[TRACKING] Battery flipping between charging and discharging / Draws from battery even on AC

[real_or_random]

With AC connected and battery charge at the set threshold, the battery status as reported by the kernel often flips between charging and discharging, sometimes even within one or two seconds. (This can be seen using the Gnome battery icon or upower -d). AC is always reported as online.

This also means I get a constant stream of udev events starting tlp, which then notices that AC is still online and does nothing, but this could probably be solved by tweaking udev rules.

Some more observations:

• I’ve set the charge threshold to 60% but the same happens at 100%.
• Under normal load, the LED stays white (no pulsing).
• This happens with the official charger (65 W) and with my CalDigit TS 4 dock (reported to deliver 97 W).
• The flipping happens more frequently when I put the laptop under stress. On both chargers, when I start some CPU heavy process, I see that some power is used from the battery, and the LED switches to amber (no pulsing). The wattage reduces slowly and goes back to 0 W after some time. Under heavy load, I get higher temperatures and louder fans with the 97 W charger.
• This is on Arch Linux, Kernel 5.19.7.

This on 12th generation.

Is the constant flipping of status expected? There are other threads about this (Manjaro Issue Detecting Plugged-In States - #6 by Jake_Naviasky and Charging / discharging notification on mxlinux), but it’s not clear to me if this is a bug or just expected.

Is it true that even the 97 W supply is not enough to deliver enough power to run the laptop at full speed (because it still draws from the battery)? Can I some check how much power it actually delivers?

[amoun]

@real_or_random

Is it true that even the 97 W supply is not enough to deliver enough power to run the laptop at full speed (because it still draws from the battery)?

That seems unlikely, though just because a supply says it can provide 95W doesn’t mean it does so better off checking it’s output.

[real_or_random]

@amoun

That seems unlikely, though just because a supply says it can provide 95W doesn’t mean it does so better off checking it’s output.

How can I check?

[A_Matty]

@real_or_random

How can I check?

You can buy a power outlet meter online for less than $20. They’re not perfect, but it should at least tell you if it’s close to the expected power delivery. There’s probably a solution I’m not thinking of that doesn’t require spending extra money, but IMO it’s a useful thing to have anyway.

[real_or_random]

You can buy a power outlet meter online for less than $20. They’re not perfect, but it should at least tell you if it’s close to the expected power delivery.

But this would measure the input and not the output of the supply? I have a multimeter here but well, I can’t just use it to measure the USB-C lines.

I may get an outlet meter but for now, my primary concern is the flipping battery indication, in particular because I see this also with the official supply. I’d be very interested if other people see the same on their system. I’m concerned that this constant charging/discharging kills the battery.

[amoun]

@real_or_random

But this would measure the input and not the output of the supply? I have a multimeter here but well, I can’t just use it to measure the USB-C lines.

If the ac power unit is plugged into an outlet that measures output that’s the first step. Then you look at the efficiency say 90%

If the power taken from the mains via the power measuring device is 100W then the laptop is taking 90W.

So if the output taken is 60W then you know the laptop is probably getting at most 54W etc. etc.

[Second_Coming]

This charging / discharging flip-flop has been a known issue from 11th gen days…Framework has yet to officially response / acknowledge the behaviour / issue / characteristic.

Battery Management with min/max limits possible?

Unfortunately, there’s no min limit (Start charging threshold). In [repeated] high load / boost situations, the laptop would go into trickle charge cycles. In order to minimize occurrence of trickle charge cycles, you’ll need to get a higher wattage USB-PD charger.

Even with a 90W USB-PD charger, I still see this behaviour. i.e. The system doesn’t know when NOT to draw power from the battery (leave the battery alone), it seems.

The state of power [management / behaviour] with the laptop is pretty sad (suspend power consumption, overall battery runtime, sleep consistency, USB over current protection - too trigger happy, USB-PD unplug triggers wake from sleep, charge / discharge flip-flop).

[real_or_random]

Oh interesting, I missed that thread.

@Second_Coming

Even with a 90W USB-PD charger, I still see this behaviour. i.e. The system doesn’t know when NOT to draw power from the battery (leave the battery alone), it seems.

Just confirming, do you see this also with the threshold set to 100%?

@Second_Coming

This charging / discharging flip-flop has been a known issue from 11th gen days…Framework has yet to officially response / acknowledge the behaviour / issue / characteristic.

Yes, it would be nice to have some kind of official statement if this behavior is expected and/or if there are plans to implement a more clever charging logic.

[Second_Coming]

@real_or_random

Just confirming, do you see this also with the threshold set to 100%?

I went to set the threshold back to 100 (from 76), saved & exit. Rebooted. Plug in USB-PD, waited for the battery to get fully charged. Then repeated my looping stress-pause-repeat test. Currently not seeing the flip-flop behaviour.

For me, I only really noticed it when I had a lower-than-100 threshold set.

Going to do a longer test…

Update: Yes, I’m seeing the flip-flop behaviour even with 100% threshold. This happens when the CPU goes into repeated boost…and when that happens, the battery is discharged at around 5-10w (i.e. negative charge rate) during that boost period. and the battery charge would dip from 100 to 99.7%…then it goes into charging…back up to 100%.

[Second_Coming]

One other thing I noticed during my testing:
When Windows reports the battery is 100% fully charged, it actually isn’t (according to HWInfo). There seems to be some really small charging that still goes on for about 30-45 minutes before the battery is finally settled down.

[amoun]

@Second_Coming

HWInfo

No decimal, so 99.5% will read as 100% and topping up is a slow process

[Second_Coming]

@amoun

No decimal, so 99.5% will read as 100%

My issue is with the “Fully charged” discrepancy due to Windows decision to round up. (Fully charged is a lie during that period)

[Adam_Spiers]

I see this constant flipping too, with 12th gen running openSUSE Tumbleweed Linux. It’s pretty annoying. Surely there’s nothing magic about Framework power management which would be so different to other laptops to require this?

[Rolphin]

I have the same constant flipping issue on Fedora 37 with 12th generation.

[Matt_Hartley]

Never experienced this myself on multiple Framework laptops. But I have heard others have seen this occasionally.

Test a live usb of Ubuntu or Fedora. If it happens there, likely need to open a ticket so we can take a look at the logs, etc.

[amoun]

@Rolphin

I have the same constant flipping issue on Fedora 37 with 12th generation.

How much flipping? Is this just an internal notification or a clear LED like power switching observation?

There is also this related thread

Improved charging modes?

The problem being that the mains cannot, with the provided supply at least, be guaranteed to supply enough power under all circumstances, so the battery is used and secondly such a trickle charge does not create cycle life or heat the battery so any degradation ‘should’ be negligible. In fact normal time decay would be much greater. If you would like an indepth analysis you may like to read There is also a related thread

[Rolphin]

@amoun

How much flipping? Is this just an internal notification or a clear LED like power switching observation?

Actually both. I turned off the notification, because it’s annoying every time to see it. But I see how the charge icon flipping at the tray and LED slightly changes the color as well.

[Rolphin]

@Matt_Hartley

Never experienced this myself on multiple Framework laptops. But I have heard others have seen this occasionally.

Try to load CPU at least 30% for a while.

[Matt_Hartley]

@Rolphin

Try to load CPU at least 30% for a while.

Not able to replicate it here on Fedora 37, left it running under a decent load.

This feels like a bad battery or something related to hardware. I say this as:

@Rolphin

I see how the charge icon flipping at the tray and LED slightly changes the color as well.

Please open a support ticket and let them know what you’re seeing with the LED lighting.

[FaultedBeing]

Is the issue here that when it’s plugged in and nearly at full or full capacity it switches constantly between AC power and recharging the battery? I’m on windows 10 and this has happened to me a bit (11th gen).