@Twistgibber - are the expected number of discharge-recharge cycles and/or expected lifespan by time (years, presumably) for the ML1220 documented someplace? Thank you.
I’ve pinged our engineering group to see if we have that available. Thanks for your patience while I await their response.
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That’s going to be a tough answer.
Li-ion batteries are incredibly variable by use.
- You may note reports that charging from 40% to 80% may only use 10% of a cycle not the 40% you’d expect
- Charging from 0 to 100% may be recorded as 1 cycle by there is the possibility of serious decline when a battery goes to zero
- Then you have the temperature, so someone using the computer in a cold environment and not playing games etc. with keep the battery more ‘healthy’
The battery specs say 100 cycles.
So if the max life of one charge is 21 days then in a year it will have dropped about 20% assuming a full cycle every three weeks.
So in theory it could last 2 or 3 years with and increasing but with a shorted span so only 18 or 19 days after a year etc.
This is very unlikely to work out but you never know.
Equally unlikely is that although 99% of the time I use my laptop plugged in that the ML1220 is going to last a very long time.
An example is I am keeping data on my main battery wear.
- There is a recorded <60 cycles in ten months.
- The specs say 1000 cycles over 2 years for a 20% lost i.e. from 55Wh to 44Wh
At my rate of use I doubt I will use 100 cycles in a year so it could be imagined that I’ll lose 20% in ten years. So incredibly unlikely.
So although there are specs for batteries I have yet to see data on how those claims are made, data that can be verified as user practical.
I will be awaiting the feedback with interest.
NOTE:
There is a post above linking to the data for a Panasonic ML1220 that link is a 404. It seems Panasonic do not make the ML1220 anymore.
Here is a link to the data on my site a PDF
UPDATE:
I have found a data sheet for a Maxell ML1220 which states a cycle life of 1500 if only discharged by 10%.
Also Available on my related site
So according to specs above
a 10% usage and 1500 cycles
a 20% usage and 500 cycles
Extrapolate for usage in the 11th Gen where the ML1220 can only be charged when connected to power
a 30% usage 166 cycles (i.e for 30% or approx 6 hours of use not plugged in) then the cycles may only be 167 i.e. 6 hours of such use every other day for a year
a 40% may provide only 55 days
Sadly it seems there is a discharge of around 0.3mAh which means if you don’t use it before then you have just done a 100% cycle
- 100% it may not recover very well and if it does then you may be lucky to get 10 cycles. Still it could last for 10 x 3 weeks ???
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Mine has gone really bad. Had a few stop starts. Once I got the laptop up and running I’ve left it on charge for 18+ hours and then it still wont fire up the next day. I know its the CMOS cos the underclock/battert limit etc. keeps getting wiped out. So even nearly a days charge wont do it. I’m now going to leave it for a a full 24 hours and see what happens. If it powers on then I’ll leave it 48 hours and see if it works again.
@Jason_Dagless If you’ve followed the mainboard reset step-by-step, charged for 18 hours afterwards, and still have issues with reset/power, something else is wrong, and please contact Framework Support. If you’ve checked the RTC Battery cradle, and it seems it’s solidly connected to the mainboard, we can send out one of our service RTC batteries from our repair center. It’s absolutely critical that the reset and charge is done to diagnose and it seems like you have. There could be something else going on as well, so please contact Framework Support.
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No worries. I’ll do the 24 hour charge and then do an internal test on the battery socket and get back to Support if required.
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Sadly that should be fine, and 24hrs more so.
It would be useful to know what charge rate there is for the ML1220 as we ‘know’ the capacity is around 17/18mA/h
The nominal discharge is 0.03mA/h (Panasonic data) 0.1mA/h (Maxell data)
Days to discharge @ 0.03mA/h = 21 days @ 0.1mAh = 7 days
Given a charge rate of 1mA/h the battery would charge in 17 to 18 hours.
However when the battery is below 10% and above 90% the charge rate is likely to be dramatically reduced, hence the 24 hour advice to charge.
However depending upon it’s 'life; cycle that could be dramatically reduced.
As the charge rate depends upon the voltage even a small resistance cause by tarnishing, low contact pressure, poor soldering etc. will mean the battery never reaches it maximum voltage, yet the charge will stop prematurely.
This is why Framework ‘more or less insist’ that a) It is charged for 24 hours and b) the battery should not be replaced as it may be a fault external to the battery.
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Yeah the fact that the battery cradle keeps popping up seems to me it’s a reasonable size batch.
If my issues are purely the CPU bug then I can work around that but if it’s a bad cradle then I want that sorted before I pass it on.
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EDITED: Ahh, you meant popping up as in being mentioned, not “popping up” off the board. Yes, let’s figure out what the root cause is.
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I shall report back. 
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Yeah, this is what happened to mine too. Mainboard resets became a routine part of my boot process if I let it power down for longer than a minute (even after letting it sit on the charger all week). Laptop used to work fine for 10 months until I left it unpowered/unused in my backpack for a month, which I assume killed the RTC battery.
My workaround was to avoid turning off the laptop and always travel with the screwdriver and a SIM eject tool handy for booting.
If you’ve performed the mainboard reset, let it charge for 24 hours, and are not consistently leaving it unused/not on a charger for weeks/months, and are seeing the reset consistently, please contact Support. Either the battery can no longer hold voltage or there’s something wrong with the RTC cradle. The Support agents have updated instructions to assist, even outside of the warranty period.
