Acer Nitro 5 AN515-51-55WL battery is not charging, but doesn't lose charge while plugged into adapter

Question

I have an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-51-55WL laptop that has been having some battery issues and I've tried literally everything I could find on this issue to no avail.

I'm hoping one of you has an outside-the-box solution because the solutions I've thought of or found online have just straight up not worked.

The Problems:

• Laptop will not charge. It will not drain while plugged in and it will stay at whatever charge percentage it is at, but it will not charge further after discharging any amount of battery.
• The orange charging indicator light will flash orange once every second or so.
• If the charger is removed from the DC jack and then plugged back in, the battery system tray icon will do its normal animation showing that it's charging, and the charging indicator will be solid orange as normal: BUT only for a few seconds, max. It will then stop the animation, and the light will begin to flash again. It will continue to say something like "76% available (plugged in)" when hovering over the icon. It might even say "XX minutes to full charge" but it will not actually charge.
• It does not charge while on OR off. Just stays the same the next time I boot it up and check the charge.

What I Have Already Tried:

• Ensured that battery is not being capped by software

  • This is done through Acer Care Center. On some models, there is a setting to cap the battery to never charge past a
    certain point. This particular model does not have that feature in
    either Windows power settings OR the Acer Care Center so there is no software capping the battery. There is only a Battery Checkup option that returns "Good" every time.

• Battery Report

  • " powercfg /batteryreport " command was used to generate a battery report that showed no signs of significant battery health impairment.

• Plugged adapter into a different receptacle/outlet

• Battery Reset via pinhole at the bottom of the laptop of all variations, several times:

  • Unplugged laptop, powered down, held reset button for 5 full seconds, plugged in, powered on.
  • Unplugged laptop, powered down, held reset button for 15 full seconds, plugged in, and powered on.
    • Unplugged laptop, powered down, held reset button for 15 full seconds, waited 30 minutes, plugged in, and powered on.
  • Unplugged laptop, powered down, held reset button for 30 full seconds, plugged in, and powered on.
    • Unplugged laptop, powered down, held reset button for 30 full seconds, waited 30 minutes, plugged in, and powered on.

• Replaced AC/DC adapter: plugged in, same problems occurred; no difference whatsoever.

  • Plugged the new adapter into a different receptacle. Same problems.

• Replaced Battery

  • Disassembled laptop, removed the old internal battery, and replaced it with the new one. The new battery was in fact an exact model/ part number match with exactly the same specifications so compatibility is not the issue here.
    • Followed instructions exactly as sent by the new battery pack manufacturer: Discharge new battery to 3%, then plug in and charge to 100%.
    • The problem here is that it would not reach 100%. The battery was now charging but stopped at 76%. After being left to charge overnight for more than enough hours to reach 100%. The same exact issues as before are still present at this point.

• Update/ Uninstalled Battery Drivers.

  • Uninstalled battery drivers within Device Manager, powered down laptop, powered on. No worky. Drivers are up to date.

• BIOS Update

  • Nada.

• Windows update

  • No luck. Windows is up to date.

• Reinstall Windows

• Redditor-suggested BIOS operation

  • I tried the BIOS operation mentioned in this thread.

    • Power on the system, then press “Right Shift” + press “F2” rapidly to boot to Setup Utility. Make sure the Setup Utility label is “InsydeH20 Setup Utility (Manufacture)” with the RED color.
    • Remove the power cord.
    • Press “F9” to load setup default then press “F10” to save changes and exit. The system will auto shut down. Press the power button to verify the system CANNOT power. This confirms a battery reset has been successfully performed.
    • After this is complete, the customer should plug in the AC adapter and power on the notebook and see if the windows battery charge icon indicates the battery is charging.

Now, after that LAST suggestion, something changed, but nothing is fixed. After that last operation, the light no longer blinks orange every second or so. It is now consistently a solid orange while plugged in, but all other problems still remain. Still won't charge but won't drain while plugged in.

For light use, this would be fine but seeing as I use this laptop for games, running games even while plugged in causes the battery to discharge so it's going to be fully dead in no time with no hopes of charging back up.

Answer 1

I have exactly the same problem. I even bought a new battery while troubleshooting. What I have to do is unplug AC power, remove the bottom cover, and phisically unplug the battery for a while. once plugged back in it starts charging back up to 100%. Both batteries have the same result. The reseting with the power button clears cmos but does not correct the charging problem. I know this is not a practical solution so my last MOD was to cut the red wires on the battery and run two wires out of the laptop so I could disconnect the battery without dissasembly. Acer really needs to address this with a Bios update or something.