Battery Charge Limit unreliable after installing Laptop 13 Ryzen 7040 BIOS 3.07 Release

[timwenger]

Device Information

System Model or SKU

• Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series)

BIOS VERSION

Upgraded from 3.06 to 3.07 on Windows 11 Pro

DIY Edition information

Memory: 2x Kingston 32GB 5600 MT
Storage: WD Black SN850X, 1TB

Port/Peripheral information

Connected to a USB C port on port 1 which is connected to a Dell U3219Q monitor with Power Delivery (this is how the laptop is charged).
All other ports are disconnected.

Standalone Operation

Are you running your mainboard as a standalone device. Is standalone mode enabled in the BIOS?

• Yes
• No

Describe the bug

BIOS Battery Charge limit settings below 100% are not adhered to. Instead it charges to 100%.

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Installed bios 3.07 from 3.06, with charge limit set at 65%
2. After restarting, the charge started rising above. I noticed it at 80%
3. I found on the 3.07 release page that others had success to get the charge limit back by setting the limit to 100%, rebooting, then setting back down to the desired %. I did this, and afterwards I found it stopped charging and dropped back to my limit.
4. The next day I found that the battery was charged to 100% again (perhaps I restarted it, or it hibernated). So I repeated the above step (reboot twice to set the limit to 100% then back down to my desired % - this time I chose 80% arbitrarily, and it's now staying limited to 80%, for the time being.
5. At first I had the battery extender enabled, but I believe I have experienced the issue regardless of whether battery extender is enabled or not.

Operating System (please complete the following information):

• OS/Distribution: Windows 11 Pro
• Version: 24H2, 26100.3194

Additional context

Many others are having this issue, and have expressed their situation on the 3.07 release page

[quinchou77]

When you set the charge limit, do you disable the battery extender at the same time?

[timwenger]

When you set the charge limit, do you disable the battery extender at the same time?

Here's what I did this morning - hopefully this answers your question:

1. My charge limit had been correctly adhered to yesterday, plugged in with charge limit enabled to 80% and the battery extender disabled. I then closed the lid to sleep it and then unplugged it.
2. My laptop had been sleeping, unplugged for 18h+
3. I first plugged it in, then pressed the power button. Upon waking, the framework logo showed. So it was in a deep sleep / hibernation.
4. after 10 min or so plugged in, it passed my charge limit. This was now the 2nd time since upgrading to 3.07 where I had had the charge limit working, but then it stopped working.
5. I rebooted and swapped both charge settings: I limited the charge to 100%, and enabled battery extender.
6. I rebooted again, and only changed the charge limit to 75%. After booting though, it was still charging past 75%.
7. I rebooted again, and limited the charge to 100% and disabled the battery extender.
8. I rebooted again, and only changed the charge limit to 75%. After booting, it stopped charging and began to discharge to 75%.

[quinchou77]

We found a known issue that "If the battery extender mode is disabled, and charge limit is set below 100%, the charge limit will not be enforced causing the battery to charge to 100%."

You could try to enable battery extender first, then see whether the charge limit works normally or not.

[Stebalien]

We found a known issue that "If the battery extender mode is disabled, and charge limit is set below 100%, the charge limit will not be enforced causing the battery to charge to 100%."

The issue is reproducible both with and without the battery extender mode enabled.

[conradsnicta]

@quinchou77 @kiram9 @JohnAZoidberg There are many confirmed reports of the broken charge limit at the Ryzen BIOS 3.07 BETA announcement thread:
https://community.frame.work/t/framework-laptop-13-ryzen-7040-bios-3-07-release-beta/65582

[sgilder1]

And Framework have shipped 3.07 as stable, even with this known regression....

[jcdutton]

Hi,
I don’t have a FW13 AMD, but I do have a FW16.
I have not observed the battery problem. I limit mine to 70% and it stays at 70%. I disable the battery safe feature because I don’t need it. If you power off and unplug the laptop every night, it never will trigger the battery save feature.
But, my understanding is that battery charge/control is done by the EC (embedded controller) which is 100% open source. So, if people are seeing battery charge problems, they could look at the source code and suggest fixes. I have made changes to the EC code that fix some bugs in the EC, but none of those are charge related.

Algorithmically, the battery needs some input parameters:

Fixed set by user in the BIOS:

global charge limit
battery save enable/disabled
battery save trigger setting.

Measured values:
4) battery current charge level
5) EC uptime.

State that must survive a power off of the EC / laptop
6) state of hysteresis cycle.
1-charging to the limit, and switch to state 2 when charge limit reached.
2-stay idle while AC plugged in, unless the charge has dropped below "limit -5", then switch to state 1
Note: There appears to be a bug in the current EC code, that causes state 2 to actually discharge, instead of stay idle.

The rules:
Say you have set the global limit to 80%.
That is fine until the uptime triggers the battery save. It then is looking to use the 98%, then less over time.
That set of rules is odd and suspect in my opinion, but is consistent with what problems people are reporting. I would have chosen a different set of rules.

My suggested work around is therefore to never trigger the battery save function or set the global limit to 100%. Then reset the EC so the uptime is reset to zero and not triggering the battery save function.

To reset the EC:

1. power off the laptop, not suspend.
2. unplug the PSU for 2 minutes.
3. plug power back in.
4. power on laptop.
5. use ectool console to check the uptime has been reset.

Summary: unplugging the power for a few seconds does NOT reset the EC.

[kiram9]

Hi Everyone,
We have reproduced this issue and have a fix that we will be releasing to stable before the end of march.

[jcdutton]

@kiram9
If the fix is a change to the EC. Please point me to the git commit so I can have a look.

[mercertom]

by the end of march

Is this still happening? March is almost up.

[quinchou77]

@mercertom 3.08 beta has been posted to forum https://community.frame.work/t/framework-laptop-13-ryzen-7040-bios-3-08-release-beta/66858