11th Gen i5 Mainboard only (no internal screen, no battery)
attempted BIOS update to 3.20 from Windows
problem:
no video out anymore via USB-C (neither with USB-C monitors, nor via any USB-C adapters)
laptop appears to be booting up when pressing power button (LEDs blink, fan powers up)
cannot run second attempt at updating BIOS as suggested in post by @W01fie because I don’t see what I’m doing and don’t quite understand how they accessed the Windows display blindly
long version
I’m afraid I have this issue with the lack of video out after attempting the BIOS update as well. The mainboard was running fine, but wanted to update the BIOS before further customisation. I have only the mainboard in the cooler master case, no laptop screen or battery, which is apparently the reason for my problem.
Ran into the problem originally some time last autumn, but after didn’t have time to try around more after some hours of unsuccessfully trying using connection options and whatnot. The board has been lying around useless since then, which is somewhat annoying, so I’d like to be able to fix it.
Can you elaborate what you mean with point 1? What did you do to blind-type your way around to use windows quick assist? Is that some kind of remote connection, similar to VNC in Linux?
My problem is that I might not have the plain windows installation in place anymore, since I used the ssd in a different computer in the intermediate (original reason I wanted to update the Framework mainboard was that I needed an intermediate replacement for another laptop that I had to send away for fixing). I put the SSD back, but there might be some driver issues on top of everything. In principle I have no issue with a full reinstall, but doing that completely blind is a bit… challenging.
Any help in getting to some type of display output would be much appreciated!
Update: I finally learned about Quick Assist and managed to get access to the device, update the BIOS two more times as suggested by @W01fie and now it is indeed working again!!
Initially, I tried installing a Wifi card and getting a remote connection using an Wireless Display Adapter I have, but unfortunately that didn’t work for me (wasted a good two hours troubleshooting). If you’re luckier than me, this should work by blindly pressing Win +K on the Framwork, then Tab once to get the focus to the hopefully only active Wireless Display adapter for screen sharing and then Enter.
Since that didn’t work, I finally figured out how Quick Assist works and it is actually easier than I thought - provided it’s installed on your machine (I had to manually install it on the machine I was using to fix the Framework, but I already had it on the Framework SSD luckily).
For reference, here are the steps to access your Framework if the display output via USB-C isn’t working after a BIOS update:
Connect the Framework to power, an external keyboard and a network connection. If you have no Wifi set up, I recommend getting a USB-to-Ethernet dongle and use wired network.
Boot the FW and wait a minute or two until it’s booted up, i.e. LEDs have stopped flashing, should be solid white I think. Fan is likely to spin up at boot, you can use this as a rough indicator as well.
On the external keyboard, press Win+Q, enter “quickas” and press enter to start Quick Assist (you can probably also type it out completely).
Start Quick Assist on a fully working Win machine connected to the network and pick the option that you want to access another machine. You’re going to get a 6 digit alphanumeric code.
On the FW, just type that code blindly (look out for capitalisation) and press enter.
Wait for a bit, on your working machine it’s going to tell you that it’s connecting.
Once Quick Assist on the working machine tells you that it’s waiting for confirmation from the other computer (the broken FW), do the following on the FW: hit Space once, Tab twice, Enter once. This ticks a box and then moves the cursor to the confirm button, and Enter confirms. This should get you connected.
You should now see the desktop of the FW on the working machine. You still need to request access with a button on top of the interface. This is going to request confirmation on the FW, so using the FW keyboard, hit enter once (I hope I recall this correctly, otherwise try Tab once and then Enter).
Now you should be able to access the FW remotely and proceed as suggested in the original post by @W01fie . Be aware that starting the firmware update also requires admin rights and you will see a blank screen because this has to be done locally. I think to confirm you need to press Tab twice and then Enter (but if this doesn’t work, try Tab once or three times and then Enter)
Maybe this can be helpful to someone, thanks to @W01fie for getting me started!
Sorry I didn’t reply before now. Did you try doing the update twice with the side the power is plugged into swapped? It sounds stupid but it seems to be key to updating both PD controllers until they are happy. As for the not detecting the correct resolution, I don’t think I ran into that at any point, that might be a secondary issue, like maybe check the DisplayPort version the display is set to, try a different USB-C cable etc.
You figured it out correctly! So glad to hear my horrors of this BIOS update helped others
To anyone else reading this, don’t forget you still need to switch the power from left to right (or right to left) and flash again to fully fix the other side of the mainboard too!
On the external keyboard, press Win+Q, enter “quickas” and press enter to start Quick Assist (you can probably also type it out completely).
I have a really helpful tip, you should be able to press Ctrl+Win+Q and Windows will automatically open Quick Assist without you having to be sure search is behaving and not just bing-ing it
No worries! With all of the holiday stuff flying, my attention went to the new “shiny”, and I stopped messing with it for a while. I think I have it stabilized now as I have video out of the left side. I did do another full round of flashing using the steps, but I think that was the point at which I abandoned it. Since it “lives” mounted to the back of a normal 4k 16:9 screen (vs my office where I was testing), I just took it back to its home the other day, arranged the modules how I need them for the mounting, plugged in the power and the single USB-C that runs to the display, and I’m working fine. Hopefully, I won’t need it for any other purpose than that, and it’ll stay stable. Thanks again!