Framework 16/Ubuntu 20.04 freezes - keyboard/touchpad related?

Framework Laptop 16 Linux
1

Hi all, I’ve run into an issue that has escalated over the past month or so, with very few changes to my operating environment. Please bear with me, as there are some interesting things to note here, but none of it makes sense to me.

Also, I could only either say this was Linux or something else, so I put it in Linux because I haven’t experienced this in Windows, though I don’t use Windows really at all except for troubleshooting purposes, and also because I’m looking for help with logging for Ubuntu.

First, this is my current setup:
Laptop 16, AMD 7040 Series
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

The behavior that’s bothering me is random freezing after a few minutes of being on. There seems to be no correlation to processor load (judging by either the fan sound or the system metrics). Could just be that whatever is triggering the issue doesn’t tend to occur during startup.

When the freeze happens, I’ve come to learn that the best way to know it’s occurring is that the keyboard backlight turns off. If the process or website or whatever is just slow to respond, the backlight is fine. When the issue occurs, nothing is responsive - can’t move the cursor with the touchpad, can’t get the keystrokes to register. At first, I was just waiting for things to respond again. It could take anywhere from a few seconds to long minutes. Eventually, it got to the point where I killed the computer with the power button to reboot it.

It started, happened occasionally, and then got progressively more common, and when I finally hard booted it, upon restart, I was shown a screen prior to the normal bootloader or encryption password prompt for Ubuntu, that told me that the keyboard was not present. Instead of just saying the keyboard wasn’t present, though, it was flickering between present and not.

Then I remembered that I had had a cup lid pop off a soda a couple of weeks prior, and some drops got on the keyboard. I had cleaned it up the best I could, and didn’t see any fallout immediately, so I forgot about it until that moment. So, I need a new keyboard, I thought. I bought a new keyboard, installed it, and… then the touchpad stopped working. I bought a new touchpad and installed that, but it didn’t change. It was only then that I started real troubleshooting. I booted a copy of Windows 11 on an external disk, and didn’t see the issue - touchpad worked, keyboard worked, and for a short while using the OS, I didn’t experience the freezing.

So next, I rebooted to Linux, and suddenly the keyboard and touchpad were both fine. But after some time using the PC, it froze again in the same way. I figured I’d finally update to 24.04 LTS, but had some issues downloading the updates, to where I couldn’t actually perform the regular upgrade.

I continue to experience the freezes, but somehow figured out that, by pressing the small bridge betwwen the keyboard and touchpad, I can instantly stop the freeze and return to normal functioning. I have the touchpad at the far left, two spacers to the right, and in this configuration, by pressing gently about where the touchpad connects with the keyboard underneath (somewhat directly below the “C” and “V” keys) the keyboard will suddenly light back up and unfreeze.

This is some really weird behavior, and I’m at a loss to explain what could be happening. I want to try to capture some data to try to figure out what may be going on, but I’m still a Linux noob after all these years. So… my questions:

  1. What can I do to try to get some logged data to see about the timeframe that one of these freezes occurs?
  2. There’s a system icon that shows up near the Wi-Fi icon in the upper corner when things come back up, but I can’t move fast enough to really see what it is. I want to get a screenshot to post here (oddly, as I’ve been typing this up, no freezes for the past 30 minutes or so).
  3. I want to do a clean install of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, in hopes that something in my current operating environment is causing this (but then I can’t explain why pressing in that space does anything).

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I was once a pretty good PC tech, but am way out of practice. I hope someone has some interesting ideas to try.

THANKS!

2

Caught the icon:
weird ico

3

That icon is the wifi trying to find a connection.

But I suspect that the problem is in the keyboard contacts. I don’t know why it would work on Windows but be intermittent on Linux, but that is where I would go investigating, to see is the gold pogo pins contact the keyboard correctly.

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4

Agreed. As far as the Windows working anomaly, it could literally just be random chance. I didn’t set out to run Windows as a long check, but to see if the touchpad would work. So it’s entirely possible that it just didn’t have enough use time to exhibit.

5

I’ve been experiencing a similar thing on Framework 16 with Ubuntu 24.04, but very intermittently. Next time it happens, I’ll try pressing that spot you found between the spacebar and the mousepad.

As far as logging, I’m no expert in Linux OS debugging, but I’ve found journalctl useful for that purpose.

6

I submitted a ticket with support, and they suggested some things to try, which I will do probably this weekend. I’ll report back here, too, now that I know someone else may be experiencing similar things.

7

If you spilled anything, use water to clean it. Distilled work best, but bottled is clean enough. Don’t use mineral/spring/tap water. Too much minerals.

Unpower and disconnect whatever it is you are trying to clean.

