I’ve had my FW16 for a while — I think the last batch before they just started shipping from stock — and I’ve been using slot 1 for HDMI since then with no issues. This morning my external monitor didn’t start up and as far as I can tell slots 1 and 2 just no longer function as display ports. They work fine for USB-C and charging, and I’ve tried swapping out the monitor and cable, booting into a Fedora live installer to eliminate software issues, and using HDMI through a dongle to eliminate the HDMI expansion card itself as a culprit, and the results have been really consistent — slot 4 is the only display port that works.
I’ve contacted support, but I thought I’d see if anyone has any suggestions in the meantime. Is this something that’s happened before? It feels like a hardware issue, but the ports are built into the mainboard so if it is then I guess the solution is either going to be “replace the whole guts of the computer” or “spend ten minutes opening it up and tightening one screw” but nothing in between.
I agree that this sounds like a hardware issue based on the troubleshooting steps you’ve already tried. One thing I would recommend trying if you can, even though it’s a long shot, is to swap out the video cable you’re using if you have another one. This is just to eliminate the very small possibility that the cable is faulty and the fault happens to go away when you bend it to put it on the other side of the laptop.
Once all conceivable troubleshooting steps have been tried (and failed), I expect Framework will send you a new mainboard.
I was also having trouble with HDMI in slot 2. It would “work,” except the graphics would freeze briefly every minute or so. I swapped a DisplayPort expansion card into the same spot and it works flawlessly now.
I guess it’s possible it’s something to do with HDMI or the HDMI card not being up to powering my monitor at 3820x1200 resolution, but HDMI to this same monitor was never a problem with my previous Windows laptop.
Oh, yes, I’ve had some fun with resolutions too — if I connect Fedora to my TV then it offers about 25 resolutions, of which about 10 work, one of which has no sound. This was such stereotypical Peak Linux Nonsense I didn’t think to be annoyed rather than amused by it No idea if Windows would be better at detecting which resolutions it can actually do
I probably will try reversing the cable — it seems like a long-shot but it’s easy to check so no harm in it. Thanks!
I mean, yes and no? Framework support were very nice and asked me to record a little video of the fault so they could see what was up, and so I got out my camera stand and started filming and so of course it immediately started working and has worked ever since. I like to think they knew that would fix it when they asked.
I let support know, because there’s no sense trying to fix an issue that we can’t even see, so I guess the current state of play is that my laptop works just fine, but there might be an intermittent fault with some of the HDMI ports which, I mean, sure ok, that’s still better than the average comptuer you buy, right? I’ll reopen the ticket if it happens again and we can look at it then, and if that turns out to be never then happy days.
Also the trackpad click seems to get stuck down sometimes, I think when it’s warm? But that’s happened like twice and isn’t hard to work around so I haven’t mentioned it. I will if it becomes a problem, I guess.
No idea if Windows would be better at detecting which resolutions it can actually do 