this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
10 points (100.0% liked)

Framework

480 readers
1 users here now

An unofficial community of enthusiasts and fans of the Framework hardware company, known for its modular laptops and other products.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello all, hoping to get a little assistance on a hardware issue I'm having. I've got an older framework laptop (Batch 5, ~Nov. 2021), and recently it's been having issues powering on. Regardless of the laptop's charge, it will not power on unless it's plugged in. As soon as I past the POST, I can unplug it and it will continue on battery, but in order to get it to actually power on it needs to be plugged in.

Not sure what could be causing this, maybe just a weak battery? Battery health is at 84%. Looking forward to ya'lls thoughts. Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] dakoriki@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Most likely the RTC (real time clock) battery is not holding a charge anymore?

The first gen mainboards only charged the RTC battery via the charger so if you didnt plug in the laptop for some time it wouldn't boot anymore even if the main battery had charge because the laptop does not boot with a dead RTC battery

You can either replace the RTC battery yourself or framework can send an RTC battery replacement for free that uses the main battery as the RTC battery but it does require you to solder a single wire to the mainboard

[โ€“] tapdattl@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Soldering sounds exciting, I think I get some definite nerd street cred for that -- "soldered own laptop" has a nice ring to it.

Be prepared for a "I tried soldering an RTC battery and magic smoke started escaping from my laptop" post soon!