I have been using the Framework Laptop 16 since May 13 of 2024, and honestly, this laptop is both good and bad at the same time. I have had 2 mainboard swaps and constant issues with drivers and hardware. There are many things I love about the laptop, but it’s hard to recommend to anyone who isn’t tech-savvy. I’ve got some things to say, and I hope that maybe I could also get the help for it if anyone else has had these issues.
I’ll start by saying the good and then move on to the bad.
The good
The laptop is amazing for customization, especially the ports. I love how I can just have what I want on the side I want whenever I want.
The keyboard is really nice to type on. (only after the fix for the keyboard flex)
The display is amazing with its color accuracy and response time.
The battery life is decent, and I haven’t much to complain about, especially compared to my last laptop.
The bad, OH THE BAD
I CAN NOT STAND the horrible driver support. This is my number one reason why I don’t recommend this laptop. I have nothing but constant issues with things just not working. There have been times when connecting only AirPods through Bluetooth would blue screen Windows, although it has been fixed since then. Even now, after a year and a half, I still get constant issues with drivers. Right now, there will be times where I’m just watching something, and I’ll have my screen randomly freeze, and the only thing to fix it is a hard shutdown. I can’t even use the latest AMD drivers; otherwise, I’ll have worse issues. Recently, I’ve also gotten this issue where disconnecting an Anker PowerExpand 6 in 1 USB-C PD Ethernet hub will cause the keyboard and trackpad to turn off for a few seconds. Another recent issue I have is that in Minecraft, the W key will continue to give input after letting go. The time for it to stop depends on how long I’ve been pressing it, but it could range from 1 second to what feels like 30 seconds. I’m not sure if it’s a game issue or a laptop issue, but it hasn’t done this before. One last thing to finish off this rant. They still haven’t fixed the invisible cursor on some white text boxes. I know people have said that you could change something in the registry, but I don’t really want to do that for something so small. I ended up just using a custom cursor to fix the problem. Speaking of cursors, anytime I have a program or app fun on the 7700s, the cursor has a really bad constant stutter. It only happens if I use an external mouse and not on the trackpad. And I know it’s not a mouse issue because on the iGPU the problem goes away, and when I drag a window around the problem goes away. If ya’ll want I can record a video and add a google drive link. Anyway, the point is that there is never a time when I’m not having a driver issue.
The 180w charger should’ve been 240w from the start. The power drain is pretty annoying sometimes.
The thermals are horrible on the CPU unless you mod it.
The fans are loud, and the whole laptop runs hot. The bottom, especially. I can’t use it on my lap unless I have something between me and the bottom. I used an infrared thermometer to check the bottom, and it runs at about 110°F just web browsing.
The fit and finish are bad. It creaks and rattles sometimes, and just feels cheap in some areas.
Anyways, I’m sure y’all are tired of hearing me complain😅, but there’s just so much wrong that still needs to be fixed. I love what the Framework company does and what they stand for, but come on, there shouldn’t be so many consistent issues for one and a half years.
I wanna know if anyone else is having the same issues as I am, and I’m curious to know if things are gonna change. If y’all want more info on anything, feel free to ask, as I kind of wrote this in frustration.
Here are the specs I went with, and I think I was batch 14, but I don’t remember too well.
CPU: Ryzen 7 7840HS
GPU: Radeon 7700S
RAM: Crucial 2x16Gb
Storage: 1Tb WD_Black SN850X
Power: 180w Framework charger
OS: Windows 11 with all the driver bundles installed
Last thing. The two Mainboard replacements were because on one, the coil whine was really bad, and the replacement had the same loud whine, so I guess they’re all like that, and on the second, the left ports completely stopped working randomly after plugging in a power USB hub.
See, I feel that negative feedback is just as important as positive feedback. If they don’t know there are things we don’t like, how would they ever get fixed? I mean, as long as there’s details behind it, and not just senseless complaining.
I could be wrong, but I believe that wasn’t possible at the time? We didn’t even see any third-party 240w USB-C PD adapters until a few months ago.
I upgraded to the GeForce RTX 5070, and I do believe the new fans are a bit quieter than the old ones. Not only that, but my experience with game performance has been SIGNIFICANTLY better than on the Radeon 7700S. Now, if you don’t want to switch to the RTX 5070 (which is wholly understandable, given the cost and… well, Nvidia itself), I would still recommend moving the 7700S to the 2nd gen graphics module. That should help alleviate noise and heat a bit.
And… yeah, the driver issue has been very frustrating. I will say that, the current drivers for the Ryzen AI 300 and RTX 5070 have (so far) been a lot better… but you shouldn’t have to replace the CPU and GPU just to get functioning drivers. They really do need to fix the driver situation for the 1st gen CPU and GPU.
I wouldn’t even need to do that. I could just buy the second-gen fans since it was said that the noise improvements were in there. They are fairly pricey, though; it’s like $60 for the two of them.
