I want to shine a light on a recent issue I’ve had with one of my 13s, and the journey from a bricked mainboard to a working mainboard, Framework support’s role in it, their advise, and the sour note all of this left in my mouth. I’ll stick to the facts.
Had one of the early Laptop 13s with 11th gen mainboard. Everything worked fine. Had ordered a 12th gen mainboard a few years ago, but only now had to time to swap mainboards.
12th gen mainboard worked fine (display, keyboard, trackpad, etc), both in Ubuntu 24 and Windows 11. Started upgrading the BIOS 3.17 package using the Windows package.
Laptop rebooted, firmware update ran, then laptop shut down. Trying to turn it on again the power LED came on, off, on, off, then the side LEDs generated error codes indicating a CPU and fan fault on the mainboard.
Attempted to reset the mainboard a few times, disconnected batteries, etc. Same error codes. Attempted to run the mainboard in a Cooler Master enclosure with no expansion cards, no wifi, no SSD, just one (known good) RAM stick, same error codes: faulty CPU and fan. In all attempts the fan did not spin up.
Contacted Framework support, sent pictures and videos. Support asked me to remove the protective stickers from mainboard, and send close-ups of battery connector and the casing of the small battery cell. None showed any issues, no corrosion, no physical damage.
Framework support then concluded with this:
After conducting a thorough examination of the laptop issue, we have determined that the mainboard requires replacement or an upgrade. This can be done by purchasing the necessary part from our Marketplace. Unfortunately, we are unable to replace the faulty component since the laptop is no longer covered under our 24-month Limited Warranty.
I pointed out that the mainboard actually worked fine before I attempted upgrading with their official BIOS 3.17 for this mainboard, and that it was factory-sealed for some time because I didn’t have time to swap mainboards in my 11th gen laptop, and after a bit of back and forth and patience they agreed to cover the repair of the laptop in one of their partner repair shops.
The Google reviews for that shop were less than stellar, so rather than rolling the dice with this repair - as surely if that shop could not repair it they’d either tell me nothing could be done, or Framework would send a replacement after a while - I tried a few more things Framework support hadn’t suggested: replacing all expansion cards, connecting power directly to USB-C, reseating all connectors, replacing the round battery, replacing the large lithium battery. Turns out the mainboard was not defective at all!
The laptop booted just fine. The error codes previously said CPU and fan are faulty, but they weren’t. Either it was replacing the round battery, or the large one, or both that fixed the boot sequence, but there was no hardware defect, just the BIOS upgrade process not completing due to one or both of the batteries being depleted, and the attached USB-C PSU not being able to power up the mainboard by itself, which led Framework’s firmware to indicate a CPU and fan fault.
As I said initially, this leaves a sour note in my mouth. I supported Framework from the beginning, and I believe in the mission. I happen to live in Austin, and I agree with Louis most of the time. I’m not trying to extrapolate this anecdote into claiming Framework support might have urged a significant part of the customer base into discarding perfectly good hardware due to some firmware quirks, but it does raise the question how something like this could have been missed. I understand it’s standard procedure in tech support for most hardware vendors to run a script, and when error codes on the customer machine indicate an unrecoverable hardware error it’s unfortunately common to suggest the customer buy new hardware instead of trying to find out what really caused the system to malfunction. Wasn’t Framework founded to tackle exactly this problem?
This experience is pretty much the exact opposite of Framework’s mission statement, isn’t it. Only after I urged them to provide out-of-warranty support in this particular case did they agree to initiate the repair attempt - their initial reaction was that I buy a new mainboard, and discard the old one as unrecoverable. Clearly the mainboard was never defective. Instead of Framework’s firmware showing a CPU and fan fault it should’ve shown a battery fault.
Anyway, I’m putting this out there in hopes a few more mainboards, and by extension laptops, can be saved from the landfill. If mods want me to reformat the experience I’m happy to do so.