Honestly, this is why I like Dutch consumer law. Dutch law states that the guarantee duration is dependent on the expected lifespan of a product. Continued official BIOS support is evidence that the device remains within its supported lifetime and also dutch law treats defective or incomplete updates as non-conformity. Therefore, in this situation it would be framework fault and the device would also be within warranty.
Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
31–40 of 311 posts
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#32I agree with their conclusion. I somewhat regret buying my framework laptop at this stage, because the answer to every fault is "buy a new component, from framework". I'm not sure I blame them for this really, but there is no competitive market of parts (or really any market at all), which means that the reality is that you're just locking your money to them. They also often have stock issues, so woe betide you if yo…
having 2 fw 13s this is my experience as well (and also friends who bought into FW); i was willing to give the 13 pro a try until they downgraded my order. I inevitably cancelled and went with a dell xps14 and its a fantastic laptop. I am unsure bout any future fw purchases. also my m1 macbook pro is made so well I've abused this to the cows come home and i feel like it still has another 3+ years to it..
everytime someone brings up the e-waste aspects of fw, i don't know if its that simple...because i've definitely already generated much more e-waste with my frameworks than any other laptop i've bought in the last decade
that being said, i do like the fw vision, but they might be trying to do TOO much that their quality is suffering for it
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#33Framework seems pretty popular here in general, but nobody really seems to talk about how repairable enterprise laptops are. Some laptops have clips around the edge of the bottom panel to hold it in place, which frequently break. On my brother's T480s, those clips were made out of metal and held in with screws, meaning they were themselves replaceable. More recently I worked on a Dell Precision 7550 laptop, and if you crack it open everything is labeled just like a Framework. Also, before selling it I ran the onboard diagnostic. I was surprised when it told me to check the touchpad cable, because the touchpad was working fine. Took it apart again and yep, the touchpad cable was loose.
Framework really caught everyone's attention with the fun DIY repair angle, but Dell/Lenovo/HP have been selling repairable laptops to IT departments for decades. In addition, they're a much more mature product -- been selling laptops for much longer at much higher volumes. Thinkpads are the prototypical example but I actually like Dells better. Many of them are Ubuntu-certified as well.
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that's always been the case. Phoenix and AMI have been the dominant BIOS providers for over 30 years. Both have always provided modular tookits for OEMs to customize their own ROM images, write their own ACPI tables, etc. UEFI gives even more control to the OEMs. If Framework isn't doing that properly, that's on them.
It appears that Framework contracted out the development of their (Insyde-based) firmware to somebody who, to put it mildly, does not treat them as a priority. Either way, Framework’s firmware is really bad, and that’s entirely on Framework; you can look around on the forums for the horror stories in the (open) EC code around power delivery for instance. As another example of a vendor low-key screwing Framework in a…
I heard a lot of talk about porting to coreboot (they even sent some motherboard to some coreboot developers I think).
Not sure what is stalling there, but sounds like a priority.
For the EC, I feel like a team of a single developer could arrange something there?
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#35I think cases like this should be brought before a small claims court. It seems unfair. The company (Framework Computer) provided the software, but the software is faulty and broke ("bricked") the laptop. Can you imagine if a GPU driver caused the card to get bricked? Even if out of warranty, surely the manuf would be legally liable in many jurisdictions for this faulty driver.
The author's LinkedIn profile[1] tells me that this person lives/works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. While the issue is already fixed, for others affected with the same issue, I would suggest the small claims route. Make sure to talk with an LLM to follow the correct steps to gather and prepare evidence for your claim. If you are lucky enough to win, then you should "go nuclear" on social media (and their own forums) to share the win and the exact details about how you did it. Framework Computer will surely (1) cave and provide replacements or (2) be flooded with small claims about this issue.
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#36I agree with their conclusion. I somewhat regret buying my framework laptop at this stage, because the answer to every fault is "buy a new component, from framework". I'm not sure I blame them for this really, but there is no competitive market of parts (or really any market at all), which means that the reality is that you're just locking your money to them. They also often have stock issues, so woe betide you if yo…
My conspiracy theory is that selling parts is pretty much their main business case.
A modular gpu using a new standard that is form-factor specific for only a specific model? Matte panel released a few months after the first 13.5 model was released with glossy panel as only option?
It sounds a bit fishy to me. But maybe I'm just a bit too cynical .
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know some higher end gaming motherboards that were targeted towards the overclocking community had two bios chips for exactly this purpose and switching between them was trivial from what I remember. If you overclocked too far, you wouldn't brick your system. It seemed like overkill to me. I'm guessing this is less common than it's worth to fix in software, but then at least continue to give support for the issue.
If you overclocked too far, you could remove the CMOS battery or hold the CLR_CMOS button that these high-end boards probably had. Two BIOS chips was supposed to protect you from bad BIOS updates or a bad BIOS mod, just like the scenario from TFA.
Original author here, and I agree. When overclocking, the most important feature is probably resetting the CMOS with one easy to reach button.
I was testing ECC previously in https://qt.ax/ecc and was trying to overclock the RAM to induce faults to confirm ECC was fixing them. Since I was using a cheaper board, I had to use keys to short the CLR_CMOS header and that got old really quick... I didn't ultimately succeed in creating a barely stable overclock that generated a ton of ECC errors, but that was a very awful experience.
Having some sort of BIOS recovery is definitely the baseline I'd expect these days, and having two BIOS chips so you can just keep using the device as if nothing had happened is the best solution.
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#38this is disappointing. I need a new machine soon but I am not interested in Framework if they are going to play the usual games.
Is thinkpad really it? I wasn't wildly excited about that one either.
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#39My framework was sitting in a drawer for two years and now will not turn on no matter how long I charge it. I assume there’s a dead coin cell in there somewhere or something that needs changed but it’s pretty disappointing.
IIRC the only Frameworks that have a coin cell in them are the 13-inch 11th-gen Intel ones (i.e. the OG model), and it should be right there staring you in the face as you lift the keyboard. There’s indeed a known design flaw[1] around that cell in that it the laptop isn’t wired to drain its own actual battery instead; an email to support or a look on the forums should allow you to sort things out. [1] https://guides…
I looked at the shared link. The laptop manuf is recommending that people solder a wire between two points to eliminate a coin battery from the motherboard. Wild.
Re: Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
#40Framework seems pretty popular here in general, but nobody really seems to talk about how repairable enterprise laptops are. Some laptops have clips around the edge of the bottom panel to hold it in place, which frequently break. On my brother's T480s, those clips were made out of metal and held in with screws, meaning they were themselves replaceable. More recently I worked on a Dell Precision 7550 laptop, and if yo…
> Framework really caught everyone's attention with the fun DIY repair angle, but Dell/Lenovo/HP have been selling repairable laptops to IT departments for decades.
Yeah, but does Dell allow you to change your laptop's mainboard for another mainboard with time? That is such a quantum leap. You do not have to adjust your self to a new keyboard just because you wanted a new processor.