Is it still the original input cover?
Yes. I want to buy a new cover but they’re not available on the framework site, and customer support doesn’t seem to care enough to help me out.
My guess is that my laptop’s future is to be gutted and put in one of those cooler master cases. Then I’ll just buy a dell because those work.
I like what framework represents, but I need a working laptop.
Where are you located? At least in Europe, input covers seem to have been available again from the marketplace for a while. So, customer support should be also able to send them out again.
Different regions have different marketplace with different stock it would seem 
I’m in the US, and best I can tell, no input covers.
That’s strange. I still see them as available after switching to the US store (under the “keyboard” section). For other products, switching the store updates the availability accordingly (e.g., the matte display is not available in Europe at the moment, but seems available in the US and Canada).
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Wow, I was looking in the wrong sections of the store. I had ignored the keyboard section because I (guess) I’d misremembered it as having only keyboards, and not input covers.
Buying one right now. If it doesn’t resolve my problem I’ll return it.
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Ah, yes, of course. The input cover kits disappeared from the store completely during the weeks the whole inventory was checked for the defective connectors…
Do you have a case open with Support? This seems like something that should be covered under warranty, and they also may be able to provide more guidance than you might get here in the forum. Best of luck.
I do have a case open with Support - since November - but they’re pretty much treading water with me.
That being said maybe they’re taking me more seriously lately because yesterday they asked me to update my SSD firmware (just did that this morning) and to reset my mainboard to put the BIOS in a default state, which I’ll be doing this afternoon since it requires a disassembly.
I assume they’re just getting me to a baseline for diagnosis, which seems reasonable.
But since this expensive machine has been so unreliable for me, and since it’s taken a month to get anywhere with support, I have no real option besides buying a cover and determining if that resolves my issue. If it does, great. If it doesn’t, well, I don’t know what to do after that other than buying the coolermaster case and accepting that I have to buy a different kind of laptop.
Hi @Shamyl_Zakariya,
I’ve checked on your ticket and following the history, you reported the issue on November 18th, and we started troubleshooting with you but you had requested to close the ticket on November 22nd as your issue had been resolved. You wrote back in on December 7th on a new ticket and we began troubleshooting with you again but the issue again self-resolved and you had mentioned you would report back if the problem happened and our team asked if we could get any videos if the issue reoccurred. We’ve responded each time you’ve written in, but based on your reports, and the lack of requested video, we still aren’t sure that the Input Cover is the cause of your reported issues. I assure you that we’ve taken you seriously since the first time you wrote in, but the problem appears to be intermittent, and there are gaps of time between responses. If you could please provide the information requested once you are able to reproduce the issue, that will help our team determine if hardware replacement is necessary. If you respond back here letting me know that’s been done, I’ll take a look and will authorize an RMA if it appears the hardware replacement will resolve your reported issue.
Thank you.
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I did reply with video over the weekend. But you have to understand, I don’t know when this problem will occur. It’s essentially random. It wasn’t until this weekend that it occurred in a context where I could film it.
Further, I’m not a hardware engineer, I am not qualified to diagnose. All I’ve been able to do is observe that when I removed the input cover and re-seated the main ribbon cable connecting it to the mainboard, my machine would work again. I didn’t realize early on that “work again” could mean 12 hours, or 2 weeks. Now that I’ve been through this 8 or 10 times, I know that that “fix” just resets a timer.
I also don’t know how many insertions that plug is rated for. How many more times can I do this before my mainboard is ruined?
Anyway, I didn’t realize that the fix was temporary earlier, which is why the first ticket was closed. Once I understood the nature of the issue better I opened a new ticket. Can you blame me?
Apologies for the rant earlier, I’ve just been very frustrated.
For clarity, on Saturday I did provide a google drive link to Support to a series of videos showing the problem. I would have done so earlier, but I wasn’t asked for video until a week or so ago, and it didn’t occur in a context where I could film it until this weekend.
Also, Support asked me over the weekend to update firmware on my SSD and reset the mainboard - I’ve done both. Right now my machine is working, but as I’ve reported, it could fail in the next 15 minutes, or it could fail in a week. I have not found any way to force the issue to occur, all I can do is use my laptop and keep my fingers crossed, and report when a failure occurs.
I completely understand you are frustrated, and I can also understand why you are frustrated because who wouldn’t be when experiencing issues with a purchased product?
Our team has been trying to understand if this is hardware or software-related, and our troubleshooting steps help us determine if hardware replacement is warranted. Our product allows us to to troubleshoot with customers given the ease of getting to the internals and swapping parts. This said, the vast majority of the time, reported issue resolution does NOT require hardware replacement which avoids unnecessary shipment of new hardware and returns of perfectly working hardware that then has to be tested at a repair center just to confirm that fact. There’s cost and time associated on all sides, and if we are able to determine that replacement is necessary, we of course honor our warranties. We just haven’t reached that conclusion yet given the information provided, and the fact that it’s working after some minor changes points to something else going on, and our team is just trying to figure out what that is.
If it happens again, please provide the details on what happened and let the agent know about this thread. I’ll work to authorize the replacement at that time. Thanks.
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Thank you - like I mentioned earlier I’m not always in a position to record when the failure occurs, but I’ll do my best to record it again the next time it happens, and will share that video with the support team.
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I’m experiencing the same of very similar symptoms.
I just plugged my 13" AMD to Dell 27" screen over USB-C and got dual displays (ie: desktop over the two screens) as is normally the case, but this lasted only a second and then the laptop’s screen went black, the keyboard stopped responding and the power button LED turned off. I’m currently writing the with the external keyboard plugged into the external screen.
I’ve had the laptop for about 3 weeks and have used in this exact configuration (laptop + external USB-C screen with keyboard connected to screen) since day 1 and it worked fine until today.
I faced the same issue earlier, as i tried to bring the laptop out of suspend having plugged in the USB-C screen while it was asleep. The external screen came on but at the wrong resolution and the laptop screen stayed off. After a reboot, the keyboard was still not functional.
Luckily, after unplugging everything, closing the laptop as if to suspend it and opening it back up got me a functional power button, so i was able to force power off and reboot.
I’m running Fedora 39 Silverblue. I’m going to try rebooting in an earlier generation to see if it makes any difference.
I suggest you try resetting the mainboard, and updating your SSD firmware. I can’t say which of those resolved the issue for me, but one of them did. My machine’s been solid since Jan 7th when I did that.
Thanks @Shamyl_Zakariya, helpful ideas.
I’ve not experienced the problem recently, but have smaller bits of weirdness.
fwupdmgr doesn’t find updates for my WD BLACK SN850X sadly, so figuring out how to update the SSD is next on the list.
Maybe someday fwupd will update our SSDs, but not yet. In the mean time I had luck back in January following this thread here:
And this script here:
Note: The script back in january supported Fedora linux, but now seems not to? It also might work just fine. IIRC, I did some manual execution of the script step by step for sanity checking. But in the end, it worked, and my problems went away.
First gen batch 7 (Order date Jan 04 2022), my keyboard failed Jun 14 2023, it wasn’t a full loss of function, but I was losing keys I could use for input. Never contacted support as it was out of warranty at that point. However it started where re-booting would resolve the issue this eventually stopped so I just switched to a blank keyboard.
Good luck, I hope your keyboard doesn’t fully go out like mine did.