Mine’s the 13th gen Intel i7, which also had 61Wh as an option.
Quite right; I completely understand. I’m still a fan of Framework – we now have 2 Framework 13s in our family and are likely to have more in the future – but also hope they give attention to this issue. One comment here suggested maybe they were over-driving the battery to get up to 61Wh; I’m not equipped to evaluate that but still, we seem to have, at minimum, a bad batch.
It’s much more than “you don’t notice”. cylindrical cells are objectively better in terms of longevity as swelling causes delamination and cylindrical cells won’t swell.
A brief explanation about delamination is that for a pouch cell, when repeatedly charged at high %, gas builds up within the cell and the cell degrades at the same time. The gas deforms the cell, causing the anode, cathode and the electrolyte not able to contact firmly, causing a lower surface area available for chemical reaction, which leads to lower total charge and higher internal resistance that adds up on top of normal performance degradation by normal usage. For a cylindrical cell when repeatedly charged at high %, gas builds up within the cell and the cell degrades at the same time. The gas is contained by the metal casing, no deformation and no delamination, the surface area available for chemical reaction remains the same, the performance degradation is only due to normal aging.
The venting valve has a higher pressure rating which only trips(physically disconnect the electrode within the cell, opening the circuit) when the battery is overcharged or overheated. The cylinder keeps the gas contained when the battery is in normal use throughout its lifespan
What’s the spec of the battery pack on your previous laptops? Are they cylindrical or pouch? Are they 4.2V or 4.45V when fully charged? If it’s the former case, there’s your answer. Cylindrical cells last longer than pouch cells and 4.2V cells last longer than 4.45V cells. Premature degradation of laptop battery seems already became a common phenomenon nowadays. I already seen four cases of this on the laptops of my colleagues, regardless of laptop brand and model, with one case of 10% capacity loss over 4 months. What’s in common is that they all use battery pack composed by pouch cells, and they all have a very high limited charging voltage.
I now want to try this; I imagine that it doesn’t charge, but may keep it from discharging (as fast at least)
You replied to
Interesting… Do you find the Framework can actually charge beneficially from a USB-A port? I don’t think I’ve seen it do so myself. Those are pretty current-limited, aren’t they?
There’s no benefit from the USB-A port, of a car adapter for example, apart from slow charging. It has nothing to do with discharging ??
However a USB A socket can provide up to 4.5W just enough to charge a battery slowly
I tried using USB-A and 5V3A USBC PD and it draws 0.02A which is effectively zero, the exception is kickstarting mentioned here
You did link the pre fix table, though 5v still needs kickstarting even after the fix for the rest of the pd stuff.
Just checked mine and it is drawing 400mA. Maybe you have not such an efficient cable or output.
I’m using a 12V car converter to 5V with a USB A, then a USB A to USB C adapter, then a USB C to USB C to the laptop.
Although I’m measuring the output to the 12V so no doubt I’ll be loosing some in the 12V to 5V conversion.
After the BIOS update 9V2A PD works but 5V3A PD still won’t work, at least without kickstarting.
Might because mine is AMD ryzen while OP’s is 13gen intel
5v3a is resistor pd so that makes kinda sense, I hope they do fix that eventually though.
Afaik it works on intel but still borked on amd, only got an amd one so can only test that.
I just want to mention here that one of my last laptops with a swollen battery - I noticed it when the laptop no longer closed properly because the battery was pressing on the keyboard from the inside - caused a hectic reaction from support: I was given a dangerous goods warning, an explosion-safe box was sent immediately via UPS and I had to send the laptop back to this company because of the risk of explosion. I have now received a replacement device.
My experience: Swollen batteries are a sign of poor mediocre quality. Can happen, but shouldn’t because of the risk of severe damage to customers.
IF a battery is swollen, don’t charge it anymore, let the energy go out and replace is as soon as possible. Contact the support and keep in mind, it can start a fire by an explosion! This risk is well known and good companies handle that danger well and responsible.
You can find enough information about that in the internet, here is just one article how to deal with it: Beware the Bulging Battery! (And What to Do If Yours Expands) | Computer Hardware
When docked, do you have the lid closed too? The intake fan is UNDER the computer to draw in air and then it EXHAUSTS heat in the gap between the monitor and the function keys at the top. Excessive heat = battery go boom.
This is the exhaust by the screen hinge.
You cannot simply keep the laptop closed and run it - even if you have a fan blowing underneath it. The heat has no where to dissipate.
