Feature Request Megathread - Expansion Card

Are the Expansion Slots Set to be Hot swappable by default for the storage Expansion Card, like a USB, or are the set by default to be more like internal storage?

@Skyline1029 They are essentially a flash drive.

Are the Expansion Slots Set to be Hot swappable by default for the storage Expansion Card, like a USB, or are the set by default to be more like internal storage?

Good to know. I figured but wanted to double-check because they did talk about using it as a boot for Chrome OS.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it honestly sounds like your talking about this pre-existing discussion:

I don’t know much about hardware design so I could be off base, but I feel like a 4-8 port usb-c hub could be made that could have expansion slots to hold cards and make a configurable USB hub.

It’d also be a convenient holder for extra cards.

I couldn’t find any posts talking about such an idea, but I could just be bad at searching so let me know if it’s been done already

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Here’s another thread discussing this:

Here’s another:

Also in this thread:

https://community.frame.work/t/usb-c-thunderbolt-dock-megathread/1460/70

for gpus, storage, networking, etc.

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Just no.

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Its definitely possible, just much more impractical than the ADT Link eGPU setup some are using

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I would think you’d still be bottlenecked by the USB-C adapter on the laptop. Maybe x4 would be a better fit, which would essentially be an NVMe to USB-C adapter.

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Define possible. I’m siding with Josh Cook.

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I was actually just doing research on eGPUs. Probably right on the bottleneck. What would be cool is if you could hook up a GPU to a framework laptop.

You can. Plenty of threads about it. Besides, where would these 16 lanes come from? It’s not like the laptop has lanes to spare, every lane available from the CPU has been allocated already. 4 lanes to each of the TB4 ports and 4 lanes to the m.2 makes 20 lanes, which is every lane available.

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There’s a Thunderbolt 4 bottleneck of 32Gb/s (which uses 4x PCIe 3 lanes). The 4x PCIe 4 lanes would double the speed (of TB4 / 4x PCIe 3) to 64Gb/s.
Pretty sure this is what TB5 is meant to do, but if this can be done manually without needing to implement a non-existent specification, that’d be cool. I’ve no clue how.

4x PCIe 4 lanes should be enough to run most GPUs at some minor bottleneck - much better than my current TB4->TB3, 4x PCIe 3.

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Before putting my laptop in a backpack, I will usually enter it into sleep mode (Win 10) either via hitting the power button or start menu. Sleep is preferable vs fully powering off to persist application states.

Entering Sleep seems to have a ~10s delay before entering Sleep (power led sleep animation starting) during which any mouse or keyboard input will wake the machine aborting the Sleep process. Plugging or unplugging USB-C (power) seems to also wake the machine.

Most of the time, this flow works out okay if I wait to see the LED sleep status activate. Occasionally I’ll find the machine awake in my bag when unintended. Some discussion in a forum thread here.

I wonder if a hardware switch might be a better UX- set the switch to Sleep and it’s out 100% of the time (suppresses any other wake mechanisms) until the switch is toggled. Not sure if this is technically possible over USB, though if it is could perhaps make a expansion card including both a sleep switch and a USB port?

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How come you do not have it set to sleep when the lid is closed?

I have an interesting idea for an expansion card (which I’d like to note I have yet to see it on the forum but I’m not claiming I’m the first with this idea). After the revelation of extended expansion cards being a thing that can happen(i previously never considered it), I had an idea for one that could house an M.2 2230 SSD. I have not done any cad work or modeling with this, it just came to mind and I’d thought I should share it. It seems to be like there could be promise in doing some sort of internal USBC to M.2, then being able to slot your own drive in through a removable lid on the card.

I will say that it does seem a little unnecessary since there are already drive expansion cards, I just think it would be interesting for modularity and compatibility with other systems. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

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Would want to take this on but thermals and silicon shortages will be your issue as I know the silicon required are most of the time either very expensive or out of stock. /

When you say “extended expansion cards”, do you mean double-height, or extending past the side of the laptop?

I wonder if a double-height card could house a 2280 or even 22110 card… it would have to extend further “in” than the normal “back” of the slot, but if it’s under the body, that might be feasible? (For that matter, you could steal some additional room to the sides also, as long as you don’t block the release tab…)

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@matthew3 Initially I only considered it extending out of the side of the laptop, but not increasing the height. Increasing the height sounds mildly interesting, or at least lengthening the side with the port on it with more room for larger ports(ethernet??). I imagine that a card to fit something like a 2280 or 22110 would have to extend under the laptop inwards. I like that idea a lot actually, I wonder if it is something they have considered.