AC adapter not detected while system is on — Framework Laptop 13 AMD Ryzen 7040U, BIOS 3.18, Arch Linux

Community Support
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Hardware/Software:

  • Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7 7840U)
  • BIOS: 03.18
  • OS: Arch Linux, kernel 7.0.3 linux-zen
  • Battery: 219 charge cycles, ~56% of design capacity remaining

Symptom:
The system does not detect AC power when the charger is plugged in while the laptop is awake and running. cat /sys/class/power_supply/ACAD/online reads 0, and the battery continues discharging (status: Discharging, current_now shows active drain) even with the charger connected.

However, if I plug the charger in while the laptop is fully shut down, it charges immediately and continues charging normally once I boot into the OS. If I then unplug and replug the charger while the system is running, AC is not detected again — the only way to restore charging is to fully power off and plug the charger in during shutdown.

When this first occurred yesterday, the laptop needed to sit fully disconnected and powered off for roughly 30 minutes before charging would work again on reconnect. Today, the same shutdown+replug sequence works immediately, with no wait required.

Over the last month, I noticed that when my laptop is connected, the OS sometimes shows it’s charging, but then for a few seconds it shows that laptop is not charging. This was happening before the issue became critical. The laptop is almost always wired up — I mostly use it as a desktop and only move it from room to room. I have the original charger, but with two different cables: one is the original, and one is an Anker.

What I’ve ruled out:

  • Charger, cable, and port — tested the stock charger with multiple cables across multiple USB-C ports; the same charger and cables charge my phone and another laptop normally
  • TLP charge thresholds — TLP (1.10.0) reports Battery Care Plugin: generic, Supported features: none available, and charge_control_start_threshold / charge_control_end_threshold are not exposed in /sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/ at all, so TLP has no active control path on this hardware currently
  • Suspend/resume — a plain suspend/resume cycle does not restore AC detection; only a full shutdown does
  • Recent updates — no package updates in the days before this started; last kernel/TLP changes were from early May (6.19.11 → 7.0.3, TLP 1.9.1 → 1.10.0), so this doesn’t appear to be a fresh regression from a recent update

Given that a full shutdown (not suspend) is required to restore charging, and the first occurrence needed a longer disconnected wait than today’s, this feels like it could be an EC-level fault state rather than something OS/driver-side. Has anyone seen this pattern before, or know if 3.20 addresses AC-detection/charging-state handling specifically?

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Update:

Since posting, the issue got more specific and I got a response from Framework support.

The problem is isolated to one specific port (top-left). That port won’t charge while the system is on, but works if the charger is connected while the laptop is off (and continues working once booted). All other ports are unaffected. Also found that HDMI through that same port doesn’t work either, though keyboard/data does.

I did a motherboard reset. I also tested with a different OS to rule out an Linux specific issue, and confirmed the port fails even from BIOS — it simply doesn’t work whenever the computer is turned on, regardless of OS or firmware-level state. I sent photos and video of the motherboard, they found no visible damage. Despite all that, their only response was to recommend buying a new motherboard, with no real explanation of what’s actually wrong.

The only thing i didn’t try yet is full power drain/reset (remove SSD/RAM, disconnect battery, hold power 15s, leave disconnected)

What’s frustrating is there’s no real cause — just a suggestion to replace the whole board. Has anyone dealt with a similar port-specific charging + HDMI failure? Would appreciate any explanation of what’s actually going on before I spend money on a replacement mainboard.

P.S. Additional issue I missed: After all this back and forth with support, I started charging through a different top-right port and noticed the same issue I had before.

About a month before this became critical, I saw the same symptom on a different port that is now having issues (top right): the orange charging light was blinking, and the OS kept switching between charging and not charging every 2–3 seconds. Now I’m seeing the same issue on the top-left port as well.

This happened even at around 30% battery, well below any charge limit, and with the BIOS charge limit disabled. It usually cleared itself after 10–15 minutes.

Looking back, this seems to have led to the current problem.

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Okay, so this is pretty much a known issue, and at this point it’s most certainly, pretty much beyond reasonable doubt, a hardware issue. Multiple people have reported the same problem with charging flipping between charging and not charging states.

However, my case suggests that this behavior can eventually lead to one of the ports becoming completely unusable for charging a laptop. I hope someone takes notice and looks into fixing this, because that’s a pretty serious bug.

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