Wierd Laptop charging behavior / barely not charging

[arki05]

Hi, my Laptop (Xiaomi Air 13 - 2016) stopped charging the way its supposed to. I just don't know whether this is a failing Battery, some kind of failure in the Charging circuit or something Software. 

 

First a better description of my Situation: 

As soon as i plug in the Adapter it starts charging with around 15 W ( according to BatteryInfoView), which is fine i guess. but over time the charging speed drops to around 115 mW. Reinserting the Charger cable seems to fix this issue temorarily, as the charging Speed jumps back up to 15W, but then it repeats itself. I monitored the Charging rate using BatteryInfoView and  made a Diagramm:

 

This chart depicts Charge from 52.2% to 61,9% over a timespan of 1:50h (x-Axis scaled wrong, 1 unit = 5s). 

 

I tested this with two different Chargers. No difference. I tried reinstalling drivers (as some sites suggest) and i tried recalibrating the Battery (i let it drain completely, unplugged it, rebooted without battery, and then plugged it back in.)

Does anybody have an idea what i should try next / where the fault lies ? I don't want to buy a new battery, just to find out that the battery was fine (exept for the 68.2% wear level) .

 

If it's an battery related issue replacing it should resolve this issue. How about the charging circuit? Would a small soldering job (e.g. swapping a resistor) be sufficient? and if so which one would it be?

 

This is my first time Posting and i hope someone can help me. Thanks in advance

 

Specs:

 Xiaomi Air 13

CPU: i5-6200U (+Intel HD 520)

RAM:  8GB 

SSD: 250GB Samsung p951 (i think)

GPU: Nvidia 940mx

OS: Win10 Pro (but in a kind of wierd efi/usb boot config, due to experiments with syncing os between PC's - it's basicly a windows to go stick on the internal harddrive configured in native boot mode (i hope this doesnt have anything to do with my problem as i want to test this further))

 

 

[arki05]

Small Addition: while writing this the Laptop charged with around 12W (still a little low but fine for me) consistently. Its now at 95%, no Fans spinning, Laptop quite warm but still in tolerance. This happened as well after i unplugged the battery for recallibration, but on the next Battery cycle the issue reappeared.

Additionaly i want to point out that the battery (to my testing) still holds charge, when i get it to from 30% to 50% overnight, discharge goes as expected from fully functioning laptop. 

Edit: Error definetly reappeared when i started charging from 50% again

(+ I'm sorry for english mistakes - its not my main language✌).

[moriel5]

Yeah, from the battery specs, I can see that the battery health is at ~70% or so, so the battery is fine.

 

Have you checked if the contacts on the charging port or the charger are clean, that could be causing these issues.

[arki05]

The Charging Port is now clean (as far as i can tell), but the issue persists. I'm going to try to clean it further later today. The port is a USB type C charging port. Even different chargers dont change anything. 

 

 

Additionaly i got the laptop back up to 68% charge and now its charging with ~10W consistently. 

 

The fact that the laptop charges at semi decent speeds over a longer period of time when it's beyond ~65 % indicates ( for me ) that the issue is related to the actual battery charge level. Therefore the component causing the issue must be one that behaves differently depending on charge. To my knowledge the connector and the charging circuit do the same thing no matter what charge the laptop has, so it must be the battery / battery protection circuit or software  , right ? (Not sure whether any of that is correct but that's what I guess)

 

I'm hoping that it's just some dirt in the connector that I haven't found yet. Thank you for bringing that up, I really forgot about the possibility of it being the connector. 

 

In case there isn't anything else obstructing the connector, what should be my next steps ? Could corrosion be an issue as well ? ( If so how am I going to test it?) Or how am I going to narrow down the amount of remaining possibilities / fix the issue all together?

 

[moriel5]

5 hours ago, arki05 said:

The Charging Port is now clean (as far as i can tell), but the issue persists. I'm going to try to clean it further later today. The port is a USB type C charging port. Even different chargers dont change anything. 

 

 

Additionaly i got the laptop back up to 68% charge and now its charging with ~10W consistently. 

 

The fact that the laptop charges at semi decent speeds over a longer period of time when it's beyond ~65 % indicates ( for me ) that the issue is related to the actual battery charge level. Therefore the component causing the issue must be one that behaves differently depending on charge. To my knowledge the connector and the charging circuit do the same thing no matter what charge the laptop has, so it must be the battery / battery protection circuit or software  , right ? (Not sure whether any of that is correct but that's what I guess)

 

I'm hoping that it's just some dirt in the connector that I haven't found yet. Thank you for bringing that up, I really forgot about the possibility of it being the connector. 

 

In case there isn't anything else obstructing the connector, what should be my next steps ? Could corrosion be an issue as well ? ( If so how am I going to test it?) Or how am I going to narrow down the amount of remaining possibilities / fix the issue all together?

 

I still do not think that this is related to the battery itself, unless Xiaomi has implemented something in the firmware (BIOS/UEFI) itself, which is very unlikely.

