Pinephone visibly losing power while plugged in

[Hiraghm]

I have a pinephone community edition running mobian.
Most of the time it sits, off, because we're not allowed to have phones at work, and I don't have a lot of people to talk to (when I'm at home, I use my desktop, anyway).

I've noticed lately that plugged into my computer, it seems to lose about 1% power every 3 minutes or so.
Plugged into the power outlet, however, it seems to lose about 1% power every 3 minutes or so.
The only way I seem able to charge it now is to turn it off and plug it in.

I've set it as power-saving as I can figure out. It sits in suspend mode with the screen off.
I have wifi, bluetooth and cellular on.
The battery icon shows the thunderbolt, and I get the message that its charging... but it's draining faster than it's charging.

There's nothing wrong with the cable; I've used it to connect an android tablet that charges just fine.

I've flipped the usb-c end in case there's a frontwards/backwards way to insert it (hey, I'm desperate).

It does not get hot. Plugged in or not, it only gets *slightly* warm.

Can anyone help me with this? I haven't seen this specific problem anywhere in the forums. I love my pinephone and don't want to give it up.

[mikehenson]

Can anyone help me with this? I haven't seen this specific problem anywhere in the forums. I love my pinephone and don't want to give it up.

Hello!
I suggest getting a better wall charger.

Related points to keep in mind
The Phone will draw 3-5 Watts just sitting.
Computer USB ports can typically have a .1amp to .5amp at 5V is max 2.5 Watts. This is why you are seeing a battery drain.
You will need at least a 5 Watts wall charger. Most little wall chargers that come with EVERYTHING are 5 to 8 watts. Buy a QC3.0 or PD65W charger.
Here is a link[1] to a good 20 Watt charger I use.
The phone also has smarts to talk with the charger and set the current draw. This to help battery life. In Arch Linux, I use a package called powersupply[2] it shows me what current the charger has and what PD version it is using. It also shows me what wattage the phone is using.

To your Android tablet statement:
Android has INSANE power management and can "charge" slowly with a few watts. All modern Android devices will tell you "Charging Slowly" "Charging" "Charging fast" "Turbo Charging"

[1] https://ameridroid.com/products/usb-a-us...dapter-20w
[2] https://gitlab.com/MartijnBraam/powersupply

[Kevin Kofler]

we're not allowed to have phones at work

Sounds like an unpleasant place to work at! There better ought to be a really good reason for that or I would be looking for a friendlier place to work at immediately.

---

As for the charger, I use a 12W (2.4A) USB A charger (adapter brick style) from a little-known brand (Nedis WCHAU242AWT), which can be had here for less than 9€.

[baptx]

I just had a charging issue with my PinePhone (on Mobian 12 stable), it was charging very slowly and with the app Powersupply I was able to see that it was charging at less than 1W. Restarting the phone fixed the issue and it was charging normally at around 4 or 5W.

[baptx]

@tophneal @evilbunny I saw the related thread https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...509&page=2 is closed but it would be useful if a moderator can reopen it to add a warning for people reading it. Here is the message I wanted to post:

It is a bad idea to use ">" in this case, better use ">>" otherwise it could overwrite content you already have in the file.
You can do it with sudo also like this:
sudo sh -c 'echo "blacklist anx7688" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf'
Or use an editor with sudo:
sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
I also read about blacklisting anx7688 on https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comme...d_for_the/ but it did not work in my case with the PinePhone on Mobian 12 stable.
Sometimes rebooting fixed the slow charging issue but not every time, I checked with the app Powersupply.
I tested with the USB A to C cable delivered with the phone.
If someone has another solution to force charging faster, it would be nice to share.

Update: Making the phone boot automatically by plugging in the charger fixed the issue again but I don't know if it will work every time. In the app Powersupply, I can see the current limit is now 1.5A instead of 0.5A. When the charging percentage reaches around 99%, I noticed it charges more slowly (below 1W instead of 4 or 5W) until it stops at 100%, even if it still shows 1.5A.

[tophneal]

I've added a post linking to yours above for anyone that goes to that thread.

[Labinkled]

@tophneal @evilbunny I saw the related thread https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...509&page=2 is closed but it would be useful if a moderator can reopen it to add a warning for people reading it. Here is the message I wanted to post:

It is a bad idea to use ">" in this case, better use ">>" otherwise it could overwrite content you already have in the file.
You can do it with sudo also like this:
sudo sh -c 'echo "blacklist anx7688" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf'
Or use an editor with sudo:
sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
I also read about blacklisting anx7688 on https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comme...d_for_the/ but it did not work in my case with the PinePhone on Mobian 12 stable.
Sometimes rebooting fixed the slow charging issue but not every time, I checked with the app Powersupply.
I tested with the USB A to C cable delivered with the phone.
If someone has another solution to force charging faster, it would be nice to share.

Update: Making the phone boot automatically by plugging in the charger fixed the issue again but I don't know if it will work every time. In the app Powersupply, I can see the current limit is now 1.5A instead of 0.5A. When the charging percentage reaches around 99%, I noticed it charges more slowly (below 1W instead of 4 or 5W) until it stops at 100%, even if it still shows 1.5A. Powersupply shows 1.5A current when it works properly.

[Anthona]

@tophneal @evilbunny I saw the related thread https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...509&page=2 is closed but it would be useful if a moderator can reopen it to add a warning for people reading it. Here is the message I wanted to post:

It is a bad idea to use ">" in this case, better use ">>" otherwise it could overwrite content you already have in the file.
You can do it with sudo also like this:
sudo sh -c 'echo "blacklist anx7688" > /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf'
Or use an editor with sudo:
sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
I also read about blacklisting anx7688 on https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comme...d_for_the/ drive mad but it did not work in my case with the PinePhone on Mobian 12 stable.
Sometimes rebooting fixed the slow charging issue but not every time, I checked with the app Powersupply.
I tested with the USB A to C cable delivered with the phone.
If someone has another solution to force charging faster, it would be nice to share.

Update: Making the phone boot automatically by plugging in the charger fixed the issue again but I don't know if it will work every time. In the app Powersupply, I can see the current limit is now 1.5A instead of 0.5A. When the charging percentage reaches around 99%, I noticed it charges more slowly (below 1W instead of 4 or 5W) until it stops at 100%, even if it still shows 1.5A. Powersupply shows 1.5A current when it works properly.

What more information would you like to know?