Alcohol don’t dissolve the sugars (among other stuff) deposited by sugary (or other type of) drinks like coke. It will help get the fats, maybe from milk, and it will help water evaporate quicker. But cleaning a coke spill with alcohol is .. not very useful.

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8

Good advice. In my case, there wasn’t anything that made it beneath the keyboard, but I made a mistake in trying to remove a key to get underneath to clean it, figured I’d just replace the whole thing since that key cracked due to my bad move.

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9

Yeah glad to hear that you are able to isolate the issue to somewhere in the input deck. Good luck with it I guess. Though if worse come to worse (and you need to replace that mid ribbon cable thing), I think framework do sell those.

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10

Just to follow up, my issue seems to be unrelated, since it’s happened a few times since I last replied and pressing that spot didn’t help at all. I’m going to keep looking into it, and I’ll make a new thread and/or reach out to support with whatever I can figure out.

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11

Actually funny thing. This happened to me yesterday. Though it wasnt system freezing, its just the input deck dropping out. Wiping the connector (with like, shirt) did the trick.

This is the left side. I dont think it was the trackpad, but I cleaned them all.

12

Well, I really hate to be back here writing this, but I have just about reached my wits end with Framework tech support.

I submitted this ticket in May, and haven’t been able to jump right to the things suggested each time I receive a reply, so the length of time is definitely on me, BUT… tech support has flatly ignored my questions and suggestions throughout this ordeal. No changes to behavior have come from any of the suggestions they’ve given, and I’ve been told numerous times now that my ticket will be escalated, though if it was, I have no way to know that. Only in the latest reply did they finally give me instructions to generate log files that might (should?) give some indication of what could be happening. I’ve taken over a dozen pictures by request now of virtually every component and every angle of the laptop, both assembled and disassembled, and have tried so many combinations of hardware that it would make your head spin.

After all of it, the suggestion I gave in my original ticket (requesting instructions on how to generate log files) finally comes through. I truly hope that this is near the end and is fixable, because I’m rapidly losing my patience with Framework as a service organization. I’ll update again when I either get a solution, or give up on the laptop completely.

13

your doing better than me, My fw16 did this right out of the box, and after wasting 3 months of my time they denied my warranty. So if you do get it fixed, make sure you post the fix so the people like me might finally get to use our laptops

14

Damn, I’m really sorry to hear that. I was a Batch 1 Framework 13 buyer… really buying into the idea and technology and concept and ethos of the brand, and this is just wholly disappointing.

15

I imagine Linux is hung on trying to figure out USB shenanigans.

You can try anything from “reseating the ribbon cable from the midplate to the main board” (on both sides), to “I use brush and distilled water to clean the residue leftover from the soda” on both the midplate pogo pins and the keyboard.

Alcohol do not dissolve the sugar, or other substances in soda. Water does.

Curious. I was straight up able to get a mainboard replacement after a screw got loose, tumbled into one of the chips and fried it. That’s 10 month after purchase, before the 1 year warranty.
Whose fault is it, its not clear. Whether Framework should tape down the screws, design a stiffer chassis, or me making sure all the screws are secured completely. In fairness to them, I was being lazy and not unplug the battery. In fairness to me, the screw shouldnt come loose while the laptop is closed up.

16

At this point, I’ve reseated and cleaned just about anything and everything that’s possible to. Framework tech support had me remove stickers and thermal pads, and, like I said remove and take pictures of everything. Turns out there wasn’t even any soda underneath the input modules on the mid plate. It’s just weird. I’m kinda assuming I’m going to have to buy a new machine at this point - something I’m obviously not looking forward to doing.

17

Ubuntu 20.04 is a little old.
Any reason why you don’t wish to use 24.04 ?

Also, without you posting any of the kernel logs, no one is going to know how to help you.

18

Super helpful, thanks for replying.

19

Well, I finally heard from the escalated tech support folks, and I think I’m actually going to be taken care of. Holding my breath right now to see where things fall, but I’m now quite hopeful that it’ll work out without having to shell out for a whole new machine. They will be sending a replacement mainboard and mid plate, thinking that there could be a manufacturing defect.

Faith in Framework tech support somewhat restored. Just wish I didn’t have to go through all the shenanigans before arriving here, though, I’m sure the delays in replying on my end didn’t help the situation at all.

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20

The support back and forth is a bit pain. You have to convince them (and/or yourself) that you have, for example, a dead midplate.

For me, very specific points in 3 videos did the trick for a dead mainboard. I am surprised they even let me just .. have it

Indeed, but that’s likely not the root cause.

What BIOS version? We are up to 3.0.7 now. Maybe do that?