Canvas no longer charging

Actually, the Z Canvas is designed to operate both on AC and battery together, in a system called "Hybrid Power Boost":

(monotame)


It allows the CPU to draw full power during turbo boost and high load scenarios, that would otherwise throttle the CPU:

This implementation is not specific to VAIO, for example, MS uses it in the Surface Book 2. Therefore I would actually expect the opposite: modern laptops with TDP-up CPUs (such as 8th gen quadcores) are probably designed to run with the battery as supplemental power.

 

If you haven't already done so, one other thing I would suggest trying is to plug it in and leave it for several hours.

I don't remember if it was the canvas or another device that I've had but I have had a device that gave me no indication of receiving a charge (after an over discharge) but because it was so low leaving it plugged in for several hours not just 30 minutes or an hour it did eventually take a charge.

 

Thank you everyone for the huge amount of input, it has been very informative and helpful. I am hoping with every hope now that the issue is the power adaptor. I bought a multi-meter as per Steve's suggestion. I've tried with a different combination of travel adaptors and figure 8 power leads to get a reading from the adaptor and not so much as a flicker on the multi-meter.

To be thorough I used the same multi-meter to check the power adaptor of my netbook and it gave a true reading. I also checked a AA battery for good measure and it seems the multi-meter is working 100%. But no voltage readings whatsoever on the Canvas adaptor. I really hope that this problem has been all about a ****ty third party adaptor giving up the ghost rather than something more fatal in the Canvas. I will order a new adaptor and cross my fingers.

Needless to say, if it turns out in fact the Canvas is fine, I will certainly be giving it a lot more care, installing temperature monitoring software and throttling the CPU if it gets too hot for too long. Making sure the battery gets a good workout from time to time, and unplugging it from the wall when it's not being used.

I heard back from VAIO support in the US and they gave me the same shpeel as everyone else. $99 plus shipping costs to look at it and give me a quote for repair. Not thanks.

Here's an update to some questions asked:

- @David B I did in fact leave it plugged in overnight a couple of times since this happened hoping it just needed a long charge due to being completely depleted. Thanks for the suggestion but I think (hope) the problem was in fact a busted adaptor in the end.

- @Marty Good to know, thanks. I'll hold off pulling the internal plug on my battery for now

- @jbaks I'm a film editor. I have a very high end miniITX desktop I built as my main rig, but as portable as it is, sometimes it's still too cumbersome so I need something even more portable. So my Canvas is not my main workhorse, but it does get a good workout from time to time. Editing ultra high resolution content is very processor intensive but it still doesn't require the processor to be at 100% load for extended periods of time, it's very stop and start. I do however use the Canvas for rendering sometimes, and in the past even doing renders that could take up to 8 hours where the processor will be at load for that whole time. I will definitely install some temp monitoring software and do some tests to see if this is feasible to do in future. Typically though, these would be renders I would leave overnight, so I could set the Canvas to power saving mode which will limit the processors max speed. It will take double the time to render but I imagine will create much less heat so I can live with the extra render time to save the Canvas. I will look into some external fan cooling I can add to my canvas kit also to help mitigate this.

- @Steve S Thanks again for moderating this, I hope it was all the false alarm I'm expecting. Even if it was a false alarm, it's been a good wake up call and hopefully useful to other Canvas owners.

 

Update, new charger arrived today. Canvas is charging and seems fine. Definitely a case of Occam's Razor, though a good learning experience. Very happy I didn't throw $2000 down the toilet

 

sweet, that dosnt happen very often