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

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Power-On Hardware Issue (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by tapdattl@lemmy.world to c/framework@lemmy.ca

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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!

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[–] dakoriki@sopuli.xyz 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 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

[–] tapdattl@lemmy.world 2 points 4 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!

[–] Maiq@piefed.social 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I don't know but since it's before post check the bios for changes. Maybe see if there is a newer bios version.

[–] tapdattl@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Checked the BIOS and I couldn't see anything in there about power requirements for booting. I also haven't made any changes to my BIOS recently. I will go ahead see if I can update the BIOS just for redundancy, thank you!

[–] Maiq@piefed.social 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

After reading the other comment it makes sense that it could be your CMOS battery.

According to this no soldering required, hopefully.

https://knowledgebase.frame.work/how-do-i-replace-the-rtc-battery-in-my-framework-laptop-Hk406Lc1t

Never hurts to have the latest bios though.

[–] dakoriki@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You can easily change the RTC coin cell battery with no soldering

Soldering only comes in to play if you want to get rid of the coin cell all together

With some laptop usage/charging patterns the coin cell would empty to dead easily and I would not hold a charge well anymore after that. So even if replace the coin cell, your usage pattern could kill the next coin cell as fast as the previous one. Hence the need/want for the battery bypass

[–] Maiq@piefed.social 2 points 4 months ago

Makes sense now. My mobile app doesn't let me see all comments while I'm replying to someone, just the one or I might have reread your original.

Nice thought about the battery! Hope they get everything sorted.