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November 8th, 2018 10:00

17 R5, battery draining during gaming, plugged in

After playing highly demanding games for a while my Alienware 17 R5's battery starts to drain while it's plugged in. This is with the 240W adapter that came with the laptop. It seems to drain to either 95% or 90% then doesn't drain further. I found a reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/8j1jj8/battery_draining_while_plugged_in_when_playing/) where people were claiming that although this is intended, it's still really bad for the battery. Is this true? They claimed getting a 330W adapter fixed their problem. Can anyone confirm this? If I should get a new adapter, how do I go about getting Dell or whoever to approve the new charger so I don't void my warranty? Do I even need to do this? This is the charger I'm looking at: https://www.adaptersdepot.com/dell-ac-adapters-c-122_72/original-330w-dell-alienware-17-r5-p31e-p31e002-charger-ac-adapter-p-185936.html Thanks for the help.

3 Apprentice

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4.4K Posts

November 8th, 2018 13:00

Hi @theSYNAPSED,

Check this article. 

November 8th, 2018 13:00

This was very helpful, thank you! What is your opinion on getting a 330W adapter to avoid this?

November 11th, 2018 08:00

@Alienware-Eimy Just @ ing you to see if I can get an answer to my question in my reply above. Not sure how these forums work so I don't know if you didn't see the question or are just busy. Thanks again for the article. Here was my question: "What is your opinion on getting a 330W adapter to avoid this?" I'd like to get Alienware's opinion on this, especially if I'm going to actually use a higher wattage adapter.

10 Posts

November 12th, 2018 06:00

Hi 

I have exactly the same model alienware like you and the same issue happened to me and I changed to 330 watts 

and I asked dell support they just changed to 330 watts without any knowledge it works better than 240 watts in game and charge but I have now other issue which is : Coil whine, also known as electromagnetically excited acoustic noise and vibration or audible magnetic noise, is one of the most frustrating phenomena in modern technology. As its name suggests, this high-pitched noise is caused by electromagnetic coils that act as inductors or transformers.

It makes sound loud while gaming at first I thought its HDD but I was wrong.
check here one of my story with R5 : 
https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/Alien-Ware-17-R5-i7-8750H-1TB-7200RPM-SATA-HDD-Very-Noise/m-p/6215761#M17878

3 Apprentice

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4.4K Posts

November 13th, 2018 06:00

@theSYNAPSED,

We've seen users who have changed their adapters to the wattage mentioned (330W) and have successfully transferred the power requirements to the adapter only. However, this is not necessary considering that the PC can supply the entire power with this feature.

6 Posts

February 15th, 2019 04:00

Old post but for others looking at this, the link in the second comment is extremely helpful. This is a bios/software feature to stop throttling and changing to a 330W adapter does not change this from happening, the battery will drop 5% by design every hour until it reaches 20% and this feature will be disabled (throttling will then start during heavy usage).

And the 330W charger is noiseless, as opposed to some comments. Not a single sound from it.

6 Posts

February 15th, 2019 05:00

What specifically does this mean "... changed their adapters to the wattage mentioned (330W) and have successfully transferred the power requirements to the adapter only"? Is there some windows settings to change per adapter?

1 Message

April 21st, 2020 17:00

The link in the second message is very useful but can anyone please give me a method to disable this mode. I belive that disabling it is possible because, I didn't notice it before today and I've been using my Laptop for like 9 months now.

1 Message

May 3rd, 2020 13:00

i've the same problem. im using dell g7 laptop i normally use it while plugged in . when i game my battery is dropping slowly is it normal? my laptop is only 1 month old everythings fine i just have this draining problem.

April 12th, 2022 12:00

thank you this was very helpful , i am using g7 17 and i thought this is a problem only with me......i am using Ad 180 w and i want to ask is that necessary to change to 330 w ??

7 Technologist

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6.1K Posts

April 12th, 2022 15:00

Hi @theSYNAPSED  welcome to this free user to user Alienware laptop discussion forum. This is not Dell Support. 

The Dell warranty applies to the invoice, as delivered system configuration. If warranty requires return system to Dell for repair, Dell may declare warranty void and refuse to fix the system. So always retain the ability to provide the original system configuration. Although Dell expects the storage capacity and RAM updated, the system is usually returned to the user in the as supplied Factory build configuration. 

Users can create Service Request to include purchase of Dell OEM 330W ac adapter within their Dell warranty. However, if mainboard (aka Motherboard) develops Coil Whine, etc. there is risk that Dell warranty may be withdrawn. 

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