Framework 13 AMD Hard Crashing Issue

I have dealt with a very similar issue. With 2x32gb ram it happens frequently with one stick less frequently.

The support team ran me through so many tests and eventually sent me 1 replacement.

First time testing it out and within 10 minutes I get a crash again.

Reached out again to see what else they can do. :frowning:

1 Like

I’m having a similar issue and just posted about it in this other thread: Framework 13 AMD crashing on different OSs - #8 by Paul_Brown

Try removing the wifi card and see if the problem goes away.
Not just disable. Physically remove it from the slot.
The FW will power off if it does not like a PCIe device.
It sounds to me that you wifi card has an intermittent fault.

1 Like

Sorry for the delay in an update, but here’s where I’m up to:

Support got me to try a whole bunch of things including:

  • Physically removing WiFi card
  • Removing all expansion cards
  • Sending a dump of logs + configuration
  • Doing multiple mainboard resets (slowly pressing a SW3 10 times)
  • Asking for photos/videos of the issue :face_exhaling:

I did several days of testing with/without the expansion cards fitted. It was a really slow & tedious process to try and get the issue to happen when running on battery. I was never able to get a crash to happen on battery with the cards removed. It could be pure luck though, as even with them fitted the laptop could run for many hours before crash.

Connecting any charger directly to the expansion card USB-C port still caused frequently crashing, so I don’t think there’s an issue with any of my expansion cards.

My ticket has been escalated, so I guess I’m just waiting for a technician to review my logs. Presumably, they won’t find anything either and hopefully green light a mainboard replacement.

I’ve had another request from the support team asking to try using the official charger. I don’t have one, which is clear in my order :confused:

I appreciate that support is able to respond fairly quickly, but just feels like they’re giving me the run-around now.

Having invested a significant amount of my time attempting to troubleshoot the issue, I’ve explained that we’re at the point where they just need to provide replacement parts or a refund.

Very similar problem for me. 2x 16gb crucial ram. Tried removing 1 stick and i haven’t got a crash since. Tried again with 2 and it crashed within 30mins.

Basically only when gaming btw. Really annoying because of dataloss and with 1 stick the performance is meh

Thanks for the suggestion. I removed the WiFi card and used a USB WiFi adapter. Just had another random reboot after a few more hours of usage.

Update from end of last week: Support was concerned that all four of my chargers/docks may have issues/incompatibilities and suggested trying the Framework charger.

I’ve firmly reminded them that the crashing occurs on battery power too (just takes a lot longer) so it’s not related to chargers or USB devices.

Hopefully they’ll finally agree to a replacement mainboard, I’m pretty sure I’ve exhausted all practical options to isolate the problem on my end.

I have seen this symptom once on a FW16 amd.
I have not been able to reproduce it a second time.
Like you. The syslog has no entries at the time of the crash.
No MCE errors after the reboot.
I was using the ethernet port card. Wifi was disabled to the time.

My support ticket has been reviewed and they’ve agreed it seems most probable that my mainboard has a fault. It’s now with the RMA team, hopefully this process doesn’t take too long so I can use my new laptop again :slight_smile:

For my case in the United States it took about 1 and a half weeks from approval for a new mainboard replacement to me receiving it.

That’s decent! I’ve confirmed delivery details with the RMA team over the weekend, should see my replacement mainboard soon too! :slight_smile:

I’m very much looking forward to using my FW13 again.

This might be an EC firmware bug that only happens after the EC has been on for a while.
One way to reset the EC is to power off the laptop and leave it overnight.
That is powered off, not standby,sleep or hibernated.
It should then take longer before the issue returns, if it is an EC firmware problem.
EDIT: The laptop also needs to be unplugged from the PSU. If the laptop is plugged into a PSU, it will not reset the EC.

Cool, I’ll give this a try. Just confirming I don’t need to disconnect the battery?

You do not need to disconnect the battery for the EC test.
EDIT: The PSU needs to be disconnected.

Well my laptop has been off (shutdown) for several days, I just booted it up and got a crash with a few mins.

Replacement mainboard is due to arrive tomorrow, fingers crossed it works!

The EC can cause these symptoms.
To find out if the EC crashed, you can use the command “ectool panicinfo”.
If it has an entry in there, the EC crashed, causing the reboot / unexpected power off.
To reset the EC.
Remove the PSU and power off the laptop.
After the Power button LED goes off, the EC will reset 40 seconds later. So, leave it off for 1-2 mins, then power on.
After the EC reset, “ectool panicinfo” should be empty, until the next crash.

So, I would be interested to see if there is any ectool panicinfo output.
An example of the output is:
ectool panicinfo
Saved panic data:
=== PROCESS EXCEPTION: 00 ====== xPSR: 61000000 ===
r0 :00000000 r1 :200c738c r2 :00000000 r3 :00000000
r4 :100a6328 r5 :200c738c r6 :00000000 r7 :00000001
r8 :00000001 r9 :100afb49 r10:100a7180 r11:00000000
r12:100ad781 sp :200c7338 lr :1008b551 pc :1009f2da

cfsr=00000000, shcsr=00000000, hfsr=00000000, dfsr=00000000, ipsr=00000000

The panic info is stored in the RAM of the EC. So it survives a reboot of the CPU, but does not survive a EC reset.

Sorry I didn’t see this in time James, typing this back on my FW 13 with the replacement mainboard fitted :slight_smile:

I really hope the new mainboard doesn’t have the same issue. I will report back if I have trouble, noting it took 2-3 weeks before I started to get the crashing issue on my original hardware.

Edit: Also just recording that the replacement mainboard’s box had been already been opened (seal was broken). I assume it was just from extra testing before being sent out :person_shrugging:

Dang it! Getting the same crashing on my replacement mainboard :cry: I’ve run sudo ectool panicinfo but it says “no panic data”.

Hi
After a crash, please also include the output from “ectool console”
After each crash, also report:

  1. what is plugged into the expansion slots. Make and model of device and which slot number.
  2. what is plugged into the expansion bay (back)
  3. what apps were running at the time.
  4. what OS version was running at the time.

The reason I am asking is that I cannot reproduce the problems you are seeing, and I would like to. The above info might help me do that.