But this is all only true if you have your lid closed. Also makes me wonder if you needed a fan while running your dock if the lid was open if it was thermal related.
Your image shows the top, the air goes out the back even with the lid closed, though not so effective.
Although recently it was pointed out the the slot indicated in the image with two horizontal lines cover the full length whereas the exit is only part of that.
That linear exhaust flow only looks correct because the bezel is off. Get your own fw13 out and you’ll notice it’s 100% meant to exhaust with lid open only because hot air rises.
The bezel completely occludes the linear idea of an exhaust vent. So where would it go if it’s closed off? Let’s look at the bottom.
But again: hot air rises
So let’s compare the actual flow when you combine hot air rises with the lid open and the angle created for flow via screen lid open:
You’ll notice that as the lid opens up more and more, the bottom angle closes up more and more leading to a upwards angular flow. Let me prove it to you with the last photo using full open hinge.
At full open hinge, there’s 0.0001% of air to dissipate downwards.
In my last photo, if you look at your own fw13, you’ll notice in the keyboard gap per my original photo:
There are even angular upwards facing vents with a bottom occlusive ramp between the screen itself and the bezel combined.
Hot air rises.
This laptop reminds me of the chromebopk pixel 2013 because of this engineering. Super cool but definitely not dockable closed.
Edit img for clarity:
I am not referring to the back slits as the fan exhaust.
Shouldn’t there be a thermal throttling going on here? I believe at least the CPU would automatically throttle down. Shouldn’t the battery also?
Also there is a difference between a laptop being closed and 99% idle (a bit of email and web surfing) vs 99% in use (AI workloads, heavy gaming, etc). The latter takes a lot more power and produces a lot more heat.
Eh, not exactly. Lot of variables, but we can do a simple physics pov.
I would love to see FW do a thermal analysis on lid closed + dock set up.
So an intro physics course would say that energy in must equal energy out or there is a net build up.
Since we do not have the actual values or variables, we can only intuitively assume what the formula might look like.
Based on my image analysis, and how they engineered the product to work with the lid open to dissipate heat - we can assume there is going to be a net positive energy staying inside the system vs leaving it.
So, let’s say the system makes 50 units of heat, so why is the net result actually 40 when it’s actually closer to 25 with the lid open?
And let’s say 40 is still hot - but not enough to trigger throttling (if throttling actually exists on linux if that’s what you’re using.)
So it turns out - there is about 10 units of heat being dissipated through the aluminum chassis - a great conductor of heat.
So this might have been compensating for what would have been a battery disaster in a few months if that to an entire year.
Second big factor would be linux based: the lack of proper drivers and of the such for idle, sleep, hibernate, suspend on linux leads to consistent power drain and can lead to the battery just holding onto more heat than it should.
So it brings me back to my original question: Are you using the fw 13 with the lid closed docked?
I can see many potential issues with this if the bezel remains on for long periods of time. The aluminum can only take so much heat before it maxes out and is then reliant on the environmental gradient + air flowing over the laptop’s chasis to remove heat - which is a terrible heat solution regardless. And when the chassis maxes out - you can think of it as you having had pre-heated your oven to 350F. If it couldn’t remove heat at all - it would just keep going up and up.
This is why even though you can be doing light work - given enough time with heat not leaving the system - you can still get a well pre-heated oven going on.
Yes.
When there aren’t other forces dominating. And when the warm air is in a space where cooler air can press in on it.
You do need to consider that air is being forced out, and in, under significant pressure. This changes the dynamics. The pressure differential created by the fans far, far outweigh the buoyancy of warm air vs room temperature air. Where the air will go will be governed by the path offered to it. As long as the pressure differential is high, pressurized flow is the dominating force. Once it reaches an open space, then the buoyancy of warm air will start to outweigh the force of the air stream.
yup! It’s still a net retention though if I had to guess. Or I guess a higher temp equilibrium than would otherwise be expected with lid open.
This debate has been answered by the CEO: Cooling compatible with closed-lid operations? - #5 by nrp
I personally dock my laptop open, with some method of providing additional space below for added airflow. At home, that’s a 3D printed stand I modified to keep the monitor height even with the bottom of my second monitor (~6 in of air below the laptop). When traveling, it’s whatever I can stick under the back “foot” of the laptop (~0.5in of air).
I have the same issue. Got my Framework last August; this summer noted issues with the touchpad and finally discovered the swollen battery. Of course, now I am past the one year threshold, but the problem already started before… I will contact support and see if they can help.
