There’s definitely something odd going on here. I know a problem with the firmware has been identified and a fix is in the works, but I think there has to be more to it than that.
I have a 13" AMD laptop running 3.03 BIOS. At this point I’ve used 20W, 45W, 60W, 65W, and 90W chargers. Everything from a tiny, 20W charger for phones, other laptop chargers, Belkin charger, Steam Deck charger, powered hub built into a monitor, and more. All of them work.
In this thread (and others about this issue), I’ve seen multiple people saying their Steam Deck charger doesn’t work (the one I used does), no chargers under 45W work (the one’s I’ve tried worked) and even that their FW charger didn’t work.
I think at the very least, there must be multiple issues at play here.
My Steam Deck charger worked with the 3.02 BIOS, but broke when I updated to 3.03. So I know it’s not a hardware issue, it’s a software issue with the BIOS. And since 3.03 was released I wait for them to fix it again.
No matter how precise the specification is, without a certifying body and mandatory certifications there will always be a lot of difference between implementations. Two implementations good enough to work with 99% of other implementations might not work with each other. Implementations adhering tightly to the spec might not be working correctly with ones that widely work but have bigger deviations from the spec. Cabling can also play a role just tipping over a barely working combination to not working at all.
Personally my PD power sources work mostly fine, all my 20V capable chargers are fine, a 12V power bank is also fine and a tiny 12V wall wart needs about 30s but then also charges my FW. The last one seems one of the barely working cases
That’s what’s so strange to me. I’m on 3.03 and my Steam Deck charger works fine with the FW. So odd.
Whatever is going in, I really feel for those suffering from this issue. I’ve really come to take for granted the amazing ability to charge basically any of my devices with any of my USB C chargers, including my AMD FW 13. It’s really unfortunate that some people aren’t having that experience.
Yeah, I too have worked in a place where it didn’t matter what a person was working on, it was on the critical path, and he was working on a significant proportion of the project. I’m figuring that whoever is working on the Framework BIOS they are on the critical path to getting a releasable version for each of the four products.
Yeah that bit is definitely a major weak point currently and I really hope they manage to grow that team faster than they grow the amount of different devices they make XD
As far as I understand this is a consequence of having more than 1 or 2 charging capable usb-c ports and handling it in ec instead of letting the pd controller do it (cause it’'s got two of them).
I also have a 20W charger that works but most don’t. It’s not that weird, the issue is a very short period during the 5v mode to >5V mode switch when the current limit isn’t updated, if the charger has somewhat lax over-current protection and does not give out under the quick overload it’ll work just fine.
In this case the framework pretty clearly violates it but gets away with it most of the time.
What about high power? My adapter is 165W and it’s having basically the same issue. The only way I can get it to work is by plugging in my ohone to another port first and even then its very incosistent and takes several agtamots to begin charging.
How exactly do you use it?
Which devices are connected to which ports of the charger?
I see on the site that depending on how many devices you connected, power to the ports is limited:
1 x USB-C PD connected - up to 100W
2 x USB-C PD connected - up to 100W/60W
3 x USB-C PD connected - 60W/60W/45W or 100W/30W/30W
4 x USB-C PD connected - 60W/45W/30W/30W
I assume you connect the FW to port 1 for at least 60W charging speed. Nonetheless, this is a more advanced device, with different protocols, also depending on what is connected. (Which I also suspect is why it sometimes works after you (dis)connect your phone: the protocols are updated.)
I try plugging it into every port till it works. Usually I end up on one with the phone on 2- but it’s really trial and error- plug in the phone to 2, then keep plugging and unplugging the laptop or even leaving it all plugged in and turning off power to the adapter. It sometimes just works immediately sometimes doesn’t, but the phone needs to be plugged in first. After that it doesn’t matter if I unplug the phone so long as the laptop stays connected it’ll continue charging at full speed.
Without understanding too much I assume it’s some issue with the handshake at the start and the phone is somehow able to disrupt that and get it to lock in the proper wattage.
30 W and even less capable USB-C Power supplies (ie. the 15 W iPhone/iPad charger or the 5V 1A USB-C port of my Dock) do work for me with 3.03b too.
All tested A-to-C supplies still does not work, even though they are capable of at least 1A (or more) as well. Kickstarting the charge with a different power supply does work, which might indicate that it is possible to solve this issue via firmware updates as well. However, this doesn’t have anywhere near as high priority as the current-during-voltage-ramp issue fixed with 3.03b.
Hoco N3 18W charger (5V 3A, 9V 2A, 12V 1,5A (QC 3.0, no PD))
Charges for about one second
Ultron Powerbank RealPower PB-20000PD+ (18W, 5V 3A, 9V 2A, 12V 1,5A)
USB-A-Port (without PD): Charges for about one second
USB Type C Port (PD): Powerbank gets charged by Framework Laptop
So I will have to get a charger to charge my Laptop when I’m on the go. I currently only charge at the docking station.
Dumb charger doesn’t work, the computer only supports PD. After the BIOS update I got 4.85V2.94A(5V3APD), 14.87V1.34A(15V1.5APD), 12.04V1.52A(12V1.6APD), 19.8V1.38A(can’t tell protocol as 100WPD charging 3 devices simultaneously). Now it supports both low voltage and current(below 3A). The only exception is when using a 100W PD the FW13 only pulls 2.73A even when the battery is low and/or during heavy gaming.
I can confirm the Bios 3.03b Beta fixes charging with the Raspberry Pi 27W USB-C charger (don’t have access to the other charger rn but it generally worked, just occasionally would not).
This bios also dramatically improves charging during a PD re-negotiation (like what happens on plugging in another device into a multi-port usb-c charger). Previously it would take ~10 seconds for the framework to start charging again after I plugged in another device to the charger. Now the framework never changes its charging status from charging (ie: the re-negotiation is so fast that the status indicator does not change, just like my other devices).
