Battery draining with external power while under load?

[Upokupo]

I too am experience issues with charging and battery drain. I have to ask the benefit of engineering something that requires the battery to have a charge regardless if it is plugged in or not? I have worked on a lot of devices and fixed loads of laptops. I have never ran across this setup.  If the battery is dead or won't hold a charge, it still boots up when plugged in. This really is a bad design choice. Just having one tab open in firefox, writing this post, i'm encountering a blinking charge light. My opinion is that this is a defective product as is. If I watch a video on Xumo, Pluto or Tubi, the battery goes down quickly.

My sub $200 Chromebook with peripherals attached: Does not do this.
My 3DS: Does not do this.
My Switch Lite: Does not do this.
My old Acer that ran Windows Vista when it first came out: Did not do this.
My cellphone: Does not do this.
Every single laptop I've fixed for friends and family: Did not do this.

Luckily, there is a fix and bypassing the battery. I've tried looking for a straightforward tutorial to run off the barrel plug. Does any one know where I can view one maybe with pictures? I have already opened up my Pinebook because I got the PCIe adapter for an NVME drive. I thought this was the root of the problem but it turns out it isn't after I removed it. This is just how this thing functions as a whole.

[xmixahlx]

the pbp can consume more energy than provided by line power. you can argue that is a bad design choice, for sure.

you can also modify the software or configure to consune less power.

[Der Geist der Maschine]

you can also modify the software or configure to consune less power.

Last year, there was an power issue. I did measurements.

This year, the situation is different. Even under the slightest load, the battery takes over. This is also what Upokupo experiences ("writing this post in firefox").

I'm not sure what changed? New kernel (4.x vs 5.x)? New device tree tweaks? "Age"? What else?

Luckily, there is a fix and bypassing the battery.

Please try it out. It would be interesting to see if the laptop stays up. Maybe it shuts down as it can not fall back to the battery.

[Syonyk]

I have to ask the benefit of engineering something that requires the battery to have a charge regardless if it is plugged in or not? I have worked on a lot of devices and fixed loads of laptops. I have never ran across this setup.

It's sold as developer hardware for a reason. There are rough edges.

[Der Geist der Maschine]

I have to ask the benefit of engineering something that requires the battery to have a charge regardless if it is plugged in or not? I have worked on a lot of devices and fixed loads of laptops. I have never ran across this setup.

It's sold as developer hardware for a reason.  There are rough edges.

Hello Syonyk, this is true for the Pine Time. I don't follow the Pine Phone, maybe that's also true for the Pine Phone. As far as I know, the Pinebook Pro is not advertised as developer hardware. Only Ayufan, MrFixIT, Luke and maybe others got developer hardware way over a year ago.

[Syonyk]

Hello Syonyk, this is true for the Pine Time. I don't follow the Pine Phone, maybe that's also true for the Pine Phone. As far as I know, the Pinebook Pro is not advertised as developer hardware. Only Ayufan, MrFixIT, Luke and maybe others got developer hardware way over a year ago.

At a maximum, it's still community development hardware. It's possible to use one as a daily driver, but I wouldn't recommend that for someone who was not already a reasonably skilled Linux admin with some hardware experience. There are still plenty of rough edges, like the latest wifi firmware screwing up the wireless connectivity, the blend of things required for deep sleep, and sound not working reliably after that.

I put things like the charging behavior in the "It's still beta" category. The right answer, IMO, would be USB-C power delivery hardware, but that's not what the unit has.

If I load the system up hard, I can get 3.5A out of the battery at around 3.8V - that's 13.5W. It should hold that on the barrel plug, but it's observably not - or it heats up and can't keep up. Not sure which.

There's nothing wrong with that - it's just a design decision they made. But I wouldn't give a PBP to a non-technical friend yet for anything resembling regular use.

[Upokupo]

Hello Syonyk, this is true for the Pine Time. I don't follow the Pine Phone, maybe that's also true for the Pine Phone. As far as I know, the Pinebook Pro is not advertised as developer hardware. Only Ayufan, MrFixIT, Luke and maybe others got developer hardware way over a year ago.

At a maximum, it's still community development hardware.  It's possible to use one as a daily driver, but I wouldn't recommend that for someone who was not already a reasonably skilled Linux admin with some hardware experience.  There are still plenty of rough edges, like the latest wifi firmware screwing up the wireless connectivity, the blend of things required for deep sleep, and sound not working reliably after that.

I put things like the charging behavior in the "It's still beta" category.  The right answer, IMO, would be USB-C power delivery hardware, but that's not what the unit has.

If I load the system up hard, I can get 3.5A out of the battery at around 3.8V - that's 13.5W.  It should hold that on the barrel plug, but it's observably not - or it heats up and can't keep up.  Not sure which.

There's nothing wrong with that - it's just a design decision they made.  But I wouldn't give a PBP to a non-technical friend yet for anything resembling regular use.

Thank you for the reply and reasserting my perspective. I forgot what I was getting myself into. Aside from rough edges this thing is amazing! I plan on giving my initial impressions in the proper thread. Sorry it took a while to respond. Been dealing with a lot of health issues with family members. I will be making the change to have it run directly off of the barrel plug and unplugging the battery when I get some downtime to tinker some more. I WILL make this my daily driver come hell or high water.

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you can also modify the software or configure to consune less power.

Last year, there was an power issue. I did measurements.

This year, the situation is different. Even under the slightest load, the battery takes over. This is also what Upokupo experiences ("writing this post in firefox").

I'm not sure what changed? New kernel (4.x vs 5.x)? New device tree tweaks? "Age"? What else?

Luckily, there is a fix and bypassing the battery.

Please try it out. It would be interesting to see if the laptop stays up. Maybe it shuts down as it can not fall back to the battery.

I will do that when I find some downtime to tinker with it some more and post some results. I still love this thing and having a blast with it.

[Syonyk]

Thank you for the reply and reasserting my perspective. I forgot what I was getting myself into.  Aside from rough edges this thing is amazing! I plan on giving my initial impressions in the proper thread. Sorry it took a while to respond. Been dealing with a lot of health issues with family members. I will be making the change to have it run directly off of the barrel plug and unplugging the battery when I get some downtime to tinker some more. I WILL make this my daily driver come hell or high water.

Sure - and that's the right perspective to have, IMO. The hardware is good enough to use extensively, but it's far from perfect, and the software support is still a bit rough around the edges. Random kernel issues, hardware support that's good-but-not-great (see uboot - you can run mainline, at the cost of deep sleep - and if you run the BSP one with deep sleep, you lose sound some of the time on resume), etc.

"I'll daily driver it come hell or high water," and then reporting/fixing the issues, is exactly what the platform needs right now. Grumbling about the quirks, as was being done upthread, isn't terribly productive. Note them, report them, see if you can work around them, but it's a $200 laptop being sold basically at cost, to shake out the weird stuff.