Help with debugging mystery board

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Hi Framework community,

I tried my luck at the Motherboard mystery boxes, and I think both of my boards might end up being DOA. That said, it’s a fun experience and I’ve been learning a lot about Framework, so I’m happy. That said, I do have a couple of questions for the community, to help me learn how to better work with these boards.

I bought two boards, with the goal of setting them up as standalone in a 3d printed case. I received two 13th Gen i7-1360P board, both of them in perfect physical shape. My understanding is that the 13th gen are recent enough to support standby mode out of the box. However, they are both lacking their BIOS battery, which I’ve ordered (ML1220) and should be receiving them tomorrow. I’m working with one stick of RAM ( CT16G4SFRA32A ) and a Patriot NVME 256 Gb. I’m using a 100w charger, and I’ve tried to get video using a Ugreen adapter hub, a USBC to HDMI cable, and a USB-C LCD screen.

Im using the following for documentation to understand the behavior boot leds: My Framework Laptop (Intel 12th Gen Intel® Core™) is not powering on

The first board, which I think is totally fried gives me the following debug message:

RGRGGGGGRRGG O GGGGGGGG

Reds :

  • 1: Battery connected check
  • 3: Power Good VCCIN_AUX
  • 9: Fan detected and spins up
  • 10: CPU reached S0 state

I think this board is fried. As for the second board:

RGGGGRRGGGGG O BGGGGGGG

Reds :

  • 1: Battery connected check
  • 6: Touchpad detected
  • 7: Audio board Detected

Given these the board is not in a laptop chassis, I expect these errors. As for the Blue, here is what I found so far

  • battery or
  • bad power boot core VR or
  • CPU reached S0 state

Im going to try with a new RTC battery, but I’m afraid this board is already dead

My current questions are

  1. Does 13th gen Intel board require a laptop chassis first to be placed in standalone mode?
  2. Is the ML1220 RTC battery necessary in standalone mode to boot the decide?
  3. Is there another way to reset the board other then flipping the chassis switch 10 times?

Thanks for your patience and any suggestions,

1 Like
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I’ve had good luck with previous mystery boxes, but this latest round seems to be all dead boards. This time I got all Ryzen boards and am working on figuring out the EC debugging using this site: "EC Card 2", a closed-case debugging (CCD) Expansion Card for the Framework Laptop :: HowettNET

In my experience, they will boot without being in the chassis and without a keyboard or anything else attached. The Ram and BIOS battery must be installed but that’s about it. The Intel boards I got in the last round (December) 2 of 3 were working, but one takes forever to post. I’d first check for any cracked/broken solder joints on components on the back of the board, and barring that, maybe try some different RAM.

I’ve heard holding the power button (on the board) for 30 seconds will also reset the MB - not 100% sure on that one though.

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Looks like your second board is doing what my 1370p board is doing.
I was able to install it into a spare chassis with battery and when I attempt to power it on, I get all green then one blue with the rest green. No display through built in screen or external monitor.
I’ve also done the chassis switch 10 times, holding the power button to let it drain, testing with different ram and so far no dice. Crossing my fingers I can get this thing working as this would be a nice upgrade for my current 11th gen framework.