Laptop randomly stops charging, gets to 0 and dies, then starts charging

Hi all,
I’ve had my Framework 13 for coming up on a year and a half. I’ve had it repaired multiple times now, including having the motherboard replaced twice, which may be important. Recently (starting in November '24), the laptop has exhibited the following behavior:

  1. It stops charging across all ports/chargers. The orange charging indicator is on.
  2. It discharges until it gets to/close to dying completely.
  3. In some cases, it dies.
  4. After a couple minutes, it comes back and charges to full.

This has happened twice now. The first time, I reached out to Framework support (not sure what was to come given my warranty is expired), but was baffled with how it started recharging again after getting down to 2%. It happened once more in early December, this time dying completely, and is happening again as I type this. The fixes from the Framework support team included resetting the BIOS and checking the battery connection, neither of which initially fixed the issue. It’s an admittedly nerve-wracking problem, as I’m perpetually worried that it’ll eventually just stop charging outright, leaving me dead in the water without a laptop.

I’m curious if others have had a similar issue, and if there are any fixes.

Details

  • OS: NixOS 24.11
  • Laptop: Framework 13 - Intel i5-1340P
  • RAM: Crucial 32GB 3200Mhz
  • Storage: WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB

Not all chargers are created equal. Whose charger are you using and have different quality USBC cables been tried?

As the laptop is on it’s third board in a year and a half, something is else causing this statistically. Not that the OS should have much to do with it; NixOS is not on the supported OS. When this happens could a Ubuntu LIVE USB be used to see if it persists? [See @Ninjackson 's reponse below]

The EC will go into a fail safe mode if it detects something is wrong and shutdown the ports to protect itself. When the battery is completely flat the EC has no choice but to reinitialize itself. (It is not currently programmed to remember fault states)

One aspect that may be overlooked is it has only happened a handful of times (3?) In a year and a half. See response below for an update to this statement

There are some known issues with the hardware subsystems and all the nuances are not ironed out. The latest BIOS updates tend to address these; though in this case the symptoms only rarely happen so it would be much harder to replicate and identify the cause.

I thought there was another thread a long time ago that had a similar issue and stopped responding until it wore the battery out. Resetting the EC from the battery being completely dead fixed it I thought.

Not saying there is not a legitimate concern here; it just may be extremely hard to narrow down what the root cause is and as long as it always comes back. It should always come back in the future. Hopefully a future BIOS update will fix it.

Whose charger are you using and have different quality USBC cables been tried?

I have three chargers I’ve tested it with: a 100W Anker charger, a 140W Anker charger, and a Lenovo 65W USB-C charger, each with their own cable which I’ve mixed/matched. Each charger works just fine outside of the periods where charging fails.

When this happens could a Ubuntu LIVE USB be used to see if it persists?

One of the troubleshooting steps when dealing with support was booting Ubuntu, which indicated the same thing.

it has only happened a handful of times (3?) In a year and a half

It’s happened 3 times within the past 2.5 months, to be precise. The first instance happened in mid November, a bit over 2 months past the latest motherboard replacement.

The EC will go into a fail safe mode if it detects something is wrong and shutdown the ports to protect itself.

Intriguing. Do all ports shut down, or just power-related interfaces? I still have access to USB data via a keyboard and an HDMI adapter across all four ports.

Hi @Ninjackson,

Thank you for correcting me, I missed that it has happened 3x in the last few months.

All three chargers you have are what I would consider quality chargers and changing the cables around with the same results points more toward a BIOS bug of sorts or potentially components on the mainboard.

To expand further on the embedded controller (EC), [which is the main interface to all the subsystem components, BIOS, charge controller, etc.] when it detects a critical issue with the charge controller it will shutdown the power related interfaces as you have seen. :policeman:The keyboard, HDMI, and other data sources keep responding just the power charging aspects are shunted in order to preserve the operational state of the system. :computer:

The idea being the system is still capable of running and ideally the user will have time to save or continue their work until it is more convenient for the user initiate the shutdown. :sailboat: The alternative is the system goes into a panic state and freezes all input and output. :cold_face:

Being as the cases for this Framework laptop are still unpredictable; it may be hard to narrow down what is going on unless there was a log of the EC that could be captured along with some queries into the charge controller status. :zap: This is would be asking a lot of an end user.

It definitely does not sound like it is OS related as you already suspected. If I had to make a determination today, it would be hard to say if it is BIOS related or hardware (component) related. This is one of those cases where if it happened regularly or increased in frequency it would point toward a hardware issue. :mechanic: :wrench:

Let us know what support has to say, it is always intriguing to hear about issues others are experiencing. There could be others out there that have had this same issue and just not discussed it in the forums. Thank you for sharing! :+1:

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So, you are saying it has only happened with this most recent motherboard, and the motherboard replacements you have had were for other reasons? If so then I would be suspecting the motherboard.