I bought a Framework 16 laptop last year in December and assembled it. Largely, everything has been going fine with the laptop until I made the mistake of attempting to install the latest BIOS update on my computer.
At first, everything there seemed to be going OK, until about 10-15 minutes into the process when the bottom half of my laptop screen slowly repainted itself with the following artifacts:
Sometime after that, the computer seemed to spin down (the fans were running at full blast and then dulled down) and then a long time after that, the framework laptop powered off.
Since, I have not been able to boot my laptop or even get to the BIOS or anything. When I press the power button, it lights up but nothing else happens. I can get it to turn off again if I hold the power button down.
Long story short, this BIOS update appears to have completely bricked my laptop less than a year after I bought it. I have reached out to email support twice in the last 24 hours through the form with no answer yet from Framework at all except for an automated response.
Does anyone here have any experience dealing with Framework support? Did I make a giant mistake sending several thousand dollars to a company that is completely absent a support organization? Should I ever install another BIOS upgrade for a Framework product again?
Specs and basic questions:
Which OS (Operating System)? Bring your own OS, Ubuntu Linux (24.04)
Which Framework product? Laptop 16, AMD 7040 series with AMD Radeon RX 7700S
Yes, as I said in this post I submitted that form twice.
I submitted it the second time because I didn’t hear back for most of the day, and I noticed that something mustn’t have worked during the first submission because the auto-reply had a blank where my name should’ve been.
I still haven’t heard anything, and I’m really regretting buying their products because of this.
I can understand the frustration and I empathize with you. I would be super upset myself waiting as I have a brick on my desk. What I will say is I just read a response (on a different topic/thread) yesterday and a FW employee actually chipped in on another user with similar frustrations with delay saying not to reply to the same ticket as it (for whatever reason) slows things down. Take that how you will, just sharing what I came across.
Framework does not have a huge support department like other mainstream laptop manufacturers. They are getting to tickets as quickly and efficiently as they can with the team they have. They are the best resource to identify and resolve issues. We are all end-users here on the forums too. Many of us try to give our guidance and experience to try and answer topics as we are able.
All BIOS updates have a risk of not completing correctly. There is always an inherent hesitation to flash new BIOS on devices because the odds of it completing successfully is not guaranteed. Generally, the Framework Laptop 16 BIOS updates have gone well in the past. There are a few known issues with the latest v4 BIOS from the thread that has been posted about it.
Of all the manufacturers that support a Linux OS; Framework has the most robust machine with full support. They are just not as well established in the hardware game to have a 24-hour support team. Hope they can help figure out what is going on quickly and get the issue(s) resolved.
No offense, but is the expectation to get an answer in <1 business day? Obviously faster support is better, but I’d always expect to wait 2-3 business days before getting a response.
I guess my expectation is not really around response time. It is that there is a mature support organization with different contact options is attached to the products.
Here we can only contact support via email or form. The form itself tries to nudge you into selecting a community support option, and the first request I made the automatic response was malformed leading me to believe that perhaps it had not gone through correctly and that caused me to open a second request.
The automated response also gives no indication that a support ticket was opened and is (perhaps purposefully) vague about whether or not a support ticket has been created.
I have received responses at this point, but I’ve dealt with many support organizations over the last couple of decades and so far this experience has been different…and mostly not in a good way.
Is the light where you plug in the power blinking or changing colour? Have you tried plugging in another monitor via HDMI or Displayport? Have you tried removing the 7700S card?
No, the light does not blink or turn on when I attempt to power it on. If I plug USB-C (displayport) into the ports they turn orange but nothing appears on any external monitor. No, I have not attempted to remove the 7700S card. I might be able to give that a shot tonight. Most likely, this seems like it messed up the main board. FW support has already escalated my ticket so hopefully I’ll have answers about next steps in a couple of days.
This is a software issue (if you really had no problems before updating the bios) and I am almost certain that this can be resolved. Mostly applying the bios update again and / or performing a mainboard reset will be involved.
I have. They’re RMAing the main board. It took a little while to get that through but I just got the order confirmation for the refurbished board yesterday. They have said a couple of times that they’re swamped with support requests at the moment, so maybe my problem is not unique. All in all, this has been a somewhat okay support experience. Hopefully, I install the new main board and my computer is back to normal.
I still believe in the concept of this stuff. Repairing your own stuff, and the ability to upgrade instead of buying a bunch of landfill-bound, future e-waste, but this has been a bit of a sobering experience. I will definitely hesitate before installing any future firmware updates.
It is good to hear you are on your way to a resolution, with the solution being what i expected.
It is a shame they have not implemented the hardware so that it is unbrickable.
I had the same issue today and what worked for me was taking out the battery to force a shutdown (it did not react to the power button). Afterwards I could restart it and it went back to installing the updates
Welp James, I got my refurbished main board today…and things have now gotten even worse.
The disassembly went fine (as those things go), but when I went to install the “new” board I attempted to reinstall the fingerprint reader (combination power button) and noticed that the “new” port had a dot of blue paint on it and looked a little odd. I went ahead and tried to plug it in and get it working anyway to no avail, the port split into pieces while I was attempting to plug it in.
Thinking that I would need (another) new board, I went ahead and re-assembled it with the old board and now the power button doesn’t work at all.
I tried unplugging and plugging the fingerprint reader into the old board multiple times but it does nothing now. I likely messed it up in some way while trying to plug it into the “new” board.
Now it does not even power on or respond or anything. So now it’s more bricked than it even was before I began this process.
I suspect I messed up the fingerprint reader while attempting to plug it into the “new” board and so now it won’t even work with my old board….but yeah I don’t know.
This has been a sobering experience for me. I built my own PCs for several decades and these laptops really seemed good at first, but this is very different from PC building. Framework are the only ones that can supply or support most of the parts here, and the experience has been anything but great.
For the money I spent on this thing I could’ve had a top of the line desktop and if I had any problems with the parts I could’ve quickly RMA’d them. Now I’m more than two weeks out and I’m worse off than when I started. All because I made the “mistake” of running a BIOS update.
It is a shame you are having problems.
Its great in hindsight, but if you were unsure about something, you can ask here.
There are videos showing how to do various repairs/replacements on the FW support site.
I would be interested to see a picture of the problem.
I went back and forth a couple more times with support and they had me try to start the laptop with the replacement board using the SW1 button / switch. This worked and the laptop booted up, but obviously I cannot use the laptop long-term this way.
Learning about the SW1 was pretty cool though as before I did not know there was another way of power cycling the laptop when the power button was unresponsive.
I’m hoping they’ll get a replacement replacement board out to me and a replacement fingerprint reader and then hopefully they both work and this nightmare is over.
At this point I’ve assembled and disassembled the thing so many times I can do it without the instruction guide.
The framework support team sent me a new fingerprint reader kit and a different main board. After this round of parts, I am back up and running again and I am typing this from the laptop.
Glad this is over, but I am definitely going to be a bit more hesitant about installing future firmware updates. I’ve now assembled and disassembled this thing so many times I can practically do it without the instructions.
Appreciate the comments and hopefully everyone else fairs better with things. Cheers!
