Unfortunately the original 4h30m stream didn’t save, which I was counting on. It showed all the unboxing and the trial and error.
Here is a new stream where I recap the issues:
The Case
This is the orientation, which is the correct and only possible orientation:
See framework’s own photo:
I was unable to get the case’s lid to close with the framework board in, the top right corner was sticking out. The power button was pressing against the board. Upon inspection, the top right corner of the mainboard which wraps entirely around the case pin, had a black nodule that was pressing against the side of the case and could not go further down. Figuring that this was the only issue and an easy fix, I scraped away some of the plastic on this corner to make room for the board. After a few scrapes I realised I should take some pictures, along with the stream, so here is the first picture showing that the board would not go down due to the nodule contacting the case (photo from original stream):
Eventually I scraped enough that the nodule was no longer making contact (photo from original stream):
However, then the corners on the left side of the case also contacted the mainboard. So I had to scrape them away a bit too, only a tiny bit though.
That then allowed me for the first time to get the mainboard down enough to where the usb ports were somewhat visible through the case (photo from original stream):
Now after dealing with the plastic edges of the case, the final challenge presented itself. The pins of the case are too tight — I noticed this as there were marks on the pins from where it was rubbing tightly. I tried to sand the pins down for a few minutes but that did not help, it is still too tight for the lid to fit and for the ports to align.
Here is all the progress I could make, of which the photos were taken in the restream video:
If I were then to press down on the top right corner pin where it would get stuck, this would help with the right side but it would pop out the left side:
If I were to go right side first, and then left side, this is the best it can do:
Finally, the case lid still cannot close properly (before all the modifications it stuck out about 5mm, now it is down to about 1-2mm), this is because the power button presses against the board and the board cannot sit low enough:
The Mainboard
I could not get the mainboard to boot at all, not even to bios, nothing came alive. It just did the red/blue lights forever. I tried a single 16gb ram from framework in channel 0, then the other in channel 0. I tried swapping different ports for the charger, keyboard, and hdmi. I tried a 96W apple charger, a 87W apple charger, a 65W heymix charger, and various 100W charging cables including a thunderbolt 3 cable. It just stays at a baseline 0.4W forever (20V 0.02A), adding 0.2W depending on the USB devices attached. I tried an apple usb-c to -usb-a adapter for the keyboard, and a ugreen adapter. I tried a usb-c to usb-b keyboard. I tried a pluggable usb-c to hdmi adapter. I tried a usb-c flash drive with the bios update.
@wang perhaps you got lucky because as I recall, you had the infinite red/blue lights but then moved it to a framework laptop chassis and were able to finally get something. I think that could have been the magic that made everything else in your instructions work.
The only thing I can think of is the 96W charger is not suitable (along with the 87W and 65W)… perhaps it needs to be a over 100W charger. Earlier thread about wattage. I will wait to see what Framework says, and perhaps I’ll buy a 140W apple charger.
Conclusion
I will email Framework and find out what can be done.
