Acer 8204WLMI Battery Issues and the Acer Xperience!

I too have the 8204.

Battery Properties:
Device Name COMO
Manufacturer SANYO
Serial Number 5095
Unique ID 5095SANYOCOMO
Battery Type Rechargeable Li-Ion
Designed Capacity 86580 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 12610 mWh
Current Capacity 5261 mWh (42 %)
Voltage 12554 mV
Wear Level 85 %
Power State AC Line, Charging
Discharge Rate 713996 mW




I wont be taking a battery appart,

Does anyone have experience with the aftermarket acer batteries. ??

why are all the oems 6600 vs. 7200 MaH???

My battery wear is at 85% now. Laptop is a year and 8 months old. This kinda sucks because I am not a mobile professional. This laptop is used every day on AC power in the living room, while my wife watches tv.

Any experiences with the batteries oems vs the original acer sanyo or panasonic battery. Cheapest price I can find is 116 shipped, which is same from acer.

Anyone been about to find the 7200 ones for less?

This is the only issue Ive had with this laptop knock on wood.

I called acer and told them it was pretty dissapointing to have to buy a battery so soon from a 2500 flagship laptop in the travelmate series. First they told me if I had extended warranty it would be covered. Then they retracted and said consumables not covered. After further discussion the rep said he couldnt make any type of exception. I stated that it was pretty poor customer service experience since he clearly stated it would be covered IF but then retracted. Not that it mattered. I didnt purchase the extended program.

The issue was escalated to a supervisor and she made three call attempts on Friday stating if she didnt hear back soon she would be closing out the case #. I was out of town visiting family and have a pda phone that died. I didnt remember to turn it on while on vacation

Called her back today....and glad I waited to speak to the wizard of oz only to be told NO again. She said its either covered or not. No in between. I just re-itterated that I didnt feel a flagship laptop battery should crap out this soon and just this weekend (the truth) was looking at the 429.99 acer laptop for my wife...the new white one. and she didnt care I suppose. I asked for a little consideration based on the situation, explaining that I have a vaio and thinkpad at home that are over 5-7 year old and their batteries last longer.

It was hopeless. She gave me the name of their partner distributors for parts all of which were more expensive than acer direct who was slightly higher than another online retailer that came in around 106 + 7 for shipping for the 9 cell. 7200 maH oem battery.

Well that is my only and more than likely final experience with acer customer service, Will also more than likely be last acer notebook purchase with my hard earned money. I ended the conversation politely and professionally and let he know I dont think I will be considering another acer product based upon this xperience. I also added that I hope she didnt invest her hard earned money as well in a company as black and white as Acer is.

I would say that I am a very articulate and persuasive person on the phone having 15 years of sales experience. I should have been able to sell acer on my situation. It was a very heartless , "there is nothing we can do fo ryou sir"

Am I out of line thinking a battery (consumable ) should last longer than a 1 1/2 with about 5% mobile use. Again I am not a student or mobil pro. I dont game on the battery, and the ac is plugged in 95% of the time.

Im out of ideas..... Its not a big deal, I can afford the battery....just that I dont think it is warranted. I would have been pleased with an exception effort of a 1/2 priced battery or even refurb battery. None of which were extended to me.

Thanks Acer.

 

Batteries are never covered by extended warranty. Li-IO Batteries have a useful life span of 2 years.

A year and 8 months is pretty standard life span for the battery, sad to say. If you have one that lasts over 2 years, good for you but quite frankly 20 months isnt that unusual.

Keep in mind that if the laptop is plugged in all the time it still uses the battery, so wear and tear is just the same. Depending on the smarts in the charging circuits, keeping it plugged in constantly can even be worse for the battery.

 

Orthorim,

Are their certain replacement battiers I should avoid or do you get what you pay for. On ebay they can be had around 75 or so with shipping. Why should i pay 116 for the original acer batter that gives me 7200Mah vs. 6600 Mah. Seeing as how this battery never lasted all that long is it really going to matter.

While I understand that they dont last 2 years or so that definately has not been my experience with the past 2 laptops I have.

It appears you have the same laptop.

I appreciate your feedback. Still dont agree with acer on the subject but its moot at this point. I just think they could have threw me a bone thats all.

Its not like the 8200 series is a budget line lappy .


thanks again

 

Honest question, even at 95% wear do you really care given that you state

"This laptop is used every day on AC power in the living room, while my wife watches tv. "

If you only ever use the laptop on AC, why worry about battery wear?

ACER isn't likely to replace it, given that you don't have the extended warranty (same goes for any other component that has issues), how carefully have you taken care of the battery? Mine is still pretty good at a year and 8 months (or so), although I honestly have no idea of the exact wear level, rarely run on battery power, so rarely care how long it lasts.

 

Interesting take, but 20 minutes kinda sucks when you do need battery power. I went out of town last weekend and was on the road for about 12 hours. Might have been nice to have some juice if nessecary.

BTW, i dont expect acer to replace it either, although I have definately seen better customer service before.

Define take care of your battery.

Have I left it run down below 40% before....yeah...I honestly didnt know better. I was always told that these batteries dont have memory effect etc. However I think with the 8204 heat is a major issue. So I will likely pick up a cooling pad thing after I get a new battery. I may continue to use the old battery and swap batteries when i really need to use the battery.

Not sure how that would work out. But on the ac, it wouldnt matter. I could always leave the batterout as well. i thought about doing that from the getgo. But I didnt.

Anyways I would say heat more than anything killed it.

 

My battery is fine after about 1y 9months as well.

I should add though that I had it replaced 4 months into buying the laptop, so the battery is only 1 year 5 months old.

Cause for replacement was that the battery lasted only 2 hours with all power savings options enabled after 4 months. Was replaced by Acer under warranty.

I have the extended 3 year warranty but it does not apply to the battery which is only under warranty for 1 year. I don't think any kind of extended warranty would include the battery.

 

True true... was just pointing it out, my old TOshiba battery lasts about 5 minutes (tops) now, but since the only person to use it is my wife, and she NEVER uses it without the AC Cord, it doesn't honestly bother me.

TO be honest, Customer service these days seems to always be a total guess, sometimes you'll get great service (from any company) and sometimes you get really bad service. I generally try to avoid having to call them, because I know they are often not good.

Interesting, I've let mine run down to 0, quite a number of times, seems to be good still. Maybe that's the ticket, let it run ALL the way out? As for cooling, have you cleaned out your 8204? I find that mine needs periodic cleaning (specifically blowing air into the heat vent when it's off with the cover off to get all the dust out) after that it works fine for maybe 3-4 months, and then I have to do it again.

The one issue I find with leaving the battery out is that the minor power issue (cord wobbles and doesn't make a perfect connection) and the computer will turn off! Even a battery with 30 seconds of power in it will at least mean that it won't turn off the instant the power is disconnected.

Good luck, if you need more info on the heat issue, I know there is a thread in here somewhere about it and I'm sure I could probably dig it up.

 

acer costumer service is very weak.

END OF POST

 

I'm suffering similar heat problems, I used it on top of a cushion for a bit and borked the graphics card. It had lots of permanent vertical scanlines, these gradually got worse and now the screen is unusable. I'm going to send it back to Acer to get repaired (it's out of warranty so i'm nervous as to the cost) but once it gets back to me I'm going to buy a cooling mat.

Now the question is, which cooling mat do I buy? Seeing as the 8204WLMi sucks air in from the top left and blows it out the right of the laptop, which kind of fan do I need? One that blows air up onto the laptop, or one that sucks air away for it? Or are there any other models that will work well with this laptop? Any links to coolers that blows air upwards onto the laptop?