Nighthawk M1 Won't Charge when Connected Via Ethernet

[StuartCRyan]

Hi Team,

I have a bit of a conundrum that is causing me grief at the moment. My Nighthawk M1 will not charge at all when an ethernet cable is plugged in. I am having to share it out via another router (long story) at the moment. However, the moment I connect it to any device via ethernet, it stops charging.

I have tried USB PD chargers, straight up USB chargers, plugged into USB on my computer, all to no avail, I remove the ethernet and reboot again and it will charge without issue.

Any tips/advice/possibly a faulty unit?

Many thanks,
Stuart 

[UK-based]

Just one thought - the M1 apparently doesn't support PoE. This may be a "red herring" because the PoE pins on the M1's Ethernet port probably aren't connected and your hardware may not be trying to draw power anyway. I'll perhaps get "kicked" for this

[StuartCRyan]

Oooh apologies I should have clarified. I am plugging it in via Ethernet and USB for power info a usb wall charger (have tried various) as I figured PoE was probably not an option. But great out of the box thinking!

[UK-based]

Thanks Stuart for the Kudo - much better than a kicking!

My M1's connected via Ethernet to an unmanaged Gigabit Ethernet switch, into which 2 dual-band WiFi access points and wired PC and printer are connected. With the battery inserted and using the standard 2A mains charger supplied with the M1, I haven't had any issues with the Ethernet port connection (except that it goes to sleep after a period of no activity but that's another story that will hopefully be solved in Feb). However, if you try to run the M1 on the standard charger without the battery, it frequently reboots, especially when "put under pressure", such as starting a large download. So another thought might be - is the battery pretty flat? If so, the standard 2A charger may be an issue.

You explained that you've tried alternative chargers including a PD charger, which should in theory provide plenty of amperage. But this article from 2016 explained that the early PD standards weren't very consistent. The M1 apparently incorporates a Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 chip so if you can try a charger that provides this technology (Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 is also backwards compatible with 2.0) you would at least know if the charger was the culprit - if the battery still doesn't charge with the Ethernet connected, then the M1 is probably faulty.

Another user reported a problem with the charging being interrupted overnight and the battery being run completely flat. At the end of that message thread was a post in which temperature problems were thought to be the issue.

It sounds like you are using the M1 as a permanent, 24/7 modem. If that's the case, it's probably best to remove the battery and run it solely on an upgraded mains charger. Here's more detail on my situation, and here's the charger I chose. The only issue I can see with running solely off the mains charger is that firmware auto-updates might not succeed without a battery - see this post.

Good luck in finding a solution!