I did not buy this laptop myself. It’s an old 2017 model given to me by my brother who uses Linux exclusively. I would not mind running Linux myself but this laptop does not have built in Wifi & Bluetooth so i need to use my TP-Link T2UB USB adapter which is Windows only.
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All Librem laptops have had the option to buy new with a wifi bluetooth card installed. So yours must have an empty slot.
I do not know the details, but there have been threads detailing which cards work well and how to install them. Purism might have documentation online detailing how to install.
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I would still prefer to run Windows if possible. I posted this question to find out if there is a specific reason Windows will not run on battery power with this laptop. No one seems to be aware of any reason.
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True. My Librem 14 was fine on battery with Windows.
Is my firmware newer? What is your firmware version?
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This laptop has the original firmware it shipped with. A month ago my brother tried updating the BIOS to the latest version but that did not solve the issue so he changed it back.
Summary
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 6500U @ 2.50GHz 38 °C
Skylake-U/Y 14nm Technology
RAM
16.0GB Single-Channel DDR4 @ 664MHz (10-10-10-28)
Motherboard
Purism Librem 15 v3 (CPU0) 41 °C
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1920x1080@60Hz)
Intel HD Graphics 520 (Intel)
Storage
223GB KINGSTON SA400S37240G (SATA-2 (SSD)) 28 °C
Motherboard
Manufacturer Purism
Model Librem 15 v3 (CPU0)
Version 1.0
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model Skylake-U
Chipset Revision 08
Southbridge Vendor Intel
Southbridge Model Skylake-Y PCH
Southbridge Revision 21
System Temperature 41 °C
BIOS
Brand coreboot
Version 24.02.01-Purism-1
Date 2024-05-14
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You can acquire the Qualcomm Atheros AR9462 (QCNFA222) Wi-Fi/Bluetooth modem very cheaply from eBay or other online marketplaces, usually costing around $15 USD or so. If you want a guide for removing URL parameters on eBay for guest checkout, among other websites, I have written one for the Purism community forums:
The boot firmware is the latest version and was not downgraded:
You should be seeing a boot splash screen displaying “Librem 15” in very big white font as the board name.
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You must be correct about the BIOS being the latest version of coreboot. I believe my brother tried changing the BIOS to the latest version of PureBoot, but because that did not help he changed it back to coreboot.
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If the OP actually wants to run Windows then there’s no particular reason to get the Atheros. In that situation I would just get an Intel WiFi card, which can still work with PureOS if you are prepared to sacrifice purity - and let’s face it, if you are also running Windows (dual booting) then that ship has sailed.
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The Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200(NGW) does not work with PureOS on Librem devices unless the boot firmware is a recent version of PureBoot with the firmware jail included. Since the boot firmware on the Librem 15 v3 is currently Coreboot + SeaBIOS, the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200(NGW) will not work out-of-the-box with PureOS if an installation attempt is made.
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Yes, with an Intel WiFi card, the experience of getting PureOS set up would be more hassle but the ongoing experience with Microsoft Windows would be superior. The OP would also have the option of running a less pure distro of Linux e.g. Ubuntu, which should work out-of-the-box. Again, it’s difficult to complain about the loss of purity when the computer runs Microsoft Windows anyway.
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I am hesitant to buy a WiFi card because this laptop just has 2 bare antenna wires with no clips on the ends to plug into the M.2 card.
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Okay, you have a few options to deal with this specific issue:
- Acquire two Hirose U.FL female connectors, then install them onto each end of the cables.
- Send in your Librem 15 v3 via RMA, likely as an out-of-warranty repair, to Purism support so they can perform the above procedure.
We don’t support Windows, so I haven’t tested any of this and can only offer (unsupported) suggestions.
My guess is that Windows has a problem with the way the battery or AC adapter state is reported from ACPI. Battery ACPI for the Librem 13/15 is here: src/ec/purism/librem/acpi/battery.asl · purism_next · firmware / coreboot · GitLab You’d need to be experienced with ACPI to try hacking that though, and I don’t have any idea how to get diagnostics of what Windows is seeing in ACPI. (Linux has lots of diagnostics for this, and I often compile custom kernels with extra tracing to troubleshoot these issues.)
MrChromebox (formerly the firmware engineer for Purism) maintains unofficial UEFI firmware builds for Librem devices. I have great respect for MrChromebox, but remember that this is a community service and neither he nor us can guarantee any functionality. If it doesn’t work, you might have to hardware flash to recover (tools for this are not expensive). This doesn’t change the ACPI anyway, so it might not impact the battery behavior. Firmware Utility Script | MrChromebox.tech
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Update: In July i did install the MrChromebox unofficial UEFI firmware build, but that did not solve my problem. Since that time i have been running Windows 10 and just used the laptop as another desktop PC. Starting last week a new problem appeared. The laptop would not start up and behaved as if it was not plugged in. The coreboot splash screen appears and if i go into the UEFI settings the laptop will continue to run, but as soon as Windows starts to load, the laptop immediately goes dead.
I began thinking the power brick was faulty but when i booted from a Linux Mint USB key, the laptop runs flawlessly, plugged in and on battery. Since i thought Windows may have become corrupted, i tried reinstalling Windows 10 from a USB key using the Media Creation Tool, but that will not boot either (the installation USB does boot on my PC), so i can not reinstall Windows. It behaves the same as Windows on the SSD, as soon as the Windows ISO begins to load it goes dead. At the moment the laptop is a Linux only machine. Any ideas why?
