A few weeks ago, my second 61Wh battery started to swell. Both of my 61Wh batteries lasted about a year before they started swelling so much that they created a gap between the input cover and the bottom cover, which seems like a very short lifespan to me.
To be fair, both were still working fine, in both cases, the Framework tool reported that they were okay, and I didn’t notice any significant decrease in battery life. If the Framework had left more space in the chassis for the battery to expand, I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything and would have used them longer.
I didn’t want to buy a third identical battery, so I thought I could wait for the 74Wh model, hoping it might not have the same issue. So in the meantime, I removed the battery from the laptop, planning to use it with the power adapter. Now, when I start a VM, the laptop shuts down, when I start Age of Empires II, the laptop shuts down before the intro animation finishes. Is this normal behavior? And if so, what’s the point of the Cooler Master case?
Which 180W adapter are you using? The one from Framework? Many people are successfully using the mainboard in an external case with no battery, so I suspect something is going on.
Also, be aware, the 74Wh battery won’t fit in the standard FW 13 chassis. You would have to update to the new “pro” chassis to fit the 74Wh battery.
Do you leave the machine connected to power a lot? If so, have you set a charge limit to prevent the battery from sitting at 100%? I only ask because I have an 80% charge limit on my 61Wh battery that I’ve had since they first came out and I’ve had no issues. The 61Wh battery was found to be sensitive to being at 100% charge for extended periods.
It’s connected most of the time. Actually, I think the first battery, which I used for part of its lifespan without battery extender lasted a month or two longer than the second one.
What bothers me more, though, is that I assumed the framework would work without a battery without any problems, since they have a Cooler Master case for it and the BIOS has options for standalone operation.
Indeed. I tested my AMD 7840U laptop without a battery with 60W and 100W charger, no problem. I don’t even need to specifically turn on “standalone mode” on. Using a 36W charger did shut down before booting any game. If OP’s mainboard shuts down with a 140W charger with standalone mode, the mainboard itself might be problematic