Why is My Laptop Battery Draining During Gaming??

We're noticing this battery drain issue become increasingly common on newer gaming laptops and Acer’s new Nitro V 16S is the most recent example of how small power supplies can create big problems.

What Is Battery Drain?

Battery drain occurs when a laptop consumes more power than its charger can provide. Even though it’s plugged in, the system starts pulling extra energy from the battery to make up the shortfall. Over time, this can degrade the battery’s health and shorten its lifespan.

Why Does It Happen?

Modern gaming laptops juggle high-performance CPUs and GPUs that can draw significant wattage during demanding workloads. If the charger’s capacity (measured in watts) isn’t high enough, the laptop simply can’t sustain full performance on AC power alone. This typically happens when manufacturers pair powerful components with underpowered chargers to cut costs or reduce weight.

Some manufacturers even allow you to turn this draining option on or off in your settings to maximize performance or prioritize efficiency.

The Nitro V 16S: A Case Study

Acer’s Nitro V 16S is a slim mid-range gaming laptop priced between $1,200 and $1,400. It features either Intel’s older Core 7 240H or AMD’s Ryzen 7 260 processor and an RTX 5060 GPU. On paper, that sounds reasonable — until you look at the charger.

Acer ships this model with a 135-watt power adapter, one of the smallest we’ve seen in a gaming laptop at this level. In testing, that limitation caused the Nitro to lose over 1% of battery life during a single 3-minute Forza Horizon 5 benchmark, and more than 2% in Monster Hunter Wilds, both while plugged in. Extrapolated, that means the battery could fully deplete after roughly five hours of continuous gaming — even when connected to wall power.

Graph shows the percentage of the battery lost over the course of the monster hunter wilds benchmark: almost 3% on Turbo mode

Monster Hunter Wilds: Battery Drain

Switching to a higher-performance mode only worsened the issue. Trying a larger 230-watt Predator Helios Neo charger didn’t help either; the Nitro’s firmware caps its power draw, so a fix will likely require a BIOS update from Acer.

Should You Be Concerned?

Yes, but context matters. Most gamers won’t play nonstop for five hours. Still, repeated drain-and-recharge cycles will gradually reduce overall battery capacity, which also affects day-to-day unplugged use. Even light users could see shorter runtimes over time if they frequently game on AC power.

Our Recommendation

For now, we suggest holding off on the Nitro V 16S unless Acer issues a firmware fix to allow higher power draw or supports a larger charger. Competing laptops like the Lenovo Legion 5i or Gigabyte Aero X16 don’t suffer from this issue. Both come with more efficient processors and higher-wattage adapters.

Battery drain isn’t new, but it’s a reminder that wattage matters just as much as raw specs. Before buying, always check what charger a laptop ships with — and whether it’s truly enough to keep up with the hardware inside.

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