For anyone coming to this thread looking for updates on the AMD batch status; here’s the full email, sent on August 9th:
Update on Framework Laptop 13 (Ryzen 7040 Series) shipment timing
Unfortunately, due to electrical issues we recently found during validation along with late firmware delivery from our silicon vendors, we’ve had to delay the start of mass production for Framework Laptop 13 (Ryzen 7040 Series) until September. We’ll be shipping as many pre-orders as we can before the end of September, but we anticipate that many orders originally in Q3 batches will need to move into Q4. We have prepared substantial production capacity, so we don’t expect the late start to cascade into delays in later batches.
We know this delay is disappointing, but we prioritize building products for longevity, stability and quality. To paraphrase the saying in the video game industry, delayed hardware is eventually good, but rushed hardware is forever bad (even when it’s repairable and upgradeable). We understand if the product timing no longer meets your requirements, and you can follow the instructions in the Knowledge Base article here to cancel and refund your pre-order if necessary. Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel Core) is also now in stock and ships within 5 days from inventory if you need a Framework Laptop quickly and don’t have a strong processor brand preference (the reviews for the product are solid).
We have full detail on the source of the delays below along with early guidance on installing Windows and Linux and some quirks in behavior around power consumption with Expansion Cards that you should keep in mind. We’ll continue to keep you updated as we complete validation and ramp into mass production.
Details on the delay
We prefer to design products around mature silicon, but the implosion of the PC industry over the last year caused other brands to cancel many of their products, resulting in us being among the first to ship AMD Ryzen 7040 Series U-class processors, AMD RZ616 WiFi modules, and Infineon CCG8 USB-PD controllers. This means we’re at the leading edge of firmware and software development for each of these. Both the AMD and Infineon firmware is coming in hot, with the first proper feature-complete releases for both arriving just this week. Both companies have helped us along the way by creating special early point releases for our development, but these final releases are necessary to resolve launch-blocking bugs and complete testing.
With firmware stability coming in late, our electrical validation was also delayed, resulting in us finding a few launch-blocking issues after we had originally locked our Mainboard design for production. We’ve made a late board revision to fix these issues, pushing out our factory ramp schedule as we wait for updated PCBs to arrive. The specific issues we found and resolved were around power consumption during standby on the memory power rails, an inefficient power supply design for the USB4 retimers, and a bug in the SSD circuit that could cause drive instability.
AMD has dedicated team members working with us on design and validation, and they have been fantastic partners in ensuring this product is robust and high-performance. With both their engineers and our amazing Framework engineering team on the job, we’re confident that the product we’ll ship is solid.
Expansion Card power guidance
Unlike on the Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel Core) where all four slots behave the same, on the Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040 Series), there are some compatibility parameters you have to keep in mind for functionality and to optimize your battery life. The back two slots support USB4 and display output through Kandou retimers that ensure proper signal integrity. The front right slot supports USB 3.2 along with display output through an Analogix retimer. The front left slot supports USB 3.2 but no display output.
We learned recently that the Kandou retimers don’t enter a suspend state with an empty USB-A Expansion Card or with a USB 2.0 device plugged in, resulting in high power draw. This also occurs with HDMI (3rd Gen) and DisplayPort (2nd Gen) Expansion Cards, but we are currently working through a firmware solution for this.
We’ll be creating tools to check whether your Expansion Card configuration is power optimal and to help update your firmware if needed. In the meantime, you can reference the diagram below for guidance on the behavior of each slot:
Installing Windows on DIY Edition
The Windows installation process continues to become less friendly to both consumers and hardware makers with every release. Microsoft now requires network access and logging into a Microsoft account during installation, but no longer prioritizes including up to date WiFi drivers. The current Windows installer available from Microsoft doesn’t have drivers for the AMD RZ616 WiFi card that comes with the Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040 Series), resulting in blocked installation.
Luckily, there are a couple of workarounds for this. The first is the pretty convoluted workaround that Microsoft publishes to manually load WiFi drivers. The better workaround is to use Rufus, which lets you create a Windows installer that bypasses the network account requirement. Finally, we’re also exploring building a tool that automatically injects the WiFi driver into the Windows installer. We’ll publish and share what we determine is the most reliable and convenient method as a step by step installation guide before we start shipping.
Installing Linux
Providing Linux users a solid experience out of the box is always one of our top priorities. With help from the AMD team, we’re getting close to the target. Since the silicon we’re shipping is extremely new, a very recent kernel is needed to get complete and stable driver support. Depending on the distro you choose, there may be extra steps involved to get to a new enough kernel. We’ll have updated step by step guides ready before we start shipments, but preliminarily, we expect that Fedora 38 will work smoothly out of the box, while Ubuntu LTS 22.04.2 will need some manual effort to get a recent mainline kernel.
I’m actually currently on vacation typing this on my Steam Deck. With somewhere to dock it, it actually works pretty good as a portable Linux dev machine. Hehe. >_<
