either have more energy coming in than it can handle, or too little to function as intended, either one of which can cause severe issues with your hardware.

Your laptop should have a specific official charger associated with it (and if you're not sure that that's what you're using, that's something you may want to confirm the specs on). You can use offbrand chargers matching to the specs of that official charger, but that's about the only sort of trade-off you'll be able to do in that regard.

5 years ago
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You shouldn't play while the battery is on and the laptop is plugged. Remove the battery when not in use.

5 years ago
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I'd do that, if I could. The battery is built in.

5 years ago
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