My understanding of the situation has been:
AC power is required to boot the system if CMOS battery is drained or removed.
CMOS battery drain is unusually high for this laptop and the ML1220 battery is also low in capacity.
There is a Intel 11th gen bug which can be triggered by this low power state requiring a mainboard reset.
CMOS battery only charges when on AC power.
Do you have a source for this?
Using 30µA as a basis however against “standard” CR2430 and CR2450 that rate would deplete the CR2430 in about 1 year and a CR2450 in a little over 2 years comapred to the 5-10+ years most people see with these batteries I would say that is high drain.
The capacity of the ML1220 is low compared to traditional CMOS batteries and low for the job it is required to do so IMO seems fair to call it low capacity. I’m not sure the best way to word it.
I see the ML1220 is rated at capacity of 17mAh at a drain rate of 0.03mA so 24 days at that rate.
Would be good to know the actual drain they are subject in the machine. I might test this myself but it would be a long month…
Hi usernames/all,
A good healthy discussion. Please take my comments as just that, just getting closer to the problem/solution.
Very useful summary of the problem (1,2,3 & 4) , hopefully my aiding clarity not trying to split hairs the following comments…
“1” drained yes, “removed” I honestly don’t know, this may be the case as of old, where you could still run a PC just you had to input the time etc. every time you booted.
“2” the “drain and capacity” are all mixed up with, “used elsewhere without problems” "High drain is due to some (bug?) in the Framework BIOS firmware, etc. "
“3” I have not researched this as yet, but probably so. If the totally locked out sit is possible then this is odd and serious. My neighbour is a section lead at a chip designer, I will ask him.
“4” Correct, but I assume normal on other makes with possibly the same rechargeable CMOS battery. What is a great pity here is that the mobo designers didn’t think to add any monitoring, saving you (us) opening the case to check the CMOS battery state. Numerous sensors exist already on most mobo, another one here would be handy !!
Regarding the length of time a charged battery will last retaining the CMOS at whatever micro amps rate, I think the 24 days vs 30 days stats are within the various tolerances, and even Ooops “I forgot yes I did charge it last Wednesday” and yes I forgot to turn the charger off etc. If we are talking about one or two microamp difference on a battery that may have tolerances of a few % then 24 to 30 days, add the rate at which power is consumed, the state of the battery , different batches of battery etc. etc. seems like a reasonable range.
I am simply going to continue my simple testing.
Not at all health discourse here! 
I removed my ML1220 and tested this before posting. Machine will not boot until AC powered with the battery removed.
Looking at my historical CMOS batteries life expectancy with relation to their capacity the FW is using a lot more power. I have a CR2032 (240mAh) from 2009 still doing it’s job…
Not researched yet either, I based it on npr’s post here.
I’m not sure. Might have to join other forums for laptops with the ML1220 and ask lol.
I think you are testing your used case and that is a valid test to run! I’m debating running a month long test but I would like to wait for BIOS 3.09 so i can also see how shutdown power usage has improved. I know 3.08 is floating about but I’m unsure what is and isn’t changed in that release.
Ok…understood now. If it’s a test of issue avoidance, wouldn’t you need to first establish that your unit does in fact suffer from the issue in the first place? Maybe you’re already done that…I didn’t follow too closely.
e.g. If you’re cycling on a path, and someone tells you (hearsay!) there’s a rock on the path to avoid. You’ll want to first make sure there is in fact a rock on the path…otherwise, your attempted maneuver to avoid the rock might be for an imaginary rock.
Not trying to be a pain or anything…just pointing out what I see / don’t see. Ignore me.
LoL…ok… rock the size of the path’s width. (Avoid by needing to take a different path)
Pick battles worth fighting…not every battle.
Or join the robber…and be the driver, get a cut along the way.
To follow up on this which I didn’t respond to directly…
Every day / time you power up the laptop…you’re essentially restarting your test case.
No.
Assumption(s)
A. Let us say we charge for 24 hours and so the CMOSB is fully charged.
B. The CMOSB discharges at the SAME RATE regardless of the PC being on every day, once a week, OR not at all for 30 days.
C. Unless you attach ac then the CMOSB gets little charge only affecting the days before Armageddon by say a day.
If these are accepted then the test does not reset every day?
The “reset” is when you charge the CMOSB (in the test case for 24+ hours)
Switching the PC on does not take any more power from the CMOSB than if you just leave it for 30 days.
The difference with switching it on most days is that you see the point at which it won’t switch on.
Waiting for 30 days, apart from being impractical does not get you much if any useful information?
I HOPE ! On the day it does not start then I can at least do one of the following.
X. Get it to start just by connecting ac power.
Y. Open the case and measure the CMOSB voltage
To reiterate, testing most days isn’t restarting the test. If my logic is wrong then shout, I’m open minded about this if there is a logical argument to say that I’m re-starting the test then shout !!
