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1. Some theory
1.1. Introduction
Almost every laptop has a charging circuit of some sort, that does a few things:
There are 2 different designs to handle switching between AC adapter and battery power
and feeding the system:
Hybrid power boost (HPB) and traditional circuits without power boost (see
Warning in HPB section)
Narrow VDC (NVDC)
There are also 2 different designs to handle battery charging rail generation:
Buck converter
Buck-Boost converter
Almost all laptops without USB-C charging capabilities use a buck converter. Most of
these use HPB, except Apple laptops which always use NVDC. A bunch of non-Apple
ultrabooks use NVDC as well.
Almost all laptops (incl. Apple) with USB-C charging capabilities use NVDC with a buck-
boost converter.
Some netbooks or entry-level laptops (especially ARM platforms and some Atom
platforms) can have a circuit different to what is presented here, using a PMIC that
handles almost every power-related features. Since these aren't common and highly
depend on the board and the ICs used, they are not covered here.
For MacBooks without USB-C you have some more details on the charger IC
here: https://logi.wiki/index.php/ISL6258_...roubleshooting
The change is required in the control circuit (the battery charger controller). The
advantage of this system over a traditional charger is that the battery is able to assist
the adapter during turbo workloads. This system has the disadvantage that the light
load efficiency is pretty low as it is difficult to achieve high light load efficiency at high
input voltage.
In this design, the system is fed from the AC adapter, and a MOSFET (we will call it
battery-to-system MOSFET) allows the current to flow from the battery to the system
when on battery only, while prevent current from flowing directly from the AC adapter
to the battery when AC adapter is plugged in.
Therefore, when on AC adapter, the main power rail voltage will be the voltage
provided by the AC adapter. In general this voltage is between 19V and 20V. A few
machines use 12V or 16V.
When on battery, the main power rail voltage will be the voltage provided by the
battery. This depends on the number of cells in series in the battery and the state of
charge, but it is lower than 19V. (see Battery voltage section)
Warning: Hybrid power boost provides an additional feature where the battery can
provide additional power to the system even when running on AC adapter. Older
designs used the same circuit but the charger IC was not able to provide this feature.
The presence or abscence of this feature is irrelevant to this article, so the older
designs will fall under the hybrid power boost term as well.
The advantage of using the NVDC system is that the overall system efficiency is better
compared to the Hybrid Power Boost (HPB) charger. The system can be designed for a
smaller voltage rating since the system has a lower Vin. The disadvantage is that the
charger components’ size and power dissipation increases.
In this design, the system is fed directly from the battery charging rail. The voltage on
the main power rail is always close to the voltage on the battery. (see Battery voltage
section)
Li-ion cells typically have a nominal voltage of 3.6V to 3.7V, LiPo cells typically have a
nominal voltage of 3.7V to 3.85V. It varies depending on the brand and series of the cell.
The battery voltage and by extension the voltage used to charge the battery depends
directly on how many cells there are in series inside the battery pack.
Battery packs can be described with a "xSyP" number, where y is the number of cells in
a group connected in parallel, and x is the number of groups connected in series.
All cells in parallel in a group will have the same voltage across them. Putting groups in
series will sum their voltages.
For example a 3S2P pack with 11.1V nominal voltage contains 6 cells, 3 groups in series
of 2 cells in parallel, for a total voltage across the pack of 3×3.7V = 11.1V.
The number of cells put in parallel in a group helps increasing the capacity, but it doesn't
change the voltage. We are interested in the voltage here, so we will ignore the cells in
parallel.
The "nominal voltage" represents the voltage around which the cell is throughout most
of its discharge, it should be what you are able to measure on the pack when it's
charged to around 50%.
When charged fully, the voltage will be higher, when completely discharged, the voltage
will be lower.
Charging voltage will be a bit higher than the fully charged voltage of the pack. For
example, an 11.55V pack (3S of 3.85V nominal) can in general be charged at 13.1V
(4.35V per cell). An 11.1V pack (3S of 3.7V nominal) can in general be charged at 12.6V
(4.2V per cell). A 10.8V pack (3S of 3.6V nominal) can in general be charged at 12.3V
(4.1V per cell).
This of course highly depends on the exact type of cells used, and using a voltage that's
too high for a given cell type can at best damage the cell, at worst be a safety threat.
2. Troubleshooting charging circuit
2.1. No power
First thing to check if the machine is not powering on is if the main power rail is present.
If it is present, then in general the problem is not in the charging circuit. You can still
check "Shorted DC-in MOSFET" and "Missing voltage on the charger IC" as they could
still be a source of trouble in some cases.
To be able to check the main power rail, you have to identify if you have an HPB or an
NVDC configuration.
With an HPB configuration you have to check the voltage after the 2nd DC-in
MOSFET and after the current sensing resistor for AC adapter power input. You
are supposed to find the AC adapter voltage.
(from Quanta X63 schematics)
With an NVDC configuration, you are supposed to find the battery voltage (see
Battery voltage section):
o If it's a buck converter you have to check the voltage after the buck
converter inductor and after the fuse if it exists
If you confirmed your main power rail is missing, there are several possibilities
The other MOSFET could also be shorted, in the case of an HPB topology the main power
rail will be present since current will flow through the shorted MOSFET and through the
body diode of the other MOSFET, but some signal from the charger IC might be missing
causing the platform not to turn on. In an NVDC topology the main power might be
missing.
Simply check resistance between drain/source/gate of both DC-in MOSFETs to confirm
they are not shorted. It should show at least several kohms.
These signals should come up once the previous signals are good and the previous
problems have been excluded:
ACOK: asserts that the input voltage is good, for P-channel MOSFETs it often
drives their gates directly
ACDRV: only present with N-channel MOSFETs, drives their gate, should be 6V
above input voltage so in general around 25V
If it's HPB topology, the battery is in general connected directly to the buck converter
output. A bad or deep discharged battery will pull down the output. Let the battery
charge overnight and see if it recovers, if not, replace the battery. Without battery, in
HPB tology the output of the battery charging rail will often be low.
DC-in MOSFET or current sensing could be the problem, see "No power section".
Some charger IC have a "CELL" pin to control the default voltage to apply to a battery
relative to its number of cells in series. Wrong setting can cause wrong voltage.
Some charger IC have a "CELL" pin to control the default voltage to apply to a battery
relative to its number of cells in series. Wrong setting can cause wrong voltage.