I was working on updating my Framework Desktop over the weekend and saw that 3.06 was released with BIOS Recovery and some security patches. I decided that it was time to do my first firmware upgrade on my Batch 13 computer.
I followed the official guide using fwupdmgr and made sure that there was no power loss during the update. The command finished relatively quickly (~10-15s) and fwupdmgr rebooted my computer (with my consent). After 10 minutes of being unresponsive, I plugged in a display to see if it had posted yet, and then in another 5, I manually rebooted.
The computer has not POSTed since. Using the LED Diagnostic Blink Codes, I have videos showing 7 at one point and 6 for the last 3-4 attempts.
I’ve tried resetting the CMOS using the switch on the board. I’ve tried unplugging the RTC battery and clearing the CMOS. I keep getting 6 blink codes before the self-test stops and LED3 stays illuminated (rather than blinking during the tests). The last test was unplugging everything (including the RTC battery) and leaving the board overnight. It still has a blink code of 6.
I have an open ticket with support but have yet to hear back. Any other recovery ideas?
in this scenario, i think you need to use direct probes to direct flash the eeprom. you have to see the other thread iirc about fw16 laptop failed updates or something.
Yeah…that’s what I’m afraid of. I am hoping there is another option than learning the new skill of flashing EEPROM… However, it will be my last ditch effort if it is that or have an expensive paper weight.
If you search the forums you’ll find plenty of threads re 13" and 16", as well as people flashing the eeprom of the 13". You’re the first on the desktop model that I’ve seen.
It’s still crazy to me there aren’t any official and public updates, commentary, and guides on this; especially as now it seems the latest bios updates can brick all their device variations.
I wonder if the BIOS flashing failure rate is similar to other vendors or if it is really higher for Framework motherboards.
And also, what could be the cause? The flash program being weak and prone to failure? The ROM chip and all the hardware stuff around it?
This is also why having open source BIOS would be nice (this is what I asked for in a previous poll). The community could help debugging such issues in order to improve future products.