AMD Framework 13 required multiple boot attempts before actually booting

Hi! I have been using my laptop for a few months and I have a long-lasting issue with booting the device easily. When I click on the power button the LED lights up, but nothing is happening even if I wait for longer (didn’t test more than 20 mins). If I keep holding it until it turns off and turning it back on a few times, then it finally boots and works as usual without any issues. I didn’t have any problems when it’s actually working, left it in sleep mode for a long periods and still everything seemed fine. The other thing I noticed is that the system clock gets out of sync very easily, so I suspected the CMOS battery to be an issue, but there is none in this model.

I have the Framework 13 AMD model running Fedora 40 with custom RAM and SSD.

Not sure if that could be a bootloader issue or hardware one, so if anyone has any more clues I’d gladly hear them.

Hi, i have almost the same issue using FW 13 with Intel Core Ultra. Turning on the system, only the keyboard backlight is turned on and nothing else happens. The display backlight also doesn’t light up. It stays for this until i hold the power button to force a hard shutdown (tried waiting for about 30 minutes). It can take another try, which also often doesn’t work and then third time is often where it comes back alive like nothing was wrong. Backlight of the screen then turns on and it boots normal.

I don’t have it always, it seems to happen more often after the laptop has been shut down/hibernated for more than a couple of hours.

I run Fedora 40 with KDE, but i don’t think it could be the OS as the system shows nothing on the screen. Also it doesn’t even respond to changing the keyboard brightness with the fn+spacebar.

Anyone has any ideas?

This could be a number of things.

  1. Power rail fault
  2. EC stuck in a strange state, needing a full reset to get it going again.
  3. Faulty battery.
  4. RAM faulty

An example of the RAM.
One user purchased the correctly spec RAM, installed it and it boots sometimes.
It turns out the manufacturer mis-labeled the product, and there was a recall out on it.
One way to check is on linux “lshw” and look for the “memory” section. On windows “sysinfo” might show it.
What RAM make/model/part-number/size did you use?

Thanks, this is what i have bought:

Kingston FURY Impact - DDR5 kit 32GB: 2x 16GB SO-DIMM 262-pin 5600MHz / PC5-44800 CL40 - 1.1V Unbuffered on-die ECC

This is what lshw displays:

*-memory
description: System Memory
physical id: 18
slot: System board or motherboard
size: 32GiB
*-bank:0
description: SODIMM Synchronous 5600 MHz (0,2 ns)
product: KF556S40-16
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 0
serial: 960691A0
slot: Controller0-ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 16GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1305MHz (0.8ns)
*-bank:1
description: SODIMM Synchronous 5600 MHz (0,2 ns)
product: KF556S40-16
vendor: Kingston
physical id: 1
serial: A3069208
slot: Controller1-ChannelA-DIMM0
size: 16GiB
width: 64 bits
clock: 1305MHz (0.8ns)

Storage is Solidigm P44 Pro 2TB

This morning after 9 hours hibernate it booted at the 4th try. Other 3 tries again without display backlight, only keyboard backlight on.

During use of the system i experience no stability problems, other than Fedora often not seeing the fingerprint sensor when unlocking. But this is OS bound i assume as it always sees it when doing sudo in terminal for example.

I would reach out to support to start a ticket on this. That is odd behavior. They will have some better guidance on narrowing down what is the issue. If it is something in the firmware a flash/reset could fix it. If it is hardware related then they can help identify that too.

Let us know what you find out. Congrats on the Framework Laptop 13 with Core Ultra. It is suppose to be really efficient and quite powerful when it needs to.

I will contact support, thanks.

The system otherwise is great. On normal/light use with a browser the fan almost never spins up and the laptop is pretty cool to the touch, only bottom part is warmed up some. I have the base model but i feel it has more than enough power for me. Battery time is around 6-7 hours, i would have liked to see longer but it seems this is what you can roughly expect. I have the 120Hz screen, but i made a script to switch to 60Hz when on battery to save some juice, other than this i have not yet made any other battery saving attempts.

Hi. You mention hibernate.
If you actually power off, not hibernate, and leave it overnight. Does it startup better?
The leave overnight while powered off, resets the EC.

I am now trying to better document what the exact conditions are. It happens both in hibernate and full power down.

For example; i just turned it on after full powerdown of about 1 hour and it took 2 tries.

This weekend i reinstalled Fedora 40 KDE clean. This was to enable encryption during setup which i didn’t have before and also added hibernation support right after the fresh install. But i had the problem already on the previous install and i don’t think a OS could cause the display backlight not to come on.

In an effort to troubleshoot i have installed Windows 11 on another drive, fully updated with driver pack and windows updates. Shutdown, wait a bit, power on and… same behavior. So the OS (and drive) definately don’t have anything to do with it.

Never ran windows 11 on this machine but i must say… it boots crazy fast! Full restart is slower though.

So, I think that just leaves:

  1. Power rail fault.
  2. Faulty battery.

In the BIOS, I think you can set the battery to disconnect on next reboot. It only disconnects it for one boot cycle. (Saves one opening up the laptop and removing the battery)
So, maybe try it a few times, so see if the laptop starts up any better.
You can tell the battery is disconnected, because if you disconnect the mains, the laptop power off immediately, no delay.
Any news from FW support on this?
In case you are unclear, FW support don’t really hang out here on the community pages. Its mainly just other end users like me.
I have a FW16.

After contacting FW support and troubleshooting i bought Framework branded memory and i haven’t seen the problem once since swapping the memory. So i recommend not using the Kingston KF556S40IBK2-32 (kit of 2x 16GB) and maybe also the other kits from the same range in the Framework 13 Core Ultra.

As of now this memory is still listed as compatible with an “OK - Limited validation” on the Core Ultra compatible memory page: What memory (DRAM) parts are compatible with the Framework Laptop? (Intel® Core™ Ultra Series 1)

I have recommended that Framework removes the memory as compatible and lists it as having known problems with Core Ultra systems.