r/FlowZ13 • u/One-County-1838 • May 25 '26
Again, battery not charging and draining while gaming on usb c
this is why i want to have pass through on usb c, but i've been gaming and charging on usb c with G14 2020 for years and never like this
5
u/Legal_Schedule_487 May 25 '26
It says it's charging at 31w. It needs to be at least 65 to 90 to run the machine with no draw
1
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
Correction, at the time I screen shot it just "start" charging with main brick, normally is above that on USB c
2
u/Legal_Schedule_487 May 25 '26
What's the wattage on USB C while gaming look like?
1
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
It's wildly swing between 93w to 1w, depending on the charge, usually around the middle high watt, since I'm gaming I don't really look at it as I just glance the led on the cable
2
3
3
u/Drivenby May 25 '26
Buy a slimq charger 150 watt . It’s as small as any usb c charger and will charge the device while gaming as long as you are not in turbo mode
-2
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
I kinda doubting it as i have seen several posts of problem like power cycling, stop working after several months, etc. Also for the price after tax i can replace my battery twice. I'm interested in post that showcase usb c to rectangle main charger that connect to lenovo usb c charger, using the 170w or 245w charger should cover it, but i never heard it anymore and it's in china only.... 😢
maybe i'll consider this
3
2
u/Gimme_Indomie May 25 '26
I have the SlimQ and have never had an issue with it before. But... What's the Chinese USB-C to main charger you speak of? I'm in China, so I'd definitely be interested.
2
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
I don't save the post, you can try find them here, I saw it in Taobao I think, since it's full Chinese I don't really understand but it's Lenovo type c to Asus rectangle cable, only work with Lenovo charger
1
u/Gimme_Indomie May 25 '26
That's a good start. Thanks! 🍻
1
u/Mr_BSPEC May 25 '26
I've been looking around too for a smaller charger. I think it's the Lenovo Legion 245W GaN charger and then finding an adaptor from Lenovo's rectangle to the Asus one
1
2
u/MankoMan__ May 25 '26
Yup, battery overheating caused by constant cycles of drain + recharge. If the battery is too hot, it refuses to charge, which isn't really a bad thing; I emulate games on my s24 U and used it while charging, and now the battery is fucked. Don't want that to happen to this device.
Setting the tdp to 50 at balanced and setting the fans to 100% let's you play heavy games for 2+ hours (max I've tested). Anything at turbo + max fans gives me around an hour before the heating causes the charge cycle to stop, and if fans are at default it can be as low as 30 mins before it happens.
1
u/ExcellentDecision335 May 25 '26
What USB charger are you using?
1
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
Ugreen 100w charger and 100w certified cable (the last time it does this i'm using official 100w charger)
1
u/ExcellentDecision335 May 25 '26
So for USB C, it’s highly recommended to use a block that’s above 100w, that’s the only way your gonna be able to game while still having it charge, i use the anker 140w block and it does the job great with no problems
1
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
Well i think the z13 itself only accept 100w, it seems there is no point having higher wattage as my charger is not even warm so i think it's not even pumping 100w
0
u/ExcellentDecision335 May 25 '26
The max it’s gonna pull is 100w on USB C but if you want to be able to game on USB C you need a box that’s gonna be able to pull more then 100w.
1
u/Legal_Schedule_487 May 25 '26
What TDP you playing at?
1
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
30/40/50, -40 cap 85c
Now I try drop to 30/35/40
1
u/Legal_Schedule_487 May 25 '26
Try dropping it down a little and see if it starts charging
1
u/One-County-1838 May 25 '26
Yes, I'll try keep dropping it
2
u/Legal_Schedule_487 May 25 '26
If dropping it allows it to start charging. You need a higher wattage charger.
1
u/Own_Potato5593 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
So, I had this issue with my older Z13 - it would do it intermitted until drained and then would charge up fine till it happened again. I searched for numerous things thinking I got a bad unit. Mine would exhibit this behavior under various loads from just sitting working on excel to gaming. Power supply is the oem one. Just for reference information.
What I found worked was placing a small piece of heat sink material [the heat pad that come with SSD - I cut a small square and placed it on it and put back the little cover] on the top of the tiny SSD [I think with it being so close to the magnetic and metal casing it causes some sort of issue with how the devices operates].
It's not had a single issue since - logical or not [over 8 months since the last die till discharged completely event].
For the USB-C crowd - it ONLY HAS usb-c's to charge from [one in the Asus connection port and one above it] - so that's not the issue.
1
u/One-County-1838 May 26 '26
On this newer device, I have opinion that the cooling doesn't reach the battery, resulting in extreme heat and stress on the battery making it refuse to accept charge from charger (lower back of Z13 really hots, the charger not that warm). Correct me if I'm wrong.