System:
Kernel: 6.8.0-51-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0 clocksource: tsc
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.6 tk: GTK v: 3.24.41 wm: Muffin v: 6.4.1 tools: cinnamon-screensaver
vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 22.1 Xia base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Purism product: Librem 15 v3 v: 1.0 serial: Chassis:
type: 9 serial:
Mobo: Purism model: Librem 15 v3 v: 1.0 serial: UEFI: coreboot
v: MrChromebox-2408.1 date: 09/14/2024
Battery:
ID-1: BAT charge: 16.9 Wh (33.9%) condition: 49.8/48.8 Wh (102.0%) volts: 11.2 min: 11.1
model: TPS S10 type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: discharging
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Core i7-6500U bits: 64 type: MT MCP smt: enabled arch: Skylake
rev: 3 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 4 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1700 min/max: 400/3100 cores: 1: 1700 2: 1700 3: 1700 4: 1700 bogomips: 20799
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9 ports:
active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1916 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: Alcor Micro HD WebCam driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1
bus-ID: 1-7:2 chip-ID: 058f:d102 class-ID: 0e02
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22") s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: BOE Display 0x065e res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 142
size: 344x194mm (13.54x7.64") diag: 395mm (15.5") modes: 1920x1080
API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris platforms: device: 0 drv: iris device: 1 drv: swrast
surfaceless: drv: iris x11: drv: iris inactive: gbm,wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.3 glx-v: 1.4
direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) device-ID: 8086:1916
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
chip-ID: 8086:9d70 class-ID: 0403
API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-51-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
Network:
Message: No PCI device data found.
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 223.57 GiB used: 9.42 GiB (4.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: SA400S37240G size: 223.57 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s tech: SSD
serial: fw-rev: ST17 scheme: GPT
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 46.12 GiB used: 9.39 GiB (20.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 96 MiB used: 31.4 MiB (32.7%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile
USB:
Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 12 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1
chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
Device-1: 1-7:2 info: Alcor Micro HD WebCam type: video driver: uvcvideo interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0
speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 power: 200mA chip-ID: 058f:d102 class-ID: 0e02
Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: super-speed hub ports: 6 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s lanes: 1 chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
class-ID: 0900
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 30.0 C pch: 28.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Repos:
Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 1868
No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
1: deb https: //mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/linuxmint-packages xia main upstream import backport
2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse
3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse
4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse
5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ noble-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
Memory: total: 16 GiB available: 15.53 GiB used: 1.15 GiB (7.4%)
Processes: 203 Power: uptime: 1m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep wakeups: 0
hibernate: platform Init: systemd v: 255 target: graphical (5) default: graphical
Compilers: gcc: 13.3.0 Client: Unknown python3.12 client inxi: 3.3.34
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I suspect the issue is with the boot firmware.
What about trying Windows in a VM? i.e. assuming you have some reason to run Windows.
Maybe Microsoft changed something in Windows so that Windows simply won’t work any more on that hardware? (You could imagine that when Microsoft makes changes, they don’t test the changes for brokenness on Purism laptops, since that would be such a niche scenario.)
To test this hypothesis, you would need an old disk image of Windows when it was “working” and to restore that disk image.
I assume that you have a legitimately licensed copy of Windows?
It’s a security feature? 
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Many thanks for all the assistance so far. A second and third opinion is always helpful. After troubleshooting my laptop for several days i am fairly certain this particular problem is caused by a faulty power brick. Although i previously said Linux was running flawlessly, i suspect Mint was always running on battery power even when it was plugged in. Because it was plugged in i just assumed it was running on AC power without thinking to check if that was actually the case. My mistake.
Yesterday after a few tries i managed to get Windows reinstalled on the SSD, so i left it running overnight. This morning Windows was still running and the battery was charged to 100%. For some reason the problem had disappeared. To try and reproduce the problem i unplugged the power brick from the laptop and plugged it back in. As before Windows immediately died on battery power (that is normal for this laptop). When i plugged the power brick back in, Windows restarted without a problem. But then when i tried unplugging the power brick from the wall and plugging it back in, Windows would not restart. That had reproduced the problem. Next i booted my Linux Mint USB key in the laptop and the battery indicator verified Linux was running on battery power even though the laptop was plugged in. At this moment the laptop once again will only run on battery power.
So now my question is about the power brick. It is a “Delta ADP-65JH BB” 65W, 19V, 3.42A. Is that the correct power supply for a Librem 15 v3? How much does a replacement power adapter cost?
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Is it this?
But is the problem the power adapter itself or one of the connections?
I guess you also need to fault isolate the wall socket.
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That power adapter looks identical to the one i have. I am fairly certain the problem is with the brick itself, not the wires. The seams of the plastic casing are starting to come apart. I have tried jiggling all the plugs and connections to see if i can get it to reconnect but that does nothing. Also the problem is not with the wall socket because it is happening in 2 different houses.
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If you’re not opposed to Amazon and search “Delta ADP-65JH BB” you will find Amazon.com for $22 . If you followed irvinewade’s link to Purism’s “shop” you will note that it is advertised as for the Librem13 and Librem 15 and is $59 plus shipping.
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