Weird, I also noticed that even when not in trickle mode, if the usb port is active on the battery pack, it charges the laptop at a reasonable power. Since this seems to be an issue with the battery pack, I wonder if there’s way to update its firmware.
Ok,
I think I’ve gotten closer to where the issue is
The Anker 737 Power Bank (PowerCore 24K) - a1289 which implements Anker PIQ 3.0 and that internally supports USB PD 3.0 along with some other modes
Anker claims that the power bank supports USB PD 3.1 at 28V at 5A 140W on the output
To my understanding ( I could be wrong on some of this ) that USB PD 3.0 supports up to 20V at 5A 100W and PPS ( no good link, sorry ) mode and USB PD 3.1 supports up to 48V at 5A 240W and USB EPR and optionally AVS ( previous link describes AVS )
The Framework 180W power adapter supports AVS
USB C cables can support up to
- 5V at 3A - 15W
- 9V at 3A - 27W
- 15V at 3A - 45W
- 20V at 5A - 100W
in addition, cables that support EPR can go up to
- 28V at 5A - 140W
- 36V at 5A - 180W
- 48V at 5A - 240W
When the source ( power bank ) is able to provide more than 100W, it must support EPR
The cable that comes with Framework 180W power adapter is EPR enabled and I also have a Anker EPR enabled cable and a Hama cable that supports up to 100W
Framework cable supports upto 180W
Anker cable supports upto 140W
Hama cable supports upto 100W
When I use the Anker cable or Framework cable, the powerbank fails to negotiate.
When I enable trickle mode ( with EPR still enabled ) on the power bank, it works ( 100W only )
Enabling trickle mode drops the voltage to 20V
When I use the Hama cable ( no EPR support ), the power bank works but only up to 100W ( as expected )
I think what’s happening is that when the power bank detects the cable is EPR enabled, outputting fixed power of 140W, the Framework 16 Embedded Controller ( part of the BIOS ) is trying to negotiate with the power bank using EPR + AVS, but it fails because the power bank ( output only ) doesn’t support AVS, and the FW16 retries after some delay ( I think approximately 1 seconds ) repeatedly until you unplug the power bank
So…
it’s either Anker firmware bug, to confirm this, we’ll need another powerbank that actually supports PD3.1 with EPR + AVS enabled and outputs 140W/180W/240W to see if that works with FW16
Someone on reddit said
that these powerbanks don’t support AVS on the output
It seems like there some questioning stuff going on there. I’m going to start looking at other brands
I’m not really seeing how Framework could use the fixed power source from this power bank, where would the power go when the FW16 mainboard doesn’t need it and the battery is fully charged? This might explain that click/tick sound the FW16 mainboard makes every second it fails to negotiate.
I’m leaning more towards that the power bank doesn’t support AVS in EPR mode ( power output is fixed instead of variable like PPS ).
What the Anker powerbank should actually do is drop down to PD3.0 upon fail negotiation as it does support PPS or maybe Framework could do this on their side after a number a retries/delays?
What I’ve read here, I’m interpreting it as source and sink know when negotiations fail so they could try again but at a lower version?
Practical solution to the user? buy a USB C cable that only supports up to 20V at 5A 100W that doesn’t support EPR
I think EPR cables themselves are physically tagged somewhere to indicate to the source ( power bank ) and sink ( device like laptop, phone, etc ) to say the cable supports EPR, hence why FW16 is trying to negotiate ( as expected ) with EPR + AVS when the FW16 receiving more than 100W
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Hello,
When I try to charge my framework 16 laptop using the anker 737 power bank, it doesnt work. A message pops up on the power bank screen saying low voltage warning, and the charger seems to keep stopping and starting charging. The orange LED charging indicator turns on and off every few seconds and the wattage reading on the power bank goes from 3w to 0.1w and repeats. I have tried different usb c expansion cards in different slots on the chasis. Ive tried the official usb c to c cable and my own 240w usb c cable. Charging using the official power brick works fine, as well as an anker power brick.
Anker have offered me a 70% refund however i would like to try and get it working before looking into getting a different powerbank.