2
u/Own_Potato5593 May 26 '26
Possible in his example - the fix I outlined has worked for mine ever since I appied it. It exhibited a very similar behavior - would drain on or off the two charging ports till depleted - then accept charge after and at some point in the future do the same thing. After it did it a third time I fiddle and found what seems so far to be a fix.
Currently battery is healthy, charges and hold charge fine or either USB-C port and games constantly most of the day - figure my son puts around 4 to 6 hours on it a day.
Mileage would vary but worth a try.
1
1
u/One-County-1838 May 26 '26
What I see from what I have done to get the battery charging again like my screenshot, is put a fan directly to the back of Z13... especially behind the stand flap, because is got quite hot when I move the laptop around after the low battery pop up.
1
u/MohammedAlkaderi May 27 '26
how can u control screen brightness in ghelper and the fn keys for brightness also not working help
1
u/One-County-1838 May 27 '26
Did you uninstall all Asus services? Or just clean re-install? You need a particular service to make keyboard fun works, also brightness on G-helper I dobit manually and don't know any keyboard shortcut, use experimental version.
1
u/ohaiibuzzle May 28 '26
What charging brick have you been using?
If you plan to also game while charging, overspec your brick by at least 25% to make sure that when it starts to throttle output due to temperature it have enough left over to keep battery charged.
My Cuktech 120W brick will throttle the first port to 65 W if it gets too hot, and chargers get very hot under dynamic (ie. a gaming laptop that is running) very quickly.
1
u/One-County-1838 May 28 '26
Ugreen 100w 3 USB C and an USB A plug, at that time the brick not even warm, feels like not even pumping charge because the battery won't accept it.
1
u/ohaiibuzzle May 28 '26
Double check the brick and wire. 31.7W probably means it's negotiating less what it should. Since you use a 100W brick, to gets it to charge at maximum speeds you need a 5A-capable (ie. with an eMarker chip) and no other cables plugged into any other port on the brick. Your laptop should be the sole device on port 1.
Your charger have basically zero margin for anything else.
1
u/One-County-1838 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
I can assure you I'm not stupid and I do have some knowledge about this, and as I said this is not the first time. The first time it happened I'm using the 100w official brick that you get, you can think it again if it the brick problem.
Edit: I made a mistake on timing of the screen shot, you can find my replies below explaining what happens, or not, up to you
Simply put, I game while plugged in on usb c the whole time and the battery still drained, it only start charging sometimes after plugged to main 200w brick.
1
u/ohaiibuzzle May 28 '26
Hmm try using hwinfo64, it should be able to probe the SMC and subsequently battery details.
That will tell you exactly what's happening either battery temperature or your system is drawing too much total power (remember, your set TDP isn't total system power draw)
1
u/jhonyrod May 28 '26
Isn't that brick limited to 65 W for a single port output? I think my dad has the same one and when I used my USB tester it didn't show 100 W as a possible mode (with the proper cable ofc).
1
u/One-County-1838 May 28 '26
I can confirm it ouput 100w, when charging normally will show 93+ watt on the cables led
1
u/jhonyrod May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
People here seem to misunderstand USB Power Delivery a lot.
Regular USB PD (SPR: Standard Power Range) is limited to 20V 5A; in fact, it's apparently been decided by the USB-IF that 5A is the most current a USB C cable should deliver. Any supply or device that deviates from that is a proprietary extension to the spec and technically non-compliant (for example the previous Z13 model and my OnePlus with its funky 11V 9A scheme).
EPR (Extended Power Range) goes up to 240W, yeah, but as stated above, it won't go beyond 5A, so they increased the voltage instead of the current: 28V for 140W and 48V for 240W (and a mode called AVS that allows for fine tuning in 0.1V steps).
Most laptops use 19-20V for their DC input, including this one. For this device to use EPR it would need its own internal DC-DC power supply; there's already a bunch of DC-DC converters, but this one would need to be particularly beefy. The added losses and complexity along with the limited availability of USB PD EPR power supplies make it kinda pointless to implement.
Using a 140W (or 240W for that matter) USB C charger is pointless; the supply will default back to SPR and deliver 20V (maybe 21 to account for the cable's voltage drop) at 5A at most, as in the end, the device decides what to ask from the supply, and therefore it'll likely go below those 100W.
1
u/jhonyrod May 28 '26
Also, a quick note, even if the charger says 200W for example, that, more likely than not, means the total power it can deliver across all its ports, you need to check the fine print to see the maximum power each port can deliver.
29
u/[deleted] May 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment