Yup, I do!
Decided to check again since I have been feeling the entire laptop bend down under my hands pretty hard as of late.
Wooow. This is honestly really bad. At least this unit genuinely has a cardboard-quality chassis
Wow that is actually garbage. What the heck?
On mine it’s better, but still.
It’s a lot flatter on the sides, presumably due to the feet, but probably also due to the side of the laptop sticking out.
the bottom bit, which for the longest time, don’t have anything supporting it. All the clear feet you see in this picture is gone. They also dont really reach, so …
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Thanks for the sanity check. I really can’t afford to be without my laptop right now (high likelihood this will be yet another stop at the service center…) so I cannot open a ticket until all the tight graduation and job - related deadlines are over. But when they are, I will actually try to press for a brand new unit, because I believe I have reached the point where repairs won’t do it anymore: this unit needs to be replaced as a whole. It’s clearly a lemon and it doesn’t get any clearer than that honestly.
If that succeeds, I will probably try to 3D - print your solution in an attempt to stop the chassis quality decline from day 1.
I say hold back from that. There’s a couple things to point out:
- The chassis is not a uniformly thick slab. The thinnest is around where the main board sits, which is right in the middle area. Less than 1/32 inch.
- The board don’t have any screws in the middle. I don’t know if you have ever disassembled the thing, but I don’t recall seeing any screw in the middle of the PCB. Not to the chassis. So, your board is probably fine.
- While bending is not ideal, it’s not that crazy. Powercolor’s GPU board actually seem to be a ± 2mm (across maybe 200mm, so 1%).
Yours seem to be on the crazier side, so … better print my improved feet.
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Then this might be okay. It’s not ideal because I am sure I can feel the laptop “move” under my hand sometimes, but my main concern is motherboard damage. I’m a bit calmer if that’s a non-concern
I don’t exactly understand how the bend is happening. How much pressure is being applied to make bend? Or is something else causing the bend?
If it is bending due to finger pressure on the keyboard, you are pressing too hard and will get painful symptoms from rsi injuries when you get older.
I am pressing at exactly the same actuation force than I have on other laptops I use and have used: Dell Inspiron 15 5567, Dell XPS 13, ThinkPad T16, and others. None of them bent. I have tried to run the same “ruler test” on my plasticky Dell Inspiron that I have treated like shit (contrasting to how babied my Framework was) - perfectly flat still… despite it all.
This is the only laptop that has bent so much from just using it. I love the machine itself, but the build quality is absolutely atrocious and that is the reason why I cannot in good faith recommend this iteration.
Just a passing comment. I think the bottom of the FW16 laptop comes from the factory with that amount of bend on the bottom.
For example, my laptop has exactly the same amount of bend as yours does, and I have a very light tough, so I would not have caused any bend.
Just to clarify, the top of the laptop, where the keys and touchpad are is not bent.
The underside of the laptop is bent. Maybe bent is not the right work. Curved maybe.
Kind Regards
James
The bend is probably due to the fact that there is nothing in the middle of the chassis. There is also not sufficient structure depth-wise supporting the chassis. It eventually bends.
Width wise the chassis seem plenty strong. There’s basically no bending from the left to the right of the chassis. I imagine it’s due to the chamfer in the bottom area, which adds strength.
It’s probably bending due to the pressure of the hands resting on top of the computer, or when during transport, with the machine pressed against the back. Especially given how deep this is, it’s a real issue.
In the main compartment (not the laptop sleeve, that one is too tight) if I otrient my FW16 chassis side against me (screen facing away from me), Sometimes the whole thing will bend enough to trigger the spacebar, or the “t” button. Buttons near the center of the laptop. When I am moving around in the building, I carry it outside of the bag by hand.
New(ish) feet. It’s been a while.
They are 10mm wide by 8mm tall blocks of solid TPU. Kind of massive overkill, but these are just double sided tape on, I want them to not come off. I think short ones are like, 50mm while long ones are 100.
8mm is also probably overkill, you just need them to clear the stock rubber feet. On both the GPU and near the palmrest. You want to keep the bottom (which is completely flat) completely flat respective to a table.
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I decided to split post, because this one gets quite long.
Ok hear me out: Thermal expansion.
As absurd as that sounds. Its not as far-fetched, I dont think.
So I was cleaning a Dell 9550 palmrest. The coating basically turned into oil, so I need to remove it. I put it upside down in a puddle of isopropyl alcohol in the freezer compartment of my fridge and soaked it. The thing picked up .. like, half a inch of bend (across, say, 12 inches). Which is crazy amount, but fortunately it went back when the thing is warmed up again.
The top and bottom plate are of different material. So. But it is screwed, so there is potentially room for thermal expansion, but I dont know. I am not materials engineer.
The gigantic bottom plate is one solid piece. And just like a Prusa heat bed steel sheet, you can flex it back and forth when it’s hot and it make the “boing boing” sound, because the middle expanded, and is now larger, and can flex back and forth.
The FW16’s bottom get quite hot. Probably enough to warrant a “hot surface” sticker. 50 degrees? Yeah.
This is also why the 4th feet is missing. It’s right beneath the components, which get hot. The heat softened the glue, and it moved around, and then came off.
The flex, plus heat cycle and load probably is enough to affix the chassis into a permanently deformed state. Although …
yeah on the kitchen table it rocks a lot less when I press dowm on the palmrest. Who would have thought that my desk is not flat.
Not only are glass surfaces a lot thinner than stone surfaces, but both the wood (and whatever surface beneath) and also the whatever cloth you put under it can become non-uniform. Glass also have much greater flexibility compared to stone, which basically has none – it shatters instead.
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I have an update! Unfortunately, not all good news,
My laptop came back from Support. The good news is they diagnosed a bent bottom case and they replaced it. The bad news is… the new bottom case is bent, too.
It is not as bent as my older one was, I think it’s closer to what OP has now. I also don’t get the same “rattling” effect now, and the expansion cards no longer rattle in their slots. Typing on the keyboard finally feels “proper”, it does not bend under my hand. Even clicking on the touchpad feels better, and the touchpad no longer “falls” to one side. The laptop feels firmer, and the keyboard is less bent. But the chassis is still not straight.
overall laptop:
Immediately, it does not look perfectly straight, but it’s also not a banana. Scroll up this thread and check out of bad it was before this fix.
Let’s take a closer look at the rubber feet:
Same symptom. Mind you, this is a brand new case, laptop received as it is, straight out of the box.
Unless Framework is replacing a defective part with another defective part - which I do not believe, the QA cannot possibly be that bad (the new part has a small dent in an expansion card port, but I chalk this up to tolerances) - I have reason to credit the thesis where there is a design flaw with the design of this “tub”. Either that, or the Repair Center just juggles around defective / used parts from returned / repaired laptops, which I sincerely hope is not the case.
PS: Though not completely flush, my touchpad spacers (which did not change, I recognize them from the same minor scuffs and bends) fit more flush with the case now. What if all those early posts of bad touchpad spacer alignment were actually just bent bottom cases all along?
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woah. Thats mad.
Maybe some thermal shrinking? I froze a Dell palmrest during my “turning back into oil coating removal” and it curved like crazy. It is a composite (aluminum + carbon fiber/epoxy/resin/plastic), but still.
I am debating trying for another RMA. I still have a fair amount of panel wobbling, and it keeps bothering me that the chassis is still not straight. After only a few days of use, its “firmer” feel has started to vanish and give way to the old “bendy” feel while typing, too.
Perhaps this falls under a minor complain and I should not bother, but I am pretty disappointment that the replacement part that was diagnosed as being bent is… another bent part.
At this point, it’s looking bad. Either it’s a design issue a lot of people don’t really pay much mind to, or this defect is incredibly common. Not sure which of these is worse.
As for my impression of the overall product, a year in… definitely not a success. I have never seen so many “gates” and known design / very frequent defects on the same laptop ever before in history. And I am terrified more will turn out with time.
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So the top lid is loose? Define pannel wobbling. For how long does this persist?
You can try to 3D print (or have someone 3D print) the TPU feet I have mentioned above.
Or you can just find some equivalent-height wood (I guess) and tape them to the bottom of the machine. I can’t say they completely eliminated, but it definitely helped.
I mean, the laptop still works. And it’s basically a “not-major flaw” to me.
I think this is … incorrect thinking. Framework hasnt changed the design for .. a year, at this point. Aside from the keyboard deflection kit. What has been a problem continue to be a problem (chassis bending), and all of these problem hasnt worsened to the point that you can’t use the machine. THIS, is the early-adopter problem, and I imagine most people walking in expected some of this.
Framework and GPD comparisons
Compare the Framework to the GPD Win Max (I was early adopter as well, 10th Gen Intel system, not even the 2021 11th gen refresh), it’s comparable. The GPD have a 800x1280 screen, so when bluescreen (or other low-level) your screen is rotated 90 degrees. The BIOS is bad. The touchpad half dont work. But it;s a “bespoke” 7-inch gaming laptop with 30W cooling and 58WH of battery. And the screen will remain black if you close and open the lid. A later BIOS patch fixed it, but forced TPM to be on.
The framework have similar .. “caveats”. Your Port 5 and 6 is just the most tempermental thing. The chassis flex a bit. GPU goes to 22W if battery goes below 95%. 240W charging does not work. Heatsink “problem”. Imperfect panel fit and finish, although this one is “intended”. Speaker issue, keyboard ROM corruption ..
In exchange you get a laptop you can actually decide on 4x SSD or with a GPU. Come with a massive overkill screen. And have replaceable ports. And you can expect it to be at least 95% functional at any moment.
What I want Framework to do, is at least acknowledge that this problem exist. (and others, like sleep & heatsink). And maybe work on fixing it (e.g., with a stiffened chassis). Except I can’t do that, because I dont have pictures when I unboxed the product on day 1.
I’d love to be paid $3 an hour to help figure this out together. But I don’t think this is happening.
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Well. We can do quick math. We will use … 7075 aluminum. It can be welded (I’m not doing that)., We will grab … a 3mm thick plate. Of the .. hm. Say, 290mmx160mm, and then two 30x50s for volume estimate.
46400+3000=49400 or basically 50000mm2. Times thickness, 150000mm3. 150cm3.
Aluminum is 2.8Mg/m3, so 2.8g/cm3. This means the bottom plate is 420 grams. Almost a pound.
If we go for a more “reasonable” “factory finish” of, say, 1mm, that’s 140 grams. Which .. yeah. Is much more reasonable.