Touchpad erratic while charging

Framework Laptop 13
1

I wanted to ask the Framework team about a bug if they’re not already aware. I’m running Windows 11 on my Framework laptop, using the recommended drivers I downloaded from the Framework website. The touchpad works great, but when I plug in the laptop to charge, it behaves extremely erratically. It lags the motion of my finger. It jumps around, seemingly not in accordance with the motion of my finger. And worst of all, it sometimes emits random clicks, which has resulted in closing windows and hitting buttons that I didn’t mean to.

This is a pretty bad bug, but it only surfaces when the device is plugged in. I’m running the driver installed from:

Framework_Laptop_driver_bundle_2021_12_16.exe

And my OS version is:

Edition	Windows 11 Home
Version	21H2
Installed on	‎4/‎22/‎2022
OS build	22000.613
Experience	Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22000.613.0
2

Do you use the framework charger?

This somehow reminds me on a very similar problem some time ago, where I had observed an erratic behaving touchscreen of an iPad and a Fairphone - only when they where charging. This was absolutely reproducible.

Could a poor electrical grounding be the cause?

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3

This has happened without the framework charger. What’s weird is that everything, including using an attached mouse, is fine. It’s just the touchpad

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4

I had the same problem with a cheap Chinese third party dell charger that wasn’t properly grounded and probably created some weird capacitance effect.

You could try if the problem vanishes if you connect your Framework case to a grounded metal surface. Then that’s your problem.

I suggest getting a high quality chager. I own an Anker one that doesn’t have this problem, the official framework charger is probably fine, too.

3 Likes
6

@Jonathan_Haas Do you mind elaborating about the third party Dell charger? Are those OEM 65W chargers that are included with dell devices?

7

@ascii-fish Did you end up finding a solution to your issue?

8

No, the charger that came with my laptop broke, so I bought a cheap “compatible” one on Amazon from a random Chinese company and that was pretty terrible.

After that I bought an original OEM USB C charger from Dell, and an Anker one (mainly for travelling and charging my phone/tablet, but also works on the laptop) and those work completely fine.

3 Likes
9

I can only agree to this: Never buy cheap chargers, unless you want your expensive equipment to fail.

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10

I’m also experiencing this with windows 10, batch 11, when using a non-framework charger (in my case, a phone charger that happened to be near my desk)

Weird bug but doesn’t happen if i just unplug it.

11

Yeah, this is caused by a bad charger that generates a lot of RF noise. Touchpads are especially sensitive to RFI because of how they work, and if they get overwhelmed with noise they’ll either generate erratic inputs or just not register touches at all.

As a ham I’m sensitive to just how awful some switching power supplies can be in terms of RFI, but a lot of people never notice — until their touchpad stops working.

12

I’m running into the same issue as OP, though I’m using the Framework charger. I assume this would be a factory defect then?