Hi Framework community,
I got my first Framework laptop a few days ago. So far I’m satisfied with it!
I bought the new laptop because the battery of my old one is dead. I am wondering if letting the charger always on the laptop is bad for the battery or it doesn’t matter? I usually use the laptop at the same place, so it is common for me to let the charger on for several days. What is the best practice for charging a laptop?
Thanks.
In general it can be. However, Framework, knowing this and really wanting their device to last, has added logic to the bios that will automatically limit the charging amount to your battery if you leave it plugged in all the time.
You might notice that you are only charging to 95%-80% and this would be that bios in affect. I believe to cycle out of this you simply need to unplug the charger for a time, and then plug it back in, it will then charge to full.
This is how I understood the functionality, but I have not really given a bunch of time to it, so I might have something wrong here. But regardless, you should be fine just leaving it plugged in.
I leave my FW16 unplugged when not in use. I also leave it power off, and not in standby.
Leaving it at 100% charge can shorten battery life.
I set battery limit to 70%.(set in bios) and disable battery extender. (Set in bios)
The above has the best chance of keeping battery life.
But saying that, with a FW laptop you can replace the battery easily if needed, and not buy a new laptop.
Thanks. I read some articles said keeping it plugged in would generate heat and damage the battery gradually. Is this true for Framework’s laptops? Or does the BIOS setting prevent it from this issue?
The heat thing not really but the battery staying at elevated state of charge for long periods is not great. The 61Wh battery in the 13 is apparently especially sensitive to that which is why they implemented an automatic reduction in max charge when plugged in for very long periods continuously.
Welcome to the community!
As mentioned, lithium ion batteries will degrade much more rapidly when kept at a high state of charge. It’s also slightly more likely that they will swell up and fail if they are left continuously at full charge. This is just due to the chemistry of the cells.
If you are going to leave the laptop plugged in for a long time, there are two options for battery protection on Framework laptops. First, you could ensure the battery extender option is enabled in the BIOS. I believe it is by default, so really, you shouldn’t have to do anything. The way it woks is that if it detects that the laptop has been connected to power for a certain number of continuous days, it will stop charging and let the battery drain to something like 85% (I don’t remember the exact number), and won’t bring the battery back to 100% until the charger is disconnected and re-connected. This is an okay solution, and certainly better than nothing. But if you regularly leave it connected to a charger for a day or two, but usually not longer than that, the battery extender feature won’t kick in very often, and won’t really be helping much. But if you don’t normally leave it connected for extended periods, you probably aren’t doing major harm to the battery either, so this is a reasonable, automatic solution.
Option two is a little bit more “hands-on,” but it’s also a bit more of a comprehensive solution. You can disable the battery extender in the BIOS, and instead enable and set a maximum battery charge limit. You could set a limit of 70 or 80% (for example), and the system would simply no longer allow the battery to charge above that set percentage. It’s much better for battery longevity for it to sit at 60-80%, as opposed to higher states of charge. So this is probably the best option for maximizing the overall lifespan of the battery. The downside is that in this mode, if you are going to be away from a charger for a while and want the maximum battery life, you’d have to go into the BIOS and remove the charge limit to allow it to charge up to 100%, then re-enable it before leaving it connected to a charger for an extended period again. If you aren’t often away from a charger for a long time, this may not be a big deal, and it only takes a minute or two to make this change, so it isn’t a big deal for me, personally. This is the option I go with. My FW 13 is almost always plugged in at my desk, so I have the charge limit set to 70% and essentially never change it. I use my FW 12 on battery a lot, but rarely in situation where finding a charger would be an issue, so I keep it set at 80% the vast majority of the time. This way I can plug it in when I’m not using it and know that it isn’t sitting at 100% charge for hours at a time.
Hopefully that wasn’t too much rambling. Cheers!
You don’t even need to use the BIOS. There is an official utility from Framework that lets you read and write min/max charge values directly from your OS’ command line with a very simple syntax:
framework_tool --charge-limit [SET_MAX]
If you pass a number between 30 and 100 (inclusive) in place of [SET_MAX] it will set that as the upper battery charge limit. When the limit is reached the battery will hover around the percentage you specify. This can be automated with things like cron jobs and Windows Task Scheduler as well; very useful for keeping batteries unstressed overnight when they don’t need to be charged fully, and ready to go in the mornings.
To read the min/max charge levels without changing anything just pass --charge-limit without anything after it.
Technical note: the battery will still be microcycled here and there as power needs fluctuate–load can be anywhere between -2 and 2 W (usually ~±0.02 W) while the battery is at charge limit and plugged in to AC. I don’t know why this happens but it is not very significant and still far better than leaving the lithium cells under stress. For context I have an FW12 plugged into a ~42.5 W adapter; it has plenty of excess wattage (FW12 uses ~28W sustained total at max load) but somehow the battery slightly charges and discharges while limited anyway.
There is definitely a way to set minimum charge value somewhere but I’ve never had to do that so see the documentation for framework-system if you want to know about that. I am primarily scared that it’ll just make the system hard crash instead of gracefully sending a signal that the bottom of the “preferred” range of charge is being approached. I don’t know if that actually happens though.
For anyone else reading this, this is true for current gen Framework laptops, but is not for the 11th, 12th, and 13th gen mainboards specifically. You will need to figure out how to get a signed driver on Windows to get it to work there.
On Linux across all generations the ectool / framework_tool works.
Thank you all. Very helpful information!
The tool is amazing!
Interesting exception. It works great on my 13th gen intel fw12 btw.