Regards…
hey @Burt in your testing, are you keeping it unplugged from AC power for the entire duration? My thought is perhaps the main battery will drain prior to the CMOS battery if you are using it daily. Of course we do not expect the laptop to boot if there is no power in the main battery.
I think this is the reason the frustration was being raised by the users in the first place - for folks who do not use the laptop every day, we have found the laptop does not boot even if there is 60-80%+ charge left in the main battery.
Your test is different, but still a good data point to understand if the CMOS battery pulls any charge from the main battery when the laptop is powered ON. The current theory is that the CMOS battery only seems to charge from AC power so your test may be able to confirm this theory… assuming the main battery holds out…
Hi @d_p ,
I like questions to clarify !
I am occasionally charging the main battery, my occasional use can sometimes change but charging say 30 minutes at most every five days. I have not checked the charging calculations a few others have posted. These may also be affected by the variable charge rate available from the Framework supplied charger. I have yet to look into this, but I will wait to see how long it lasts before it refuses to start without ac power.
Originally I almost certainly didn’t charge the machine for 24 hours or more just enough to get 100% ish on the main battery. I found that regardless of the main battery state which was anything from 60% to 90% it didn’t boot without ac power. I didn’t record times etc. as not awre of the problem until I posted here.
I am not sure the CMOSB ever? gets any power from the main battery? A new one on me.
The occasional charge I give the main battery I don’t think gives the CMOSB much of a boost and so this is an unknown. I will complete this as as is, then look at maybe a slightly different approach. A lot may depends on the charger and its varying power …
From here…
" With PPS, the adapter can also be used as a programmable power supply in increments of 20mV and 50mA to further improve efficiency on devices that support it."
As and when I will find out if the varying rate available affects the time it takes to charge the CMOSB.
The one good suggestion I got from a post I just made on checking the CMOSB charging and voltage was to get a blank module (like the USB etc) and run wires from the battery to it to measure the voltage day by day etc. Maybe invalidates the warranty though.
Regards…
Test methodology under peer review it seems.
Started having this about 2 weeks ago and still have it after updating to 3.09, really sucks since I don’t use my laptop that much this time of the year but I hope it won’t appear again when I start school again this August 
Wow… 190 message long thread with not a single official response.
Thanks to everyone who cobbled up the broken and fairly useless responses from Framework Support. Really really really poor response on Framework. This will go down as the most amount of money I lost to YouTube… you-know-who not to thank!
My 11th Gen Core i7 laptop only seems to last about a day and half without being plugged in (for another 8 hours or more). Even though I can’t really find a pattern. Sometimes it will last longer.
Once it goes bust it refuses to boot up for quite a while. Obviously I have to connect it and let the RTC battery to charge up I suppose. But they fact is I don’t know if that’s what it is doing… because sometimes, holding the powerbutton down for 10 seconds will start it up. Other times no amount of holding down power button or futzing around with connecting USB C cables to left then right and left then unplugging and doing a rain dance will get it going.
So I’ve essentially dropped more than a grand for a glorified desktop with dodgy battery backup. If I wanted a desktop I would have bought an NUC (total of closer to 1900 but I guess I could reuse the memory, ssd and Windows license elsewhere).
Last resort will order a new RTC battery and see if it does any better.
At the same time my 7 year old MBP just boots up once a month, irrespective of whether it is plugged in or not!
Here is one official response that I know. There are multiple threads about this topic.
@junaruga what’s the point? None of them have a solution or admittance of the fact that it is a major issue with no software fix possible. They are still shamelessly selling the 11th Gen “at a discount”!
As I recognized that you thought there is no “single official response”, I shared one official “response”. That’s the point.
I can understand your feeling. But when you are angry, you should recognize that nothing is changed. This issue is old. I have seen people’s reactions to this issue. And I assume that people thought about this issue and situation, and already made choices, continue to use or sell or throw away. When you sell Framework Laptop on eBay, you can still get some amount of the money back. If you sell your Framework Laptop showing this issue, you are ethical. It’s a fair trade.
Some other reports on such short times were ultimately found to faulty button cells or defective contact clamps. The claim is that after 24 hours of being plugged it, the cell should be fully charged and maintain the CMOS for about a week when unplugged and off (I don’t know if in suspended state the main battery still provides power to the CMOS). A week is a paltry number and definitely less than I would have expected (most laptops start up without trouble after having been on the shelf for months), but workable when used as a “daily drive laptop”, where the main battery will mandate frequent plug-in anyway.
@Nils I would be okay with that if it were predictable. It is not. I have not opened the laptop yet, I’ve ordered a new battery, let’s see if that helps with the predictability!
It happened today morning and the only thing different with today morning is I’ve worked on the laptop ‘off power’ for two evenings consecutively and it was ‘off’ power most of day yesterday. Battery was still more than 50% when I left it last night. Anyway, all my explainations are pointless. It’s a design defect and they really don’t want to acknowledge it because it will either be a mass recall or a class action if they do!