Hi!
I’ve been having issues with my Framework 13 (12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370) machine not charging properly. After quite a bit of back and forth with support, it sounds like an issue with the mainboard. Unfortunately I’m at 13 months from when I received the laptop, so it’s technically just outside the warranty period. I’m still figuring out how to move forward since I’m skeptical of picking up another mainboard with potentially the same design flaw. I’d welcome ideas for further debugging, but at this point I’m mainly trying to document my experience with this issue to help others. Looking around here and on Reddit, this appears to be a somewhat common issue, so hopefully adding what info I have can help to get it resolved eventually.
Main takeaways:
- If you experience USB ports becoming unreliable, I recommend contacting support BEFORE your warranty period runs out, even if it seems like a minor issue at the time.
- Until there’s some kind of fix confirmed, getting the extended warranty coverage in the US is probably a good idea. A 1-year warranty isn’t good enough with these kinds of failures happening.
- I’m disappointed with Framework here. The repairability story is ideal, but it doesn’t make sense when the mainboard burns out this easily. It’s unclear whether this is a firmware or hardware bug, but it needs to be fixed urgently. A replacement mainboard only comes with at 30-day warranty so I’m at a loss for how to proceed now that my laptop is mostly non-functional.
Okay, so here’s the grand summary:
I got a Framework 13, AI300 12-core DIY setup in May 2025. I brought my own SSD and RAM. I’ve been running the latest Fedora and keeping the BIOS up-to-date. Specifically, the OS version is Fedora 44, and the BIOS version is 3.05, which was current in early June when I did most of this troubleshooting. I had default settings in the BIOS other than turning off the adaptive brightness.
Several months ago I started experiencing an issue where random USB ports would not work. I initially figured it was a firmware issue and would be resolved with time. The initial symptoms were expansion modules randomly becoming unresponsive. They would usually start working again if I unplugged them, then plugged them back in. I had to do this more and more frequently over time. The ports on the left side of the machine became particularly unreliable for charging.
This escalated when the machine suddenly quit recognizing the OEM framework charger at all. Between looking around on the forums and contacting support, there were three different mainboard reset procedures suggested. Only one worked.
- (This one worked) Disconnect the battery entirely, then press the power button for 60 seconds.
- (Did not work) Press and hold the SW1 switch (top right) on the motherboard for 20 seconds. Then leave everything disconnected for 15 minutes.
- (Did not work) While plugged in, press the chassis open switch in the center of the mainboard 10 times. (Press for 2 seconds, release, and wait for the red blink on the mainboard LEDs, and then press again.)
Resetting the motherboard is currently good enough to get it to recharge the battery roughly once before needing to reset again, so I have been able to do some more troubleshooting. It still seems to be degrading over time though.
At one point during the troubleshooting process I managed to get the following sequence from the indicator LEDs: 1 blue, 5 green, 1 red, 6 green, 1 red, 3 green, 2 blue, 1 green, 1 blue, 1 green.
The USB ports are still getting increasingly unresponsive. Even with resetting, I’m no longer able to get it to charge via some specific USB ports.
I have been using this laptop for some kind-of demanding 3d printing slicing and CAD work. My best guess at a cause is that something about charging the battery simultaneously with running a demanding workload overwhelmed the charging circuitry. That’s why I paid for the 12-core CPU though. These aren’t ultra-demanding workloads, just “need a tougher laptop” zone.
Anyway, suggestions welcome, and hopefully this info helps others.