Acer Nitro 5 and Nitro 7 are popular gaming laptops packed with good hardware. You don’t expect the best battery life from a gaming laptop, but it should be reasonable. Acer Nitro 5 and Nitro 7 users have reported that the laptop only lasts for up to 2 hours with no gaming. Users are unhappy with the battery backup these Nitro laptops have to offer. Fortunately, there are ways to improve it.
In the first part of this guide, we will walk you through the reasons causing the fast battery drain on your Acer Nitro 5 and Nitro 7. Then, we will move on to the working steps to fix it.
Why Is Your Acer Nitro 5 / 7 Laptop’s Battery Draining Fast?
Following are the common reasons which could be resulting in fast battery drain on your Acer Nitro laptop:
- Too many running processes: If your computer has too many processes running in the background, it can quickly eat the remaining battery. Remember, the more number of running processes in the background, the less will be battery backup.
- Heavy application or game is running: If you are running a heavy application or game such as video editing software or AAA games, it will consume large system resources, which would result in fast battery consumption.
- Incorrect power settings: If your laptop’s battery is draining too fast, probably the power settings are not optimized. Later in this article, we discussed the best settings to get the best battery life on your Acer laptop.
- Laptop overheating: When a laptop overheats, it will consume battery at a fast rate. It is recommended to avoid using the device for some time during overheating.
- Software issues: Your Acer laptop may have a software bug or corrupted firmware causing the battery to go down quickly. A faulty driver could also be contributing to this problem.
Now that we know the factors that could be causing the Acer Nitro laptop’s battery drain issue, let me quickly take you through the troubleshooting steps.
11 Ways to Fix Acer Nitro 5 / 7 Battery Draining Fast Problem
If your Acer Nitro 5 or Nitro 7’s battery is draining fast, these solutions will surely improve the battery life. Simply, go through the solutions and apply them on your Acer laptop.
1. Turn off the Keyboard Backlight
Acer Nitro 5 and Nitro 7 have a backlit feature on the keyboard. While it looks cool (sometimes you need it in the dark), using it for hours can significantly reduce the battery. When you don’t need to use backlit, turn it off. It will surely add several more minutes to the battery backup.
To turn the Keyboard backlight on or off, hit the Nitro fan button and tap on the Settings icon. You’ll get the keyboard backlight option there.
2. Turn off Unnecessary Background Apps
Your computer may be running applications in the background that are not necessary. It will continue to take resources and consume the battery. Here’s how you can disable unnecessary background apps on your Windows PC:
[For Windows 10]
- Press the “Win + X” shortcut and select the “Settings” option.
- Tap on “Privacy”.
- Click “Background apps” from the left panel. You will see a list of apps installed on your device.
- Enable the toggle next to apps that you do not want to run in the background.
[For Windows 11]
- Press the “Win + X” shortcut and select the “Settings” option.
- Tap on “Apps” from the left panel.
- Click “Installed apps”.
- Find the app which you do want to run in the background. Click the three-dot icon next to it and select “Advanced options”.
- Open the dropdown below “Background apps permissions”.
- Select “Never” from the available dropdown options.
3. Enable Battery Saver
Enabling Battery Saver on your Acer Nitro laptop can significantly improve the battery life. It will kill background processes and free up CPU and GPU. This could result in more screen-on time.
By default, your Windows 11 laptop turns on the Battery Saver feature once the battery percentage goes down to 20. You can set it to 40 to get more battery life.
Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Press the “Win + X” shortcut and select the “Settings” option.
- Tap on “System” from the left panel.
- Click “Power & battery”.
- Scroll down to the “Battery” section and expand the “Battery saver” option by tapping on it.
- Set “Turn battery saver automatically at” to “40%”.
To further improve the battery backup of your Acer laptop, turn on the “Lower screen brightness when using battery saver” option.
4. Disable Unnecessary Startup Apps
If your Acer Nitro 5 or Nitro 7 have a lot of startup apps, disabling them can significantly improve the battery life. Perhaps, it could be causing the fast battery drain problem on your PC.
For those uninitiated, startup apps are nothing but apps that launch as soon as you turn on your computer. There may be some which you would not want to launch unless required.
Here’s how to disable startup apps:
- Press the “Win + X” shortcut and select “Task Manager”. Or, you can use Windows search to open “Task Manager”.
- Go to the “Startup” tab. On Windows 10 PC, you will find it at the top. If you have a Windows 11 PC, select “Startup apps” from the left panel.
- Right-click on the app which you do want to launch at the startup and select “Disable”.
- Repeat the above step for all unnecessary startup apps.
After disabling unnecessary startup apps, reboot your computer. Now, they won’t launch with the start of the device. You can launch them manually.
5. Change the Power Mode
Windows computers have a lot of power options to optimize the battery. One of them is the Power Mode. Choosing the right one can make some difference.
Here’s how to change the Power Mode:
- Press the “Win + X” shortcut and select the “Settings” option.
- Tap on “System” from the left panel.
- Click “Power & battery”.
- Click the dropdown next to “Power mode” and select “Balanced”.
Power Mode has three options to choose from: Best power efficiency, Balanced, and Best performance. The “Balanced” mode is recommended as it will improve the battery while keeping up with the performance.
6. Check the Battery Usage
On your Windows PC, you can easily know which apps have consumed the battery most. If you think some of them are unnecessary, removing them can greatly improve the battery life. Or, you can find alternate apps which require less system resources.
- Go to the “Settings” on your Windows PC.
- Tap on “System” and click “Power & battery”.
- Scroll down to the “Battery” section and tap on “Battery usage”.
- You can see the app list along with how much battery percentage each app has consumed.
- Click the dropdown next to “Sort by:” and select “Background”. It will show you the apps that have consumed the most battery in the background.
7. Update the Driver
Your computer may have outdated or corrupted battery-related drivers. Update them and check if they can improve the battery life.
Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Press the “Win + X” shortcut and select the “Device Manager” option.
- Expand the “Batteries” section.
- Right-click on “Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method
- Battery” and select “Update driver”.
- Click “Search automatically for drivers”.
Windows will look for new drivers. If an update is available, follow the on-screen instructions to install it.
8. Update Your PC
A software bug might be causing the fast battery drain on your Acer Nitro 5 or Nitro 7 laptop. If the bug has impacted a lot of users, a fix should arrive in the form of a software update. You should therefore update your PC.
To update your Acer Nitro laptop, open Settings, select Windows Update, and tap on Check for updates. If there are pending updates, download and install them. Finally, reboot your PC.
9. Run Windows Troubleshooter
Windows computers have a built-in troubleshooter which can handle common issues, including the battery draining issue.
- In the Windows search box at the bottom, type “Control panel” and hit “Enter”.
- Set “View by” to “Small icons” to see all the options.
- Tap on “Troubleshooting”.
- Under “System and Security” click “Improve power usage”.
- A pop-up window should open. Click “Next”.
Windows will automatically detect problems and apply the fix.
10. Downgrade to Windows 10
Windows 10 seems more power efficient than Windows 11. A Nitro 5 user was able to increase the battery life from 2 hours to 8 hours just by switching to Windows 10.
Here’s what he said on Reddit, “Install a fresh window 10 on your pc and you are good to go. My Laptop is now giving me more than 8hrs of battery backup and I was shocked see this much of battery improvements in my laptop by just downgrading my OS window form 11 to 10.”
“It might be possible that as soon as you installed window 10. Your laptop will not give you desired backup instantly. As when I installed window it was showing same 2hrs of battery remaining on 100% charge but from the next day battery backup increased drastically.”, he added further.
We can’t tell how much battery improvements are you going to see, but if you are struggling with Windows 11, you should try this solution.
11. Replace the Battery
If none of the above solutions worked out in your favor, probably your laptop’s battery is faulty. If your laptop is still covered under warranty, go to an authorized Acer service center to get it replaced.
Wrapping It Up
Having a powerful laptop like Acer Nitro 5 and Nitro 7 without a decent battery backup is not something anyone would want. Fortunately, there are many ways to improve it which we just wrapped up in this guide. We hope this guide helped you fix Acer Nitro 5 / 7 battery draining fast problem. If you have any questions or queries, write them in the comment section below and we’ll try to respond at the earliest.
