My Framework Laptop 13 Mainboard (13th Gen Intel® Core™) - i7-1360P is no longer powering up after a battery drain following the latest bios updates. There are no status lights when plugged in to the official framework power supply or other compatible power supply. The power button does not turn on the device even when plugged in.
I think I’ve seen at least one other report of BIOS update failures involving battery drain, which doesn’t inspire confidence. Which version of the BIOS / shell / driver update did you use, what O/S are you running?
And did the actual update appear successful, or did the problem only appear after the next power down & up?
It sounds to me as though a part of the update is missing, but I’m out of my depth here… this is really a problem for Support.
Have you tried connecting the FW AC adapter with the laptop itself powered down and leaving it for an afternoon to see whether the battery recharges?
This post might be relevant:
I did the 3.05 Bios update (from 3.04), the Windows Driver Pack, and the 2 retimer updates. A reboot was performed in between each update and they all appeared to be successful. I’m running Windows 11 / Fedora dual boot. The updates were performed from Windows. I used the laptop for a few hours afterward and shut it down. I put it on the charger today as it appeared to be out of battery (it was low when I shutdown) and it won’t charge or indicate power is even attached.
I’ve taken the mainboard out to inspect it but nothing looks suspicious on the board. I’ve tried charging directly to the ports on the mainboard (Expansion cards removed) and still don’t show any power.
FWIW: I installed the latest Bios and drivers over the weekend to my FW13 13th gen. I ended up with quite a few issues (some strange pixelation in teams meetings, screen & app flashes, applications not launching) most of which were resolved when I updated the graphics driver to the latest from Intel.
I am still having issues with my second monitor not connecting. It is connected through a Dell USB Hub/Dock HDMI port, and it appears that there are issues with the dock being recognized & enumerated on USB after the updates. Any suggestions welcome, I am still trying to diagnose the issue.
Problem solved: I updated the dock-related drivers but that made no difference. The dock would still not enumerate on the left USBC port. On a whim I moved it to the back right USBC port, and it registered and the external display came up as expected. After doing so, moving the dock back to the left USBC port worked as it should. Coincidentally I see that I am not the only one with this issue: Issues after BIOS 3.05 update 13th Gen Intel Framework 13
No idea why this worked, but I hope it helps someone else out!
I upgraded the bios and video drivers and encountered a new issue. In firefox, the picture in picture mode is flaky. It works on the screen the video came from, but if I navigate to a new tab, the picture is mostly black. Moving the mouse shows the video, but as soon as I stop it turns black with a weird speckled bar across the middle. Screen shots can’t capture the issue.
Any progress since 26th June?
I’ve been doing some detailed reading on BIOS-boot and UEFI-boot architectures and can see they’re radically different; as mentioned earlier, this is a long way from my core expertise (:-)… The FW13 also has an embedded controller which supports a very extensive set of UEFI setup parameters, some relating to charging.
I’ve engaged support and they’ve had me check a few things and send them some pictures. Currently waiting on the RMA process.
Jon_Doe, would you please describe the resolution of this problem when your system is back online? I’d like to upgrade the BIOS / UEFI on my FW13 too but have been reluctant to do so after all the horror stories, and I’m sure others are also interested.
I’ve upgraded to 3.05 pretty much right after it launched (was concerned about security). So far no issues (fingers crossed).
I also don’t let the battery drain all the way. I usually plug it in to charge usually by the time it gets down to 30%.
I’ve seen complete discharges kill other laptops as well, I don’t think that would be a FrameWork specific issue.
I updated after FW sent out the email about the BIOS update. The update went well, and I had no problems with the laptop. However about a week later I noticed my battery had swollen enough to bend the top cover. I use my machine mostly plugged in, and have the battery charge threshold set to 80% to protect the battery.
I obviously cannot claim the BIOS update is the cause, but after reading about battery drain issues other people reported, it makes me think there might be some relation between the two.
Did you notice the top cover becoming unusually warm or the fan working hard while you were using it? Or perhaps at some other time, e.g. when opening the cover for use after the battery had been charging overnight?
The Washington Post has a great article on swollen lithium-ion batteries at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/18/lithium-ion-battery-swelling-why/
And just as a suggestion, you might check the BIOS parameters to see whether the maximum charge is still set to 80%.
I think fire risk is the big issue, especially with cheap LI batteries. But at least the FW battery can be replaced without buying a whole new laptop, or so I’m told…
Framework replaced the mainboard. It arrived today and I swapped it out and everything is working normally again. I have since updated the new mainboard to 3.05 and everything seems to be working normally for now. The battery charged back up just fine.
I’m hoping Framework support will share details of what happened to the other mainboard. I shipped it back to them this evening.
1 Like
Thanks for your update… I’ll go ahead with my own 3.05 upgrade and see if that fixes the occasional freeze.
I didn’t notice top cover being unusually warm or the fan working hard unexpectedly, though I wasn’t necessarily looking for it so I could’ve missed it.
I will check if the BIOS params changed, it hadn’t occurred to me.
I immediately disposed of the battery, and FW did agree to replace it under warranty, so I’m just waiting for the delivery.
Previously I had issues with CPU clock speed, and after some debugging FW replaced the mainboard under warranty for me as well, so I have really had good experiences with hardware faults with the FW13. I wonder if I will feel the same way when I will have to pay for replacement parts myself, but it will still probably be better than replacing the whole machine or even worse, paying 80% of a new machine price in parts and labor for some shady service shop to do it for me.
I have a 1360p FW13 running Windows 11 Pro. I just installed the BIOS update, both retimer updates, and the driver package. Then I updated Intel drivers afterwards as a double check straight from Intel.
I can confirm I had the same odd issue where the Dell Thunderbolt dock at work did not work on the upper left port. Using the upper right port worked right away, and now I’m able to use all the ports just fine for the docking station. My eGPU at home did worked fine on the upper left port. So far no other issues myself.
1 Like
which Dell TB dock are you using? i’ve been having issues with my TB16 since the beginning so i stopped using it (it seemed like it would lose/ regain connection every few minutes). i have the same FW13
I have the Dell WD22TB4 and it has been working fine with the FW13 (1360p) after the latest BIOS update.
At work, I have a WD19TBS. I just swapped my USB C into the lower left port and I haven’t had any issues since. But both my eGPU (Sonnet 750ex) and docking station will not recognize right away if the USB C is on the upper left port post bios update.
1 Like