Actually, I don’t think this is a Framework issue.
I just got a brand new Dell latitude for work (replacement of 6 year old one), and on that one I have to work under windows 11 - The drivers are a real pain. It is bleeding edge hardware, and nothing works.
Tested it under Linux and everything works OOTB. So I don’t know how to take that one.
Thanks for highlighting some of the issues you experienced. I agree with @BPM if these issues are not called out then nothing would be done to address them. From my personal experience it looks like many of the “earlier/older” machines had many inconsistencies in quality. Some of these were addressed with the manufacturing adjustments in later machines. Maybe it is sheer luck but I have not had any major issues with my FW16 other than the thermal issue that FW resolved by sending me a new board without the Liquid Metal (I told them I was not risking swapping it myself and breaking something else inadvertently). The driver issue I encountered was the screen going black when switching monitors but that was an AMD driver issue not FW issue. That got fixed with one of the AMD driver releases last year.
Fast-forward to today…upgraded the main board: Ryzen 9 7940HS → Ryzen Ai 9 HX370 no issues encountered yet (it has been only 3 weeks). Some people reported having issues with Kingston Fury DDR5 CL40 RAM with the new boards(maybe just the 350?), but I was able to re-use it with my HX370 with no issues.
I have always used the FW 180W charger and do not have a dGPU so perhaps some of the issues related to the power drain/dGPU use is something I can’t relate to. Current setup:
Ryzen 9 7940HS→Ryzen Ai 9 HX370 (approx. 3 week)
Ubuntu 25.10 installed on a Samsing 9100 Prod SSD (2280 formfactor)
Win11 Pro installed on a Corsair MP600 MINI SSD (2230 formfactor)
Ubuntu fixes all this if you manually set it up, “it’ll only take a week to fix it all” me before discovering the joys of custom configs that break and fix everything at the same time.
I got my batch 1 FW 16 back in February ‘24, hard to believe it’s been two years. I agree, having to use and old version of AMD Adrenaline is a pain, additionally I’ve started running into graphics drivers problems with my Arch Linux dual boot. Aside from telling my machine not to update the graphics drivers, things have been acceptable from a software perspective.
From a hardware perspective I’m still displeased at the way they handled the keyboard droop, and the input modules. I completely disagree with their assessment of “we can’t have a one piece track pad”. IMO, make three SKUs and let us decide. We as the consumer should be trusted to decide if we want our track pad in the center, and to purchase the supporting keyboard modules/spacers necessary. I still have my arm hairs pinched in the gaps of my front spacers. I’ve had to add hockey tape to stop the touch pad module from clacking on the chassis, and I’ve had to bend spacers to sit more flush (in the same horizontal plane) with the others.
I understand these were risks I took when I ordered Batch 1. I even anticipated some of these issues. The only actionable things I can ask of FrameWork is to fix the AMD driver support, and to seriously poll their FW 16 user base to decide what input modules we want. I’ve personally never received a poll from them and I’m curious how they decide what to make. If they use Twitter/Instagram/Facebook or Social Media, I think they should stop. Ask the people who verifiably use your equipment before taking suggestions from random people, then poll the general public to grow your user base.
While I personally don’t like it, I do believe they made the right decision at the time.
You have to take into consideration that Framework is a relatively small company with a small fraction of the customers compared to long-time competition such as Dell, HP, Apple, etc. If Dell makes a bad computer? They drop it and continue on with their other models. But if the Framework 16 failed to launch? It could’ve negatively affected their entire business (at least, I assume so; I don’t know what the company’s financial situation is like).
There is such a concept as “growing too fast”, and I’ve seen a lot of companies do so over the years. They have one hit, and then stretch themselves thin trying to do too many new things, and ultimately collapse.
The FW16 was their first new product that wasn’t simply an upgrade to the existing FW13. It’s aimed at different market than the FW13 is. There was no guarantee that their success with the FW13 would lead to success with the FW16, so early decisions had to be based on the unknown. They even stated that the initial FW16 pre-orders greatly exceeded their expectations (it even took the website down for a bit!). Hindsight is 20/20 and now we now there are a lot of people who wanted what the FW16 promised/offered.
So even if I don’t personally like every decision Framework has made, I can understand it from the POV of trying to grow and establish your business. As the FW16 userbase grows, this gives more support and justification for additional customization options. We may see additional touchpad or keyboard options for FW16 down the road. Maybe additional colors for the bezels and spacers. Maybe additional screen types. But even so, we’re not going to see these changes overnight. It took awhile for new CPU and GPU options to arrive. It’s why I believe that even though there are currently still issues with the FW16, they will get ironed out over time.
I have a desktop too, and I’ve never had any issues with the software or hardware side of things. I’m not sure if it’s because it used an Nvidia GPU, though. It uses an AMD CPU too.
