Anker A8390 not charging at boot

#1

I have multiple A8390 12 in 1 docks, all attached to Lenovo E595 Thinkpads with Windows 10 Pro. If you attach the dock while the laptop is off, it does not charge the laptop after yo power it on. All attached peripherals work as intended. The battery just doesn’t charge. Unplug, re-plug the dock, and it starts charging. This happens when the laptop is off for an extended period of time (overnight, for example), not when you restart, or power down, then back up immediately.

Two other brands of docks that we use do not behave this way, and are always charging on the initial boot.

Ideas?

#2

Can’t help exactly but what you describe is when the dock is causing a failed POST. Power On Self Test, which is the BIOS. When you have a working booted system and disconnect / reconnect then it’s the OS which decides if it’s happy.

So nose around in BIOS updates for laptop and look at all BIOS settings, see if anything can be toggled.

#3

No POST errors. The computer boots up fine. It communicates with the dock, and all peripherals attached to the dock work as intended. The computer just doesn’t charge the battery. Unplug the dock, and plug it back in, and then the computer starts charging.

Other branded PD docks on the same computers charge properly via the USB-C port without having to be unplugged and re-plugged at boot, so there’s something different about this one.

#4

Bump…

Anyone see this behavior with this model?

#5

Did you email support yet?

support@anker.com

#6

I did this morning. Was hoping that I missed something simple.

#7

The fact it does work when unplugged replugged means it’s not physically broken and unlikely a replacement would work any better. It’s some kind of device driver issue between the POST which it fails and the OS. There may be a software workaround in the OS but as you’ve seen none here know it.

If you do get a fix then reply here with it to allow the next person’s search find it here.

If it were me I’d return for refund, as I’d not expect a replacement to cure a software issue. Somethings just don’t work through bad luck of combinations.

#8

More observations. Computer off for 3 days. Power it on, battery is fully charged, 100%. So no power drain at all while off. External DP monitor working, USB keyboard and mouse working. Computer is running on battery power only, even though it is plugged in, and the dock is powered on with the supplied power supply and cable. No post errors.

Substitute Lenovo 65W power supply instead of Anker 60W power supply. Same issue, so it’s not the Anker supplied power supply or the Anker supplied power cable.

Power down. Plug computer into the dock power supply and thin power USB-C cable only, bypassing the dock. Power on the laptop, and the battery is charging at reboot. This is the same behavior one would expect with the Lenovo supplied Power supply.

Power down. plug the dock back in. Thin power cable to the dock, thick data cable to the computer. Power on. Peripherals work, laptop is not charging. Unplug data cable at the computer, peripherals stop responding, windows device disconnect sounds chime. Plug it back in, all peripherals come back on, and the computer charges. It behaves the same using the Anker or Lenovo Power supply and cable.

This is 100% repeatable with multiple Lenovo E595 / Anker A8390 dock combos. It does not happen with two other different branded docks.

Still no response from tech support, beyond the automated email when I submitted the question.