Laptop USB-C charging issues

[singaporesoxfan]

Been dealing with a head scratcher of an issue. Have a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 laptop whose USB-C charging seems to have stopped working. There’s nothing wrong with the charger when I use it to charge other devices (including another laptop). I've also tried using two other chargers on the port and the laptop still says it's on battery. Normally, I would think the USB-C port is totally borked but it seems to still work as a port - it recognised an external HDD plugged into it. Anyone have an idea what's going on? Called up Lenovo tech support and they are sending me a regular charger for the round charging port, but ideally I'd like to have USB-C charging.

 

[Time to Mo Vaughn]

Been dealing with a head scratcher of an issue. Have a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 laptop whose USB-C charging seems to have stopped working. There’s nothing wrong with the charger when I use it to charge other devices (including another laptop). I've also tried using two other chargers on the port and the laptop still says it's on battery. Normally, I would think the USB-C port is totally borked but it seems to still work as a port - it recognised an external HDD plugged into it. Anyone have an idea what's going on? Called up Lenovo tech support and they are sending me a regular charger for the round charging port, but ideally I'd like to have USB-C charging.

I had a really weird issue with my Lenovo Thinkpad that also charges via USB-C. Wouldn't recognize multiple chargers, so I assumed the motherboard was dead and told our IT guy. He told me that occasionally the Lenovo's get in this state and the solution is to let the battery die completely. I didn't believe it, but let it happen, which is a little tough because it goes in power save mode and will shut itself off, so you'll need to open something like the bios for a little while when it's down to the last few percent or turn off the power settings. Sure enough when it finally died, it ended up working again and has been normal ever since.

 

[Max Power]

I had a really weird issue with my Lenovo Thinkpad that also charges via USB-C. Wouldn't recognize multiple chargers, so I assumed the motherboard was dead and told our IT guy. He told me that occasionally the Lenovo's get in this state and the solution is to let the battery die completely. I didn't believe it, but let it happen, which is a little tough because it goes in power save mode and will shut itself off, so you'll need to open something like the bios for a little while when it's down to the last few percent or turn off the power settings. Sure enough when it finally died, it ended up working again and has been normal ever since.

I think the Flex 5 is plastic and can be opened with a small screwdriver. If that's the case, you can open it up and disconnect the main and CMOS batteries to achieve the same thing quicker.

I don't know if that would fix SSF's issue, but it couldn't hurt.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

Thanks I’m going to try and let the batteries drain @Time to Mo Vaughn.

The Flex 5 can indeed be opened with a screwdriver but only with one of those little star-shaped ones so I’m going to just wait it out

 

[SumnerH]

Been dealing with a head scratcher of an issue. Have a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 laptop whose USB-C charging seems to have stopped working. There’s nothing wrong with the charger when I use it to charge other devices (including another laptop). I've also tried using two other chargers on the port and the laptop still says it's on battery. Normally, I would think the USB-C port is totally borked but it seems to still work as a port - it recognised an external HDD plugged into it. Anyone have an idea what's going on? Called up Lenovo tech support and they are sending me a regular charger for the round charging port, but ideally I'd like to have USB-C charging.

Letting the battery die may be worth it, but just checking something dumb and obvious: you've tried different cables as well as different chargers I hope?

High-speed USB charging requires an appropriate cable.

 

[LoweTek]

Definitely try different cables. I've found the manufacturing spec for the cables isn't always adhered to with precision.

 

[Time to Mo Vaughn]

Thanks I’m going to try and let the batteries drain @Time to Mo Vaughn.

The Flex 5 can indeed be opened with a screwdriver but only with one of those little star-shaped ones so I’m going to just wait it out

Any luck?

 

[singaporesoxfan]

Any luck?

Not with draining the battery, but I did get Lenovo to send me a regular charger and that works fine. So I suspect something’s off with the power pin of the USB port