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Yes that can easily happen. It was a design oversight not to have battery, in the 11Gen being charged from the main battery. This maybe why support are happy to help in this situation even though the warranty has expired. Hope they keep that up for the 11Gen for - a long time.
OK More info on the ML1220
This is taken from https://www.abcde.de/data/ml1220_datasheet.pdf
In case of the datasheet URL becoming unavailable I also have a copy
Note the recommended usage is from 80% to 100% (maybe 77% to 78%) and clearly taking the battery below 20% is a no go.
With nominal drain of 0.03mA/h and 20% of capacity being around 3.5mA/h the 11th Gen should not be off mains power for longer than 166 hours or again 6 to 7 days.
This is a generous ‘advice’ as the battery will be loosing capacity from day 1 and if not treated extremely well will be degrading rapidly.
So a design that really only permits the laptop to disconnected from the mains for a week, without damaging the ML1220 is quite an oversight, and arguably not fit for the purpose that many customers may unwittingly put the laptop too. i.e. leaving it not plugged in for 6 days
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Interesting, but unplugged for 6 days max just sounds too short. I mean, when brand new, how many days did these laptops spend in inventory and shipping to customers? Why did that time unplugged not kill the RTC?
I enjoyed 10 months of hassle-free use after my laptop’s delivery, and it sure felt like I waited a long time for it to arrive at my door.
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Yes that’s a relevant point.
The 6 days is the time it takes to deplete the Ml12200 by some 20% so it can travel for two or three of weeks and still switch on.
A perfect battery can last 3 weeks. Some people have a problem and maybe that is due to a slow delivery from assembly to delivery.
There’s also the issue that the laptop is delivered in a state where it will not turn on without first connecting it to a power supply. This may have the effect that before that so much of the hardware is disconnected electronically that the ML1220 has a far reduced load. That would be nice to know too 
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UPDATE: Nirav’s update on this is here with links to the datasheets: Viability of an ML 1220 rechargable battery for RTC | CMOS (11th gen) - #453
Just to provide an update, this is being tracked down in coordination with our team in Taiwan as we want to make sure we’re providing the most accurate information. I’ll update here once I have the appropriate information to share. Thanks for your continued patience.
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Today my ML1220 died (it seams to leak “dust” and settings are not saved, when switched off and it starts twice until it boots). I have not found it anywhere, can anybody tell me where to buy a replacement in germany?
Is this issue fixed with Gen 12 mainboards?
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Hi all, as @TheTwistgibber noted, we have been reading through this thread carefully and listening to everyone’s feedback. There are a couple of actions we’re going to take to improve the experience for 11th Gen users who are finding that they need to reset their mainboard every few weeks or more often. Note that for the vast majority of 11th Gen users, who are using their laptops more often than every few weeks or months or who keep their laptop plugged into power when not in use, there should be no impact or need to engage on these actions.
RTC Battery Replacements
First, if you’re finding that you’ve needed to perform the Mainboard reset procedure more than a few times on your 11th Gen system after long periods of non-use, we will provide you with a free replacement RTC battery, even if you are outside of your warranty period. We will continue to do this for as long as we are able to get supply of these cells.
We’ve uploaded the datasheets for the two cells that our manufacturing partner had been sourcing for us during 11th Gen production. The key callout is that while cycle life is reasonable during normal shallow discharges, doing a full 100% discharge of the coin cell more than 10-12 times results in serious capacity degradation. From what we have seen, this is typical of Manganese Lithium coin cells, but we are reaching out to other coin cell makers to see if anyone has parts that handle deep discharge better.
Note that because these are bare Lithium Ion cells, they require very careful shipping to comply with transportation safety regulations. We’re working with our shipping carriers in each region to set up compliant shipping paths, so it may take some time for us to turn on shipments of these coin cells for all supported shipping regions. We have a small quantity of cells in the US currently, and we’re working on sourcing more of these from our suppliers, which similarly will take time due to lead times and handling requirements. Note also that we are only able to ship these cells to our supported shipping regions. We will also be listing the coin cell on the Marketplace for folks who are interested in purchasing them outside of this replacement process.
After you receive your replacement RTC cell, please make sure to let it fully recharge by keeping your laptop plugged into power for at least 72 hours. We also recommend keeping your laptop plugged into power during long periods of non-use to avoid letting the RTC battery fully discharge. Note that even a normal 5V/900mA USB-C power adapter will sufficiently trickle charge the system and RTC cell. Finally, we also recommend keeping your system up to date with the latest firmware releases. We’ve recently released 3.17 BIOS for 11th Gen.
Rework instructions for 11th Gen Mainboards (For advanced electronics repairers only)
While the above is available to all 11th Gen customers, we have an additional item that we do not recommend except for those who have both advanced soldering equipment and advanced electronics rework experience. This is a circuit modification for 11th Gen Mainboards to charge the RTC battery circuit at all times as long as the main battery is connected, even when the system is off. With this modification, the RTC battery can actually optionally be removed. This modification will make the 11th Gen similar to 12th Gen Mainboards where the RTC circuit is powered and charged directly off of the main battery. Note that because this is an advanced and difficult rework, this is not something we will be providing additional support around or warranty replacement in the event that you damage your board in the process of performing the rework. We will only be providing the instructions for doing the rework. We are currently writing this as a Knowledge Base article and will post in this thread once it is up.
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Very interested to know what the rework will be. Great that FW is making this an option but I’m feeling like we will see mainboards with ripped pads.
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