this is what i meant earlier with people getting misled into thinking that these “issues” are anywhere close to common.
@Iann_C: if you have the RTC issue people are mentioning it’s precisely because you’re not using your laptop at all. the battery discharges due to long periods of inactivity.
on the wifi: i reach 600MBps, comfortably, in the room where my router is. i also reach 90MBps in my rooftop 2.4GHz network, no hangups, no connection issues, nothing. if you do have wifi issues chances are that something is actually wrong, and that is what warranty is for.
The ideal goal is to minimize product issue variations…so that OOTB experience is as expectable as possible. Sure, there’s warranty, and there’s support… but don’t cheap out on QC and outsource / delegate that to the customers. There’s a degree of expectation that things should work OOTB.
e.g. One would have thought that floppy lid would be caught before shipping out…right?
In the case of wifi, is there a QC step to validate antenna assembly reception strength? (Blindly putting hardware together and hope it’ll work as intended within spec is not a validation step)
For a startup…it’s likely cheaper to support issue units after the fact they’ve been shipped out than it is to implement all the tests. But this is expected to flip the other way as they scale up the number of units.
Don’t forget that all early DIY units and currently US/Canada DIY units have the user installing their own wifi card, so QC has to be on the user for those, so Framework cannot confirm if a lot of those reports of poor wifi performance are incorrect installations, or other issues. This is the reason that all the European units, and future 12th gen units (I believe) have switched to all preinstalled wifi cards for prebuilt and DIY. Framework is still working on constantly adjusting their manufacturing and shipping processes as they get user feedback.
While this is a totally fair ask, keep in mind that the Framework laptop is not an established platform with a large team working to make it perfect. If you want a reliable work laptop I would personally tell you to look elsewhere, because a lot of issues like these are understandable, and it will take more time for the company to iron out the problems that users are having.
As mentioned above, while this is a reported issue with MOSFETs, it has not been confirmed to be caused by external GPUs. It is also only reported in a very small amount of mainboards, last I saw it was still less than 10.
Also mentioned in other comments, but eGPUs are supported, but Thunderbolt certification is still being held up by Intel. The hardware was made to support it, but the paperwork still needs to be done to receive official verification.
All 12th gen laptops are shipping with the new CNC milled lid, and many of the reports of hinge issues are from a manufacturing defect in a certain batch of hinges that has been resolved. if the standard 3.3kg hinges are not enough for you, there is a 4kg hinge set that can be bought on the marketplace.
I don’t know the exact issue that you are referencing here, but if you are talking about the fact that in BIOS 3.07 the laptop sometimes flashed the led indicator amber when fully charged, this is fixed in the beta for BIOS 3.09, but it was a minor inconveniece, because the laptop still indicated charge status, with a soild amber light for charging, and flashing amber or solid white for fully charged, which were just idications of using a battery charge limit or not. Some users were simply seeing the battery limit indication (blinking amber) after setting the limit back to 100%.
Also yes, that’s the goal. Therefore, it’ll be important and interesting to see if the change of the process would improve the overall wifi experience of the product (12th gen in this case). Framework will, as they’ve done, have those stats going forward.
i.e. Not sure if it’s a result of the charging state alone…or some combination with powered-off charging AND with Max Charge Threshold configured.
In either case, this is an area to check / test the behaviour of.
Thought I was the only one who thinks that. Glad I’m not going crazy.
Still want Framework to succeed, fast & soon.
This v2 / 12th gen board better come out ready for prime time…in the general consumer space at the very least. V1 was for early adopters, creators, enthusiasts…intentionally or not. It needs to be a real competitor, IMO, seen by other brands. A competitor that will shift their designs…not just respond with a “we have a prototype” (Dell).
That NASA placement was nice…and I’m hoping to see more of this.
Thanks for your answers they are very informative. It really looks framework is ironing its laptop in so many ways. Producing a computer at scale seems to be quite challenging and QC important for consistency.
As this last coment sums it up, I really hope this laptop is very close to the thinkpad or Dell pro expérience.
The experience I get today with thinkpad E590 under ubuntu mate has been very satisfaying.
I am very enthousiaste about what framework is doing, its just the only company doing it…
But bottom line I will inevitabely compare it to my current rigg. And I am looking for the better plateform for work. (Anyhow it wouldn t fit in the vision to buy laptops that you wouldn t use😁)
Totally with you on this. Framework Laptop, is first and foremost, a laptop…and needs to be measured as a laptop first before any of that upgradability, reparability benefit can be realised. i.e. No one with bother repairing something they don’t like using.
The LED indicator bug was fixed, but there is a new bug with the actual charging that Framework has acknowledged and are working on fixing it now.
I feel like there is a sense here that because it’s the Framework forum, we can’t say things like “you shouldn’t buy the laptop” I disagree, and think that it does the company more of a disservice to recommend the laptop to people who want something solid. This is a laptop that doesn’t have a large test team behind it, but has a pretty good support team, so it may not be perfect out of the box, but if you put the work in you can make it work well enough for certain use cases (I have had mine since September 2021 and still love using it as my primary computer), but it still has its issues and can’t be the perfect laptop for everyone.
I can’t say I fully agree with this. Framework is doing their best to increase their customer base, but it still seems like it’s early in the company’s lifetime, and I think they will need more time to compete with the established companies in the laptop space. They will be competitive eventually, but the repairable and modular concept is still very new and needs time to work out the issues with battery life/build quality/etc that people are complaining about.
This is the main reason why I currently recommend a different computer. The Framework prioritizes reapairability and modularity over battery life and stability. Whether this is the right choice or not is for the customers to decide. I really wanted to buy a laptop that I could open up, change out ports, and I don’t mind if it has some issues with charging or power draw. At my job, my company wants me to do my work consistently, working ~8hrs per day, and never need to open up my computer, so they provide me with a Dell laptop. I think these are both the best choices for the use cases. Framework has an amazing laptop, but like any tool you need to know it’s strengths and weaknesses, and you can’t expect it to do everything perfectly.
This is definitely something that I hope Framework can work on moving forward. For me, I could see using this laptop for the next 10+ years with few to no changes, but I also have other computers for things like gaming, work, etc. If Framework wants to appeal to a greater market of laptop users, they will need to look into other laptop models that may give up things like modular ports for the sake of less power drain and more solid battery life. I hope they are able to succeed and grow, but I also think the current model(s) of the Laptop are limited by the fact that the company is still new to the scene.
I am disappointed that i had to send my Framework v1 back because I was unable to get sound from my Sony TV, when I was using a HDMI socket in the Framework.
That sucks. I’m going to give that a try in a moment.
Update:
What’s the model of your TV? So others will be aware of this particular compatibility hiccup.
I tried on an Asus monitor, a Samsung TV, a Marantz AVR, and an LG projector. They got audio from from Framework HDMI expansion card…in my case.
Were you expecting audio playback directly into the TV…or did you setup your TV to passthrough the HDMI audio to some other external devices / DAC/AMP / AVR…etc?
Wi-Fi has been fine for me. The only issue I’ve seen is its slow to pick up sometimes when you boot up. The World icon takes a few seconds to switch to the Wi-Fi icon in Windows 11. But as I’m not actually using the internet those 2-3 seconds not a biggie.
One thing I have noticed in my many years of IT Support tech guy is that on the very rare occasion you do get a Wi-Fi chip in a laptop and a WAP/Router that just do not like each other. They do not play well. I just swap the Wi-Fi chip and bingo, all good. Maybe some folks are just using ancient Wi-Fi routers. I see a lot of folks in their homes using 15 Wi-Fi devices off a router that has just 300Mbps of bandwidth!
The RTC battery issue? Well I’ve just decided to live with it. I’ll make sure I use my laptop more and just be careful if I leave it for more than 10 days not using it.
As for the other issues, well a lot of those are just a result of the want for thinner and lighter. I’d like to see the next gen of Frameworks 2-4 mm thicker/deeper so better cooling, thicker cases and larger batteries can be fitted.
Inconsistent WiFi: I’ve tried every possible thing suggested in the forums without replacing the cards themselves, but the speeds on both 2.4 and 5 bands remains inconsistently lower than on other devices (older Macs and the phone show the full speed provided by the ISP).
1TB Expansion card: Constant disconnection ,fairly well documented on other threads.
If everyone treated software and hardware bugs like this, they would never get fixed. Just imagine Windows Update bricking 1% of Windows installs. That’s a lot of people, but it’s not everyone. Now imagine the people who have never seen this issue themselves saying that it doesn’t matter, and Microsoft shouldn’t feel any need to fix it.
Speaking as someone who was having the RTC Battery issue for months before Framework even addressed it, it matters. My only use case for a laptop is weekly at best, because otherwise, I am on a work or personal desktop, and if I don’t use the laptop for a week, it makes it that much more likely that the following week, I won’t be able to turn on my 60% charged laptop.
Look at the BIOS fix for the audio jack polarity. It was for a case of oscilloscope music. I personally don’t have a use case for it, but I appreciate the fix to address an implementation error.
I’m wondering what issue you had that was fixed. Luckily I use the laptop on average 6 hours a day so the RTC|CMOS battery will hopefully stay charged.
There are examples on this forum, sure it’s hearsay, but of people going for weeks without having to plug in to charge the ML1220, so by those accounts if you use the laptop for, say 6 hours a week there should be no problem.
I was talking about the RTC battery issue. It wasn’t fixed, it was a month or two before the issue was talked about by Framework for clarification. I did explain in the post you replied to that I use the laptop at most once a week, and can occasionally skip weeks, so it is not difficult for me to run into that issue.
Ok so by ‘address’ you mean acknoweldged not fixed
I got the once a week bit, so it’s down to how many hours each week to keep the ML1220 topped up
Yes scary not to use it for two weeks
Of course you only have to plug it in, not use it, well that was the case before the 3.09 BIOS where the main battery can not be charged whilst powered down/off
There’s no evidence or talk around whether that also means the ML 1220 is not being charged, so now it seems the safe thing to do is power it on to charge it once a week for six hours even if you don’t want to use it.
OH worse it’s not a Gen 11 | Gen 12 issue motherboard issue it’s an ML1220 issue
