We have released BIOS updates for each of our products this year and more updates are on the way. Any specific unit you are looking for?
| Product | Driver Bundle Release Date | Current Driver “Age” |
|---|---|---|
| Framework 13 11th Gen Intel | 2024/06/25 | 4 months, 24 days |
| Framework 13 12th Gen Intel | 2022/07/26 | 2 years, 3 months, 23 days |
| Framework 13 13th Gen Intel | 2024/06/25 | 4 months, 24 days |
| Framework 13 7040 AMD | 2024/04/02* | 7 months, 16 days |
| Framework 13 Intel Core Ultra | 2024/07/26 | 3 months, 23 days |
| Framework 16 7040 AMD | 2024/04/02* | 7 months, 16 days |
*An updated driver package installer is available, but the drivers included haven’t been updated
As for me, I have a Framework 16. I love this machine, don’t get me wrong.
But Framework strongly discourages using component manufacturer supplied drivers, and AMD, for example, puts out updated graphics drivers nearly every month, many of which add significant features or improvements. No Framework approved drivers have been offered since then.
And the latest beta BIOS available (3.04) was released July 23; 3 months and 26 days ago. Many folks had issues, and it’s wide release was put on hold while the issues were investigated and tracked down; I completely support that plan, and have no issue with it. BUT after a week of good, solid communication, @Kieran_Levin’s last post on the topic was July 31. Since then, you (@Destroya ) replied once (quoting a single sentence from one of Kieran’s earlier replies) to someone asking a clarifying question. And then crickets. There hasn’t been any Framework provided communication on the matter since, effectively, the end of July. Given that the update was primarily one focused on patching known security vulnerabilities, personally, I have interest in getting a functional update to patch the known security issues.
From my position, armchair-sleuthing, Kieran often seems to be the primary/only Framework employee chiming in on driver/bios posts. I assume that he is the main, if not sole, current Framework employee tasked with said drivers packages and BIOS updates. Given that Framework is currently listing an open position for a firmware engineer, I can’t say Framework isn’t trying to improve and can only hope that more engineers are going to be hired to share the workload. (I haven’t cyber-sleuthed very hard, for all I know, Kieran’s LinkedIn could say he’s the manager of the firmware team 
) But we don’t know what’s going on, primarily due to a lack of communication. Which was one of the 2 main things that blog post seemed to say was changing; improving iteration speed and communication.
So, from my point of view, since the iteration speed hasn’t significantly improved, nor has the communication significantly improved, I assume the priorities that were communicated in the post have changed or updated. Policies and priorities change all the time. Stagnation in business, and especially technology companies, can lead to a quick and brutal death (of the company).
Maybe I misunderstood the post. Maybe Framework has done a bunch of work that I haven’t noticed (which, given that I don’t have a 13, admittedly I don’t pay nearly as much attention there). Or maybe Framework dropped the ball here, as they spent the first two paragraphs of the post explaining how they had previously.
I don’t know what’s going on. In isolation, I don’t need to. But I keep seeing other posts echoing my thoughts. I feel like more and more of the previously upbeat and positive community are sharing posts of doom and gloom. Maybe it’s just in the Framework 16 community tag. Maybe I’m reading into that too much as well.
Has Framework kept up with what they described in the post? Have the policies or plans regarding iteration speed or communication changed? I don’t mean to nitpick or imply that you very fine folk haven’t been working or doing good jobs doing any of the many other things that I know you all must be doing, but I just don’t feel like the action plan described in this post have been followed through.
That’s what I meant when I asked for updates.
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While your concerns about BIOS issues are fair and should be answered, it has been said many times on this forum that the driver packages on the Framework website are for getting your laptop set up, and once you have installed those all future driver updates will come through Windows Update. New driver packages are only released if there are new drivers necessary for setting up the laptop for the first time.
As for BIOS updates, I agree that hopefully there is still lots of work happening in the background and results coming soon. I’ve been following the 12th gen laptop BIOS thread, and there still seem to be lots of issues. Additionally while I haven’t heard of any new security issues, I can’t help but feel that we haven’t seen new BIOS betas for a while and I hope that just means they haven’t been necessary.
I also agree with you that the general tone of the forums and the reddit has grown more hostile since compared to the earlier years, and I hope that it’s just me reading more new posts than going back through old posts. I don’t know if it’s the addition of the Community Support topic that has led to more issues talked about, but I feel like I haven’t been able to enjoy going on the forums or answering questions as much because I don’t have answers other than “Framework hasn’t commented on that and we won’t know the answer until they do” or “that seems like a question you should ask support”
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Again, I could be reading into things incorrectly, but…
This was said on Oct 3, in response to new graphical drivers released for AMD APUs and GPUs that seem to be causing significant crashes for many, but frustratingly (from a troubleshooting standpoint) not all, Framework 16 users.
Seems to imply to me that regular driver updates are supposed to be a thing.
