Framework 13 random reboot when picking up or moving laptop

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1

Hi! My Framework 13 has started randomly hard-rebooting (screen instantly going black, waiting like five seconds, then immediately starting to my bootloader) when I pick it up or move it “wrong”. This happens sometimes - not always - but especially if I move it ungracefully. I was wondering what part might be the culprit/might need to be replaced.

Neofetch output:

          ▗▄▄▄       ▗▄▄▄▄    ▄▄▄▖            alice@randolph
          ▜███▙       ▜███▙  ▟███▛            --------------
           ▜███▙       ▜███▙▟███▛             OS: NixOS 26.05.20260204.00c21e4
            ▜███▙       ▜██████▛              Host: Framework FRANMDCP07
     ▟█████████████████▙ ▜████▛     ▟▙        Kernel: 6.12.68
    ▟███████████████████▙ ▜███▙    ▟██▙       Uptime: 5 mins
           ▄▄▄▄▖           ▜███▙  ▟███▛       Packages: 967 (nix-system), 6340
          ▟███▛             ▜██▛ ▟███▛        Shell: zsh 5.9
         ▟███▛               ▜▛ ▟███▛         Resolution: 2256x1504
▟███████████▛                  ▟██████████▙   WM: sway
▜██████████▛                  ▟███████████▛   Icons: Papirus [GTK2/3]
      ▟███▛ ▟▙               ▟███▛            Terminal: alacritty
     ▟███▛ ▟██▙             ▟███▛             CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7840U w/ Radeon
    ▟███▛  ▜███▙           ▝▀▀▀▀              GPU: AMD ATI Phoenix1
    ▜██▛    ▜███▙ ▜██████████████████▛        Memory: 3637MiB / 15172MiB
     ▜▛     ▟████▙ ▜████████████████▛
           ▟██████▙       ▜███▙
          ▟███▛▜███▙       ▜███▙
         ▟███▛  ▜███▙       ▜███▙
         ▝▀▀▀    ▀▀▀▀▘       ▀▀▀▘
2

My best guess is that it could be a loose battery connection. Open the laptop up and disconnect+reconnect the battery connector firmly.

Before you disconnect the battery try checking if something about it feels not quite in-place. That’ll tell you almost for sure if it’s an issue with that.

3

In addition to checking and reseating the battery connector, it might be a good idea to check other connections or carefully hold it upside down (while everything is apart) to see if something is loose and floating around inside.

It wouldn’t be the first time something foreign has made its way inside and the right combination of movement shorts across something and then the board resets.

As a reminder to others (not just the OP), picking up and moving a laptop around by one corner can induce stress in the frame, mainboard, and components. Over time, this can cause stress cracks in circuit boards and they will operate normally most of the time but when “flexed” i.e. stressed a connection can become separated.

Not saying that is the case here but this kind of abuse may lead to a premature failing of components when it is actually user error.

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4

Have a good look at the battery, in case it has slightly swolen. That might cause the connector to be unreliable.
Another way to diagnose a battery problem, is try to do the same movements that cause the problem with the psu connected and see if the problem disappears.

2 Likes