 

As for cleaning, you need something like a contacts cleaning spray solution, since you cannot see all dirt (I do not remember how to say this in english, hopefully someone will correct me about this) there.

 

If even that does not work, try Isopropyl alcohol (at least 70%), which could possibly help if there is a minor case of corrosion.

 

Otherwise, I'd recommend taking the laptop to a repair shop, since one of the internal components may be failing (a common case with some Macbooks, according to Louis Rossman (though, this is not a Macbook, something that will help greatly if we get to such a situation).

[arki05]

First of all, thank you for your suggestions. I tried cleaning it some more, but no luck there. 

 

Then i had the idea to stress test the laptop, in order to get an high power draw. If the connector is the Problem, then on high usage i should see the charging speed plummeting or even discharge of the battery. But non of that happened. I maxed out CPU & GPU, the Power draw according to HWMonitor was around 50W, but the laptop kept charging at the same rate of ca. 10W (i was at ~65% Batterylife). 

 

My last resort would be to Update the BIOS, im on A06 and i found an A09 version on this http://bbs.xiaomi.cn/t-37742666 Chinese site. How do i Update the bios ? DOS-USB-Stick (and whats the best way to make one) and then run the .exe included in the .zip ? or simply run it in Windows ? 

 

If that doesn't work as well i guess its an Charging-Hardware/Battery issue, so only an expert can help and that proabatly wont be worth it, the laptop was 550$ new and is 2 years old.

[moriel5]

You

7 hours ago, arki05 said:

First of all, thank you for your suggestions. I tried cleaning it some more, but no luck there. 

 

Then i had the idea to stress test the laptop, in order to get an high power draw. If the connector is the Problem, then on high usage i should see the charging speed plummeting or even discharge of the battery. But non of that happened. I maxed out CPU & GPU, the Power draw according to HWMonitor was around 50W, but the laptop kept charging at the same rate of ca. 10W (i was at ~65% Batterylife). 

 

My last resort would be to Update the BIOS, im on A06 and i found an A09 version on this http://bbs.xiaomi.cn/t-37742666 Chinese site. How do i Update the bios ? DOS-USB-Stick (and whats the best way to make one) and then run the .exe included in the .zip ? or simply run it in Windows ? 

 

If that doesn't work as well i guess its an Charging-Hardware/Battery issue, so only an expert can help and that proabatly wont be worth it, the laptop was 550$ new and is 2 years old.

Hmm...

Your model is the TM1613, correct?

Since you have to be extremely careful when flashing the firmware.

 

If so, from what I can see ( I downloaded the file from a mirror, so take this with a grain of salt), you just need to run the exe inside the RAR archive.

 

This may also interest you: http://en.miui.com/thread-1169688-1-1.html, with this link having the tools: https://www.win-raid.com/t596f39-Intel-Management-Engine-Drivers-Firmware-amp-System-Tools.html

 

Though I personally do not believe that the firmware is the cause of this.

 

Try booting a live-boot Linux image from a flashdrive and check the charge from there from there, perhaps something in Windows is causing the issue.

Another option (in addition, not instead), is getting another charger and testing that.

[arki05]

Thank you for your effort and help. The bios update was really easy, just ran the .exe and done.

I already tried an different charger but no luck there ( that was actually the first thing I tried ).

 

I have done a complete reinstall of windows, still no luck, not sure whether Linux will bring me any further but creating a live stick won't take too long so I guess it's worth a shot.

 

I didn't even think about making the Intel Management Engine responsible for this fault, but it could be the reason. I'm going to try that next. Thank you for that suggestion.

 

 If none of that helps I'm probably going to just sell it as defect ( broken battery charging circuit ) and buy a matebook d . If it does help i'm probably going to sell it as well, just for a bit more money

 

Thanks for all the help. 

[moriel5]

On 5/17/2019 at 6:48 PM, arki05 said:

Thank you for your effort and help. The bios update was really easy, just ran the .exe and done.

I already tried an different charger but no luck there ( that was actually the first thing I tried ).

 

I have done a complete reinstall of windows, still no luck, not sure whether Linux will bring me any further but creating a live stick won't take too long so I guess it's worth a shot.

 

I didn't even think about making the Intel Management Engine responsible for this fault, but it could be the reason. I'm going to try that next. Thank you for that suggestion.

 

 If none of that helps I'm probably going to just sell it as defect ( broken battery charging circuit ) and buy a matebook d . If it does help i'm probably going to sell it as well, just for a bit more money

 

Thanks for all the help. 

No problem, I'm glad to be of help.

 

I did not mean that the Intel's ME is at fault, I had just meant that you could update it to at least enable protection against Spectre and Meltdown.

 

My guess, is that there is an issue either with the laptop's hardware or the charger, so I would recommend taking the laptop to a repair lab, and/or testing with a new charger. Getting a new laptop is also a choice.