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Thanks for your reply and for sharing your concerns in detail.
Kieran, our Lead System Architect and manager of the firmware team (yes, we do have a team and are currently hiring a new member), typically shares the BIOS and driver bundle updates. I try to assist as much as possible, but I’m not a firmware engineer and, therefore, cannot provide technical assistance here.
Regarding the Framework Laptop 16 BIOS, we haven’t shared any updates primarily because there hasn’t been anything new to share. The issues are still being tracked and investigated, and we are conducting extensive internal testing. (In hindsight, perhaps we could have communicated that we’re still investigating and working on the BIOS update—do you think that would have helped?)
On the Framework Laptop 16 side, this is where things stand. For the Framework Laptop 13, we released new BIOS versions this summer for the Intel Core 13th Gen and Intel Core 11th Gen models, as well as the first BIOS update last week for the Intel Core Ultra Series 1. Additionally, we issued a minor update for the AMD platform driver bundles, fixing compatibility issues with Windows 24H2 (though there were no new drivers). Apart from Intel Core 12th Gen, we’ve released new driver bundles for each of our products this year.
We’re also working on new projects to improve awareness of driver bundle and BIOS updates. This includes sending email updates and improving the quality of our release notes. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, and feedback like yours is invaluable in helping us refine our processes and communication. I really appreciate it!
As for the “doom and gloom” on the community forums, I’ve noticed it too. I suspect it’s mainly because we don’t have any new products to announce right now—no upcoming pre-orders, reviews, or major updates. Earlier this year, the forums were buzzing with activity as people received their Framework Laptop 16 units and had plenty to discuss. It will be like that again in the future. 
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Community Support is not a new category; it has been here for a while, but it wasn’t being used effectively. People were reporting their issues under the Framework Laptop 13 and Framework Laptop 16 categories instead. We’ve introduced new tags to the Community Support category and have started moving “community support” threads there so that users can easily find and organize relevant information.
We also redefined each category, which has led to more posts in the Community Support category, increasing visibility for these issues.
As I mentioned to Takaides, we haven’t announced anything new recently, which means no pre-orders or reviews of new products. There just isn’t much to talk about at the moment. Things will be lively again in the future and there will be more questions and more topics to be discussed
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I do think that mentioning it is still being investigated can help. I believe that I can speak for a few community members here by saying we like to be kept in the loop of things. Silence regarding the issue can maybe feel like nothing is being done with it, and I think that may be what brings about the update questions.
We can provide more data points if needed to help speed up any updates, just let us know what data needs to be provided. (Hardware surveys, OS/kernel, bios settings, OC/UV data points like xtxu/RyzenAdj settings, etc)
Thank you for letting us know issues are still being worked on and that Framework is working on projects to improve the devices. 
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Hi,
I think some of the problem is that FW don’t seem to do support in a process that users have become used to with other suppliers.
As an example.
I raised a bios bug with a different manufacturer.
There was some early interaction until we reach the bug status of “customer bug reproduced by supplier support team”
Then a delay until “alpha release for customer to confirm the fix works”
Once I confirmed it fixed the bug for me, the next status was being given a release version that will contain the fix.
The release version was released up to a month later.
The release notes for the prior release were continually updated, in the Known bugs section, once the “bug reproduced” step was reached.
I don’t see any of this interaction with users happening in relation to bios bugs.
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I agree. There have been numerous commitments to improve software maintenance, particularly on BIOS updates which have not materialised. There are still bugs on the PD handling for the FW 13 AMD, and an accumulation of microcode and other patches which should really made available. Until FW’s support in this dimension improves, it is hard to recommend FW for business use.
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YES! 1000x this.
Bad news, with a planned path forward, is much better than no news. Neutral news is better than bad news. Not everything has to be sunshine and daisies, but no news is particularly difficult.
In the fast-moving world of modern computers, yearly updates are better than no updates, but not what I expect in terms of software longevity. I understand Framework can’t do anything about proprietary/closed-source software provided by vendors that doesn’t have upgrades available, but many of these vendors (especially AMD and Intel) are releasing nearly monthly driver updates with bug and compatibility fixes, and security patches, as well as support for new features (October’s first AMD update includes support for “AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) 2,” which has major performance improvements specifically for gaming). As of October 2nd, issues had been reported to Framework (via community forums) of major crashing and issues related to this release. You chimed in on the same day to remind folks to use official Framework drivers, and, on the following day, confirmed Frameworks driver bundle was from April. To me, this is a compatibility issue for a bug fix, security patch, and new feature release. I feel that this specific update hits all of the points mentioned in the quote.
AMD has released 9 driver updates for CPU/APU/GPU alone, since Framework’s bundled drivers were last updated. (I’m going off of the Driver Build date of 2/22/2024, a few days before the Adrenalin 24.2.1 release on 2/26/2024.)
What is Framework’s intended policy regarding ongoing software (specifically drivers) support?
