[SOLVED] Pinebook stopped to charge

[UltraBloxX]

Hello!

My Pinebook was working just fine, but yesterday it has stopped to charge. That is, when I plugged it in - it appears to detect charger plugged in, but battery is not charged and LED near power socket doesn't light up.

Battery is not undercharged and in fact, there's still 26% as I type this message. According to XFCE power manager in Armbian, the battery is "discharging", and at same time, AC power supply is detected. From the charge level, it seems that Pinebook runs mostly from AC power and battery depletes much slower than usual. But I'm puzzled, why doesn't it charge. Battery voltage is around 3.8-3.7V, so it's nowhere close to be "flat", and PMIC should detect and charge it. I still opened bottom cover and tried to detach and reattach battery connector, but nothing seems to have changed.

Here's upower -d dump:

Code:

$ upower -d
Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/line_power_axp813_ac
 native-path:          axp813-ac
 power supply:         yes
 updated:              Sat 04 May 2019 12:00:19 PM MSK (830 seconds ago)
 has history:          no
 has statistics:       no
 line-power
   warning-level:       none
   online:              yes
   icon-name:          'ac-adapter-symbolic'

Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_axp20x_battery
 native-path:          axp20x-battery
 power supply:         yes
 updated:              Sat 04 May 2019 12:12:20 PM MSK (109 seconds ago)
 has history:          yes
 has statistics:       yes
 battery
   present:             yes
   rechargeable:        yes
   state:               discharging
   warning-level:       none
   energy:              0 Wh
   energy-empty:        0 Wh
   energy-full:         0 Wh
   energy-full-design:  0 Wh
   energy-rate:         0 W
   voltage:             3.721 V
   percentage:          26%
   capacity:            100%
   icon-name:          'battery-low-symbolic'

Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/DisplayDevice
 power supply:         yes
 updated:              Sat 04 May 2019 12:00:19 PM MSK (830 seconds ago)
 has history:          no
 has statistics:       no
 battery
   present:             yes
   state:               discharging
   warning-level:       none
   energy:              0 Wh
   energy-full:         0 Wh
   energy-rate:         0 W
   percentage:          26%
   icon-name:          'battery-low-symbolic'

Daemon:
 daemon-version:  0.99.4
 on-battery:      no
 lid-is-closed:   no
 lid-is-present:  yes
 critical-action: PowerOff

[UltraBloxX]

Looks like problem is solved. I've booted into KDE Neon on MicroSD and Pinebook has started to charge again. I can assume it was some sort of PMIC firmware bug.

[Luke]

Looks like problem is solved. I've booted into KDE Neon on MicroSD and Pinebook has started to charge again. I can assume it was some sort of PMIC firmware bug.

Doesn't happen on mainline images.

[UltraBloxX]

Looks like problem is solved. I've booted into KDE Neon on MicroSD and Pinebook has started to charge again. I can assume it was some sort of PMIC firmware bug.

Doesn't happen on mainline images.

Strange. The problem has occured for me on mainline Armbian Stretch, but fixed by running KDE Neon, which AFAIK still runs on BSP kernel. It's probably a rare bug, though, because right now my Pinebook still charges fine with Armbian Stretch (most likely BSP kernel overwrites PMIC configuration, or something like that).

[Luke]

Looks like problem is solved. I've booted into KDE Neon on MicroSD and Pinebook has started to charge again. I can assume it was some sort of PMIC firmware bug.

Doesn't happen on mainline images.

Strange. The problem has occured for me on mainline Armbian Stretch, but fixed by running KDE Neon, which AFAIK still runs on BSP kernel. It's probably a rare bug, though, because right now my Pinebook still charges fine with Armbian Stretch (most likely BSP kernel overwrites PMIC configuration, or something like that).

Interesting ok, I've not had this issue with Manjaro (mainline)

[cel]

I am also encountering failure to charge. It started happening after one night the battery drained to zero. Now it will charge when powered off (if the cable is in exactly the right position), but when running it only shows discharging. I am running Armbian Bionic on a Pinebook 11.6" 1080P. I am trying to download KDE Neon now to see if booting into that fixes it as reported in this thread. Is there any other fix?

Edit 2019-08-15: After booting into KDE Neon, the battery charges again.

[UltraBloxX]

I'm not aware of any neater fix and a few days ago I again had to boot into KDE Neon and fix once again has worked. But your problem seems to confirm this is Armbian related, and happens both on Armbian Bionic and Armbian Stretch (which are both based on same mainline kernel).

[pfeerick]

Interesting... I had this exact same issue when I tried Manjaro ARM back in April and tried again the other day with a fresh image with all updates and it still isn't working. Like has been mentioned... the battery is not charging, but as long as external power is connected, it is not going flat. Also, the charge led is constantly flashing.

I've opened a thread on the Manjaro forum, but we haven't gotten anywhere yet. But perhaps this *is* a mainline issue as I encounter it on both the Armbian and Manjaro releases with mainline kernels.

Hardware wise - this is an original Pinebook 11" - not the later 1080p model.