You’re a braver man than I! I would not feel comfortable messing with chargers to that degree, knowing from past, cheaper laptops how easy it can be to plug a bad charger in and damage a port.
It’s not actually that easy to damage stuff without going way over voltage and it’s not like I have never tried any of those before, hell I got some of them expressly to stress test them.
I have done way sketchier stuff than plugging pd power supplies into a pd device XD
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Both 5V C-to-C and A-to-C with proper resistors should work with kickstarting (both worked for me).
Maybe your 5V C-to-C source and/or A-to-C cable is faulty?
For USB-C-sources: some don’t have the necessary resistors (should have two, some have one or none)
For USB-A-cables: some don’t have the necessary resistor (should have one, some have none)
Maybe try some different cables or try turning them around (on both sides).
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Hell let me do some more retesting here.
For stuff past 5v you need full negotiation over the cc pins, resistors are just for the really basic stuff.
For the c to c I was using an e-marked 5A thunderbolt cable, I could try a few different a to c cables though.
Edit: interresting, with a fully charged laptop both a to c and c to c worked with 5v with a bit of kickstarting, I tried a basic 5v phone charger, and old anker 5v power bank and a 5v usb-c + usb-a powerbank board, the a to c all did 0.8A which is a hell of a lot better than nothing and the c to c did 1.2A. I’ll discharge the laptop and see if it still works at lower charge because some of the 12v pd sources also worked without kickstart on a fully charged laptop but needed one when it was discharged more.
Edit2: Yeah even discharged they work now, maybe my kickstart technique just wasn’t good enough the first time and some of them do take multiple tries to stick but they can indeed be kickstarted. Updated the list.
Edit3: It keeps getting weirder, when the laptop is powered off, the a to c connections are still capped at 800ma but it somehow happily pulls 2.7A out of the 5v only power-bank with the c to c cable once kickstarted. The qc2 powerbank also goes over 2 a briefly and then turns off which is more than it does when the laptop is on.
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Same problem for me with the same 30W Ugreen charger.
The red charging led blinks always on and off and after some time (maybe) it starts charging.
A bios fix or a info why it is not working would be appreciated 
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Summary Post
Please stop saying you have the same issue, that just causes a lot of unnecessary noise in this thread, upvote the original post instead!
The issue has been acknowledged by the Framework team, who are probably looking into the issue for the next firmware version (though I feel like with the upcoming Framework 16 launch, they might be a bit busy right now).
Problem Description
The main issue seems to be that the Framework laptop overloads chargers with more than 5V but less than 3A. This means, the laptop needs multiple retries when trying to charge via a 20W/35W/45W charger, if it even starts charging at all (60W and 100W chargers should not be affected).
Additionally, the laptop does not seem to start charging on 5V (but does charge with the described workarounds below), neither with the resistor-based PD communication, nor with USB-A chargers through A-to-C-cables.
For now, this issue seems to be independent of the PD controller / embedded controller firmware upgrade, but some reports say this only occurs since the 3.03 firmware package.
Workarounds
Kickstarting
Charging via the non-working chargers works when “kickstarting” the laptop with a working (>=60W) charger first.
For example, plugging in both a 20W and 60W charger, then unplugging the 60W charger leaves the laptop charging from the 20W charger without issues.
PD Passthrough
With at least some portable USB-C docks that have PD passthrough and can be used both with or without external power, charging via the PD passthrough works without issues (I’ve personally tested a NOVOO unit).
Additional Information
| Charger Type | Result | Example Chargers |
|---|---|---|
| 100W USB-C PD | Works | Storm2 USB-C1, UGREEN Nexode 100W |
| 60W USB-C PD | Works | UGREEN 65W |
| >15W <60W USB-C PD | Starts charging with workarounds | Storm2 USB-C2, Steam Deck charger, Anker PowerDrive Speed+ Duo, Belkin WCH001dq, 30W UGREEN Nexode, […] |
| 7.5W/15W 5V USB-C PD | Does not start, workarounds untested | cheap No-Name USB-C 5V charger |
| 5W 5V DCP (A-to-C) | Starts charging with workarounds (5V 0.8A) | Anker 24W 2-Port USB-A charger |
There seem to be some outliers (“Anker Prime 67 W” and “MiniX Neo P1” apparently have issues, even though they have >=65W)
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Here to confirm my batch 8 framework 13 7640u doesn’t charge with my steam deck charger. It charges fine with my rocoren 140w adapter though. My previous ASUS TUF A16 had no issue charging on the steam deck charger. Actually it would charge just fine on chargers down to 5w. This is a disappointing finding.
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Interestingly it seems like the switch charger works just fine on my framework (tried two different ones and they both worked). Thought it was all low powered chargers that didn’t work but this one works great.
Very interesting. Sounds like there might be more nuance in the PD negotiation process relevant to this issue, than purely wattage ratings.
I would suggest adding this to your first post, above the original content of that post. That way it can be seen.
I would’ve done that, but posts can’t be edited after some time (I think this is a forum-global setting which is probably set to a few hours/days).
I didn’t realize it was past the cut-off. I don’t know what the cut-off is, but I feel like it gives some days.
A mod can re-enable editing, I believe.
As I specified in detail in my summary post, the issue is with chargers that do more than 5V but less than 3A. With the usual <65W PSUs (which do 5V3A and 20V <3A) the Framework negotiates 5V 3A first, then keeps pulling 3A while the PSU switches to the 20V profile with less current.
Additionally, the Switch charger has unusual profiles of only 5V 1.5A and 15V 2.6A, so likely the Framework just pulls 5V 1.5A in the first place, so staying at 1.5A is not an issue while the PSU switches to 15V (or alternatively, the 3A current pull doesn’t trigger the 2.6A overcurrent protection).
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Just adding my somewhat edited but mostly copy pasted 2c from my post that seems relevant to this thread.
I’ve got a Satechi 165W USB-C 4 Port PD GAN charger.
When I first booted my framework, I noticed it wasn’t charging. Every few seconds the LED would flash orange, and windows would show it’s charging, then it would go back to not charging.
I eventually have worked out that if I plug the cable in to the laptop and the charger, but have the charger not yet plugged in or powered from the wall power, then when I do plug it in to wall power it will work perfectly and I’ve been able to charge- but there seems to be some sort of issue where my laptop won’t charge if the charger was already receiving power.
Has anyone tried and had any luck with this same workaround on those other chargers? The solution of plugging in 2 chargers seems more janky than mine, so hopefully that coukd work for peoole until we get a proper fix.
If there are only one or two devices plugged in, the main problem of overloading the charger should not be the issue, as the charger should still offer at least 60W to the laptop.
Maybe that charger has trouble with devices that pull full current during the voltage ramp-up phase (which is probably allowed by spec), though without testing/measuring at least a voltage/current graph, nobody knows.
Possibly, that’s the issue with the “outliers” other people had issues with as well (mentioned on the bottom of my Summary Post).
The workaround of plugging in the charger after the laptop will also not work (reliably) for the <60W charger issues.
Yeah, that’s not been an issue at all. Charger can deliver 165W and the laptop charged at a speed I was actually quite surprised by (my old laptop was old and took ages- my Framework charges as quickly as it actually should). So I don’t think it’s delivering any less power than it should or behaving at all incorrectly when I plug the charger into power after the laptop.
Would this be being avoided by having it plugged in? I’d have assumed this happens regardless once power is provided.
Unfortunate. Not sure if it’s even the same issue but thought I’d drop the suggestion as it’s working every time for me (so far).
The laptop’s behavior shouldn’t change, though I could imagine the charger behaving somewhat differently on startup (maybe offering the PD profiles faster/differently, maybe the overcurrent protection is still cold, etc.).
Even if this isn’t directly related to the other PD issues, it should still be investigated (though it may very well be that the charger is not entirely PD compliant in some way).
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Since the main issue seems to be the laptop drawing too much power during negotiation/negotiated voltage switching it is likely just a very sensitive overcurrent protection here.
In the case of plugging in the psu into power after connecting it to the laptop it may just be that it has finished negotiation before the psu got up to enough power to trigger overcurrent protection.
I would not be surprised if the fix for the low wattage psus also fixes this one.
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Windows 11, Ryzen 5 7740 Framework 13. Latest windows update, latest framework drivers, latest bios.
I’ve got a Satechi 165W USB-C 4 Port PD GAN charger.
When I first booted my framework, I noticed it wasn’t charging. Every few seconds the LED would flash orange, and windows would show it’s charging, then it would go back to not charging. I eventually have worked out that if I plug the cable in to the laptop and the charger, but have the charger not yet plugged in to wall power, then when I do plug it in to wall power it will work perfectly and I’ve been able to charge- but there seems to be some sort of issue where my laptop won’t charge if the charger was already going.
Any one got any clue what this could be? Or what side the issue is on- the charger or the laptop?
I don’t get how this behaviour is even possible- but it’s been consistent. Extremely frustrating if this doesn’t work after I just spent $130 on the Satechi charger and there’s no obvious reason it shouldn’t work properly.
Could be related.
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