Unrelated note regarding response times
Also, as an aside, I don’t work for Framework, and can post whenever I please. I don’t know where you are located (and have no need to know), but it was well after what I hope would be an end of shift for California/PST based folks when you posted your response. I hope you are able to have downtime and aren’t burning the candle at both ends on my behalf. I can wait until standard business hours for a response (especially if you need to check with any other Framework employees to formulate a response). I am not sure if I appear hostile/angry (which is not my intent), but I want Framework to succeed, and that includes healthy work/life balance to prevent burnout. I am frustrated, but I do seriously want everyone at Framework, especially those in customer facing roles of any kind, to have a great day, everyday.
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Thank you all for chiming in. I’ll share your feedback with our firmware team and the larger communications team to help improve our processes and provide more frequent updates.
In an ideal scenario, we’d release a beta version of the BIOS, and if no issues are found within a week or two, it would be promoted to stable. At that point, we would update the knowledge base articles, send emails to subscribers, and so on.
For the Framework Laptop 16, we discovered some bugs and have been in an ongoing period of tracking and investigation since this summer. I personally thought there wasn’t much to share (beyond the fact that we’re still working on it), but it seems I was mistaken.
Moving forward, I’ll make it a point to be more active in providing updates after we release a beta BIOS and before promoting it to stable.
This is really good—honestly, I would expect this as a customer.
Maybe we could track these bugs on GitHub instead of the community forums. This way, we could manage them more effectively and provide better visibility.
Do you think it would be easier to provide this data and track these issues on github instead of community forums?
Not gonna lie, it was 11:16 PM, sometimes it just happens
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I personally have a (underutilized) GitHub and think that would be a great idea.
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I think that tracking the issues and progress towards fixing using GitHub is an excellent solution to this. It can be organized a lot more easily compared to using community forums, and it’s a great location to have more technical details as well.
I definitely think it would be a lot easier to provide data and track issues on GitHub. Community forums are nice way to communicate big updates regarding things, but I think the more technical details and incremental progress updates through GitHub will be a lot easier to manage compared to different forum posts. For example, each beta bios could have updates listed in GitHub as well as any way we can help test the changes.
For the ability to provide data, I think anywhere could work but for convenience it should be close to the other data regarding the systems. If GitHub is being looked at for communication regarding updates, it maybe could have polls or ways to provide data about how we use the systems and would like to see them improve.
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Well, why not use GitHub - FrameworkComputer/SoftwareFirmwareIssueTracker: Public Issue Tracker for Firmware Issues related to Framework Products for that?
It has been semi-officially announced for the latest Beta (now Release) BIOS of the Intel Core Ultra Series 1:
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Yep, that’s the one. We created it but haven’t utilized it yet.
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I wasn’t aware they had semi-announced any GitHub issue trackers. Thank you for letting me know.
I don’t have a framework 13, so I don’t look at release notes regarding it.
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+1 for github or even better, a dedicated gitlab instance (historically, relying on any proprietary service tends to backfire sooner or later, but for now github will do).
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Maybe a good start would be FW to enter in all the known bugs of the FW16 into the github issue list and then label which of those they intend to fix in BIOS 3.0.4 and FW can then update each one so we can all see progress towards the BIOS 3.0.4 release. We can then also see which bugs might be fixed and which might have to wait. (post 3.0.4)
I do understand that it is actually quite difficult to know when a BIOS is ready for release, because the risk of bricking customers laptops is not a 0% risk.
I don’t know if the FW 16 is “unbrickable”. By unbrickable, I mean even if you totally corrupt the BIOS flash, there is always a way to recover it without needing to solder anything.
For example some desktop and server motherboards can upgrade the BIOS even with the CPU removed!!! Almost 100% of ARM platforms are also unbrickable because they have ROM that can never be wiped, and it always has a feature whereby one can load the BIOS into ram via the Serial port and run that, thus allowing the system to boot and then be recovered.
Obviously, if the FW16 BIOS was unbrickable, FW would not need to be so cautious about BIOS updates.
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it has, but I’ve been here longer haha! I don’t want to get this thread too off track, but I do appreciate all your work to keep things nice and tidy! I was mostly just commenting on how my feelings about the forum being less excited could have come from seeing more posts about support since I’ve been here since before there were products for people to even ask for support with!
To get back on track, I will say that I am glad to see your report on all the BIOS updates that have been released this year, and I’m glad to know that Kieran and the team are continuing to work hard on more updates in the future! It’s also great to see the whole conversation that has unfolded in this thread since your response to me. I really hope to see Framework continue to make progress on hardware and software longevity, as well as keeping the community in the loop about things!
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Yes! Github would provide a clean slate, and allow for an easy to access, reliable source of information to find bug tracking, bios updates, or news in general regarding software updates.
EDIT: Make sure that the github is something that is easily noticed/accessed on the main Framework store page, that way people can easily access it an know where to go for more info.
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