15" HP Spectre x360 15t "Diamond Cut" freezes with Apple MacBook Pro USB-C Charger

[Vahdyx]

Hello 

My wife uses a 2016 MacBook Pro with an 87 watt USB C charger. I have my HP Spectre x360 on order being assembled as we speak for delivery soon.

i7 8750H

GTX 1050 Ti

But I needed a computer in the mean time and bought the same computer at Best Buy but with lesser specs. GTX MX150 and a lesser i7 processor with the intent to return when my HP arrives from HP. 

Long story short, whenever I plug in my wife's USB-C charger from her MacBook, it freezes the HP to the point I can't do anything until I force boot it. Is there something blocking other USB C chargers being used on HP or is something else at play here?

It's kind of a huge bummer since I wanted to minimize cables and chargers around the house. It'll be nice to just use one for my wife's laptop and mine.

[EddyK]

Hello @Vahdyx,

Try a BIOS update.

I'm pretty sure all the new HP Spectre x360 15" falls under the "df00xx" series but just to make sure, a specific model/product number would be appreciated. (Please do not post serial numbers on the HP Support Forum)

Information on how to find a laptop's model/product number is detailed in this HP document.

[Vahdyx]

Thanks for the reply, the model number is 4HG39AV. I did the BIOS update and nothing changed. However I did discover some weirdness though. It does charge the laptop when it's off. It also does charge the laptop also when I'm not signed into Windows. The lock screen functions and doesn't freeze, but the moment it tries to load a profile it locks up. 

I've tried created a new profile, same behavior. I think this may be a windows issue. 

[Vahdyx]

I would also like to add that when I booted into safemode, I was able to use the plug no issue. Then when I left it in the laptop and restarted and booted normally, I was able to leave the charger in the computer and function just fine. However when I unplugged it and then plugged it back in after it was working, it froze again. It appears that I need to boot into safemode first for it to work. Even logs didn't show anything that would tip me off to what's causing the issue. 

[gunsch]

I'm experiencing the same issue, with the 13-ap0xxx model.

It wasn't happening at first, but started on my second or third week with the device. Now it freezes almost immediately after plugging in the charger, though sometimes there's a ~30-second delay before it happens. Nothing in Windows Event Log to correlate with the freezes.

If I use the UEFI diagnostic tool to check the adapter, for the MacBook adapter it says "the smart adapter feature failed to return valid data." That's the only thing I've found that's a useful discriminator between the two cases so far.

[gunsch]

One more additional note: I set up dual-boot to Ubuntu 18.04 today. After a couple hours of use, and trying out different chargers in different scenarios (battery full, battery charging), I can only reproduce the Macbook charging failure on Windows, not on Ubuntu. I suspect that leans toward this being a Windows driver issue.

(I described the initial symptoms to some Windows engineers I know at Microsoft, and their initial guess was that it was a driver issue. Unfortunately, they also indicated that that makes it nearly impossible to debug.)

[Vahdyx]

I cleared all partitions on my hard drive (M.2) and reinstalled Enterprise version of Windows 10 without any HP software, ran Windows update and left everything non HP and the MacBook Pro charger works fine now. I think something with HP software may be causing the issue, but if you're using Ubuntu, then perhaps it's not an HP software thing. 

Can you try deleting all partitions and installing Windows by itself, see if that solves it?

[gunsch]

I'm not seeing the issue on Ubuntu, so I agree it's probably an HP thing (likely a driver issue), but having a hard reset of the entire system as a "solution" isn't exactly great. (Can you reopen this as unsolved to keep HP's attention if possible?)

I don't have a way to wipe and reinstall Windows 10, certainly not Enterprise. Would you able to post what drivers you have for power-related components and we can try comparing to the default install?

[Vahdyx]

You're right, it isn't really a solution, but it does work. I agree, HP should make something a little more acceptable. 

I'm not sure how to post drivers, do you have information on how to do that?