Essentially, I brought my Framework 13 (13th gen) on a trip to Spain with me. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any time to use it on the trip, so it mostly just traveled with me in my backpack. However, when I got home and tried to turn it on, it was dead. At first, I thought it was a charger issue so I bought a new charger. Nope, it was definitely not the charger. No LEDs, no fan (not even a twitch), and just no signs of life. I’m suspecting water damage as it was pretty rainy during my trip. However, it was sealed in my backpack so I’m unsure as to why it got wet enough to damage the computer. I’m pretty sad as my Framework is probably among my favorite possessions.
Tests
I’ve run some tests to see if there’s some kind of life in the motherboard. I thought maybe it could be a embedded controller issue but the signs say otherwise. I tried a hard reset on the motherboard and it did nothing. All signs point to it being dead and since I don’t have the skills or knowledge to fix components on the motherboard, I’m left with few options.
Plan Going Forward
The downside of this laptop is that there aren’t a lot of people that know how to fix the motherboard directly. I contacted Louis Rossmann’s repair team and they said they’re backlogged with repairs so they can’t help me. It seems the fixable laptop isn’t very fixable in this situation. No beef with Framework, it’s just the reality of this business that not a lot of people can fix it. I’m thinking I’ll just shell out the extra money to get a new motherboard. The sad part is that it’s probably just a blown capacitor or something, but I don’t have a thermal camera or anything to have any hope of replacing it.
Any advice?
If anyone out there does know a person that can do this fix and someone that is trustworthy, please feel free to let me know. I’d be much happier paying for a $200 repair than a $500 motherboard. I’m sure it’s nothing crazy, just some blown components that beed replacing. However, I’m not about to hand a random mall laptop repair shop to do this fix. I need someone that won’t screw up my laptop any further.
Do you get any lights at all with the PSU plugged in and/or the power button pressed?
Power button LED.
LED on the side of the laptop.
Try plugging into the other side of the laptop.
If you press the power button, and then keep looking at the LEDs on the side, for about 2 minutes. Do they flash at all?
Try removing all the PCIe device, NVME SSD, wifi card, all slot cards except one for the charger, remove the battery.
Try to narrow down the problem a bit.
You can get hold of a EC CCD that will give you a view of the EC console. See if it is getting any power to the EC.
You should be able to go to any local good repair shop and they should be able to help.
You give them your laptop, they provide proof to FW support that they have the laptop and are a real repair show. FW send them the schematics and boardview docs. They go do the repair of the unit.
There are no LEDs alive. Not on the board, charging port, or anywhere. I’ve probed the battery pins and there’s just nothing even when plugged into AC. Of course, I did try using other ports and still nothing. I’ve never seen a computer this bricked before. I did also try removing all the connections (battery, WiFi, RAM, NVME, etc) and still nothing. I tried doing a hard reset by repeatedly pressing the board’s open switch (you know, that little switch on the mainboard that tells the computer when the input cover has been removed) and still no LED activity (I pressed it 100 times in 2 sec intervals).
I’ll try some more probing, but it definitely seems like something is very broken. Usually when I have a broken mainboard, at least there are some signs of life like a lone LED but in this case it’s literally nothing.
I think the mainboard reset procedure is something like this:
Start with the mainboard powered off and the charger unplugged.
Wait 120 seconds.
plug in the charger.
Slowly press the chassis open switch/case switch 10 times, holding each press for 2 seconds.
Press the power button to boot the system.
The EC will detect the count of chassis open switches, and boot the system differently.
So, maybe not 100 times, and the when the charger is plugged in matters.