I have all the latest driver updates including the ones from the driver pack.
(the OS is windows 11 pro even though I doubt that matters)
Thanks in advance!
Alex
The power bank seems to support 140w over pd 3.1, and the framework laptop supports 240w over pd 3.1 so it should work right?
power bank description:
email from framework regarding their charger:
That’s my understanding.
Hi,
I have the 140W variant and it works for me but you need to enable trickle mode but in this mode it will be limited to 100W (charge/discharge rate) and the “USB A” port will always consume 0.1W while in this mode.
To enable trickle mode, press the power button twice ( in less than a second ) and you’ll see a green dot appear on the top left corner of the display. Press it twice again and it will eventually ( after two minutes ) turn off. The green dot will be gone but you’ll still see the “USB A” consuming 0.1W
I’m on a FW16 and I’m not sure if this is a BIOS or Anker issue yet.
1 Like
Eureka!
It’s the Framework 16 power cord! The Anker 737 does not like the Framework 16 power cord. I tried changing the cord to another USB-C cable (rated for 140W) and it charges just fine. Not sure why, but I’m glad I tried this other cord.
what cable/cord is that?
I think a cable rated 140W is useless, either 100W or PD3.1 EPR supported then all the way to 240W.
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just a small advert on my project of a 240w PD charger. I am already discussing with the manufacturer and designer for making this project. I need some support tho.
I believe he is talking about the USB-C cable, not the mains cable.
Yeah, I’m aware of that. I meant it as what brand or where he got it from
Thank you for the extremely detailed break down of what’s wrong here, if you find a power bank that can charge the laptop at 140w or higher please post in here.
For what it’s worth I too tried the Anker 737 with a 140 cable and it didn’t work, with the known clicking sound. When I turned the laptop off though it charged it up really fast (used up over 70% of the powerbanks charge). So looks like something to do when the laptop uses power/works while being charged…
For giggles, I reached out to Anker support via Amazon and asked about this. This was their response.
It is highly likely that the issue is related to the charging protocol. To achieve a charging power of 140W, both the cable and your laptop need to support PD3.1, which means they should support 28V5A output and the cable should support a current above 5A.
Additionally, only USB-C1 and USB-C2 ports support a maximum of 140W, while the USB-A port supports a maximum of 18W.
I’m another one affected by the Anker 737 not charging, with the same caveats: tried multiple cables rated up to 240W, including the original one, trickle mode makes it work but on 100W only.
Another bit of information I haven’t see in the thread would be Linux kernel logs, one of two pops up:
ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: UCSI_GET_PDOS failed (-5)
or
ucsi_acpi USBC000:00: GET_CABLE_PROPERTY failed (-5)
Both seem to indicate issues with identifying either the cable or PD capabilities. Clearly an issue on the negotation level.
Hopefully we’ll see Framework fixing those, as I don’t hope for Anker to release any kind of firmware upgrade for their power bank (AFAIK they’re not doing so).
2 Likes
well, it’s not an Anker problem to be honest. FW needs to fix that issue. The Anker works just fine with other machines (my friends charge their Macs just fine with my Anker powerbank during our sessions at the beach;-) )
May be some more elements…
I just get this charger : Amazon.fr
and some cable: Anker 140W rated and the 240W from belkin: Amazon.fr (In fact 2 of them 1m and 2m)
This charger have a 140W USB-C Port and 2 other limited to 100W.
The 2 low USB-C work as expected at 100W with all 3 cable.
The upper (140W one) work @ 100W with a Anker battery, @60 with “standard” cable on the fw16.
But with any high rated cable (140/240W) it togle on/off like with the 140W battery…
(the mesure show switch from 20V/5A to 0V/0A end back every ~second)
So for my it look to be the same “issus” like with the 140W anker battery.
(Note: I have “old” anker 737 battery and charger with max 100W charging that work as expected. And this “old” battery charge at 100W on the 140W port.)
1 more things…
I can wait firmware update …
But can anyone (from framwork?) say if this is possible to make use of this 140W port from Anker with only fw16 update or if it need some sort of update from Anker (if possible… )