All my issues seem to come from the Adrenalin drivers for the 7700S. The iGPU never seems to have issues. I’m also on the latest 4.03 BIOS so maybe some of the issues I’m experiencing are from the new BIOS. I also seem to have more issues when I install the latest AMD drivers over the slightly older ones from the driver bundle.
The biggest pain for me right now is the random display freezing. I know for a fact that it’s not a thermal issue since I’ve done that CPU mod and the dGPU has Arctic MX-6 and almost never reaches the high 80s. The freezing happens randomly and when it does happen there aren’t any windows logs of the system getting an error.
The general consensus is still to stick with the drivers that Framework has published. This is pretty consistent across laptop manufacturers but I wish that was more explicitly stated! There are a hefty number of forum bug reports fixed when people are directed to use DDU and reload the Framework drivers.
There are also a good number of reports from people that the latest, greatest AMD-provided drivers work well for them AND Framework made a post a couple of months back saying that they were trying to expedite testing, validation, and support of new AMD drivers (albeit with the support of forum community members). That hasn’t visibly changed yet, but it’s evident that Framework is aware of some community wants.
Yeah, I have been using the drivers that Framework provides in the driver bundles. I use them without updating, and even then, I still have constant issues with something not working right.
I did a small unscientific test to see if my laptop would crash. I loaded up a 10hr YouTube video before leaving to work and came back to my computer sleeping. I unlocked it and turns put it was sleeping because it had likely frozen since the browser was closed and upon open prompted a restore pages button. The crash happened roughly 5hrs into the video but I’m not sure if that means anything because the laptop was used for a bit prior to the test.
I have to agree with the assessments made here. I’m a Batch 7 adopter, having gotten mine in April of ‘24. The thermals are just dismal, even with the modding I’ve done. I did the PTM and shim, PTM on the GPU, taping the fan vents on the dGPU and attempting to replicate the 2nd gen dGPU housing before just buying the 2nd gen housing and fans…and nothing helps. The laptop is louder than any desktop I’ve ever had since the mid 90’s and I still have thermal throttling issues. It’d be different if the laptop wasn’t also the loudest thing in the room.
Also agree on the fit and finish. Oddly, this is the first time I’ve had to complain about my arm hairs frequently getting caught in anything, but this laptop catches them constantly. Hurts like hell to be typing or trying to play something and have an arm hair yanked out when I move my arm.
Most recently, I had my mobo replaced when the thermal issues were popping off before PTM was on the table and the super cheap m.2 screw they provided for the 2240 drive broke when trying to remove it before installing my drive. Now I need to buy a whole new mobo in order to stop having to tape my drive down. So much for sustainability I’d have dealt with it at the time, but I was dealing with a ton of personal health issues and just didn’t have more energy to deal with support more.
And that brings me to the last issues I’ve had. Support. Every time there’s been an interaction it’s been necessary to send a dozen pics and/or at least one video to them. Even when the question isn’t specific to my system. It’s infuriating to spend at least three days dealing with demands for unrelated pics and uploading videos each time I need to ask a question.
Don’t get me wrong, I like that I can change out the ports and dGPU (if a new AMD one comes out), replace the monitor or keyboard, and change around the configuration of the layout, but if I knew everything I do now when I was pondering ordering it…I don’t think I would have. I’ve spent more time trying to make this laptop satisfactory or replacing parts than on any other computer I’ve owned. I’ve tried Windows 11, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Debian and just cannot get a satisfactory experience.
It’s really interesting how the experience and expectations vary by individual. Maybe I have been super lucky no major complaints (for my use case). When I had the Ryzen9 7940HS only complaint was thermals and I requested a new board with PTM as I was not comfortable doing the swap myself and they accommodated my request and sent me a new board with PTM.
Now I have upgraded to the Ryzen Ai 9 HX370 and it has been 3 weeks and no major issues. I used the old board to build a machine for my wife. I ran into an issue that before ordering all the parts I asked if the Venteralion cover kit came with a power button (don’t need the fingerprint sensor) and I was told yes it came with just the power button…it was wrong when I received the Venteralion kit the power button was missing and I directed them to the ticket which confirmed otherwise. They not only accepted their mistake but shipped me a fingerprint scanner! So my support experience has been great. Again I can only speak for my experience, obviously some others including you are not too thrilled which is possible based on individual use case and expectations.
Over the last 3 decades I have had a Micron, Compaq, IBM, Dell, Fujitsu, Toshiba, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus laptops and the only ones that had some form of satisfactory customers service was Fujitsu and IBM(prior to Lenovo aqusition) the rest garbage customer support compared to my experience with Framework….again I speak from my own personal experience only others may have had a steller experience with the brands I mentioned, so no disrespect to anyone or any particular brand.
- The drivers are a real pain. It is bleeding edge hardware, and nothing works.