Just wanted to share this with others: the KF556S40IBK2-32 RAM kits don’t seem to work on the newer AMD boards (they do work on the older AMD boards).
I asked support if they would have the old board available, but unfortunately they don’t.
Interestingly, this RAM model seems to have two types (same model number). One has Kingston chips, and the other has what I think are Samsung chips. The one with Kingston chips does not seem to work, unfortunately.
If anyone from the FW engineering team is reading this, I’d really appreciate it if this RAM could somehow be supported through a BIOS or firmware update. Given that some kits with the exact same brand/model do work, just with a different chip manufacturer, it seems like there might be a way to make them compatible.
RAM prices are insane right now. I would appreciate if Framework can have a look to see if they can somehow support this type of RAM if technically possible.
Interesting; I would have thought the Intel/LPCAMM2 model would be very fussy, and anything AMD would be solid. It might be worth seeing if you can get memory incompatibility doc updates made - FW are now doing this for the Intel option.
FWIW, does the machine not boot up at all? What happens when you try the RAM you have?
Gotcha, it won’t render anything on the screen at all, not even entering POST or able to run the BIOS config? I take it you’ve tried re-seating the RAM?
(If you have a ticket, it may be worth asking Support to ping a note to Engineering - I am not sure Engineering will necessarily read posts here, or start items of work based on comments posted here).
Nothing at all. LEDS do blink approx 12 times green followed by blue and some other patterns.
I have initially requested a refund as I did not know if this was a Mainboard or RAM issue. I have asked support if they can escalate this. I hope this can be solved somehow with a BIOS/FW update.
OK, that really does sound like it won’t POST. I’d probably be inclined towards the refund unless you’re open to getting different RAM; the odds of the engineering team hopping onto a significant machine change for this one case may not be high.
There’s an outside chance that FW will believe this is a significant fault that needs resolving speedily for the benefit of all customers, but I personally would not wait for that to happen.
If this requires a hardware change, then I’m out of luck. I was kind of hoping this could be solved with a firmware update. Getting more RAM is out of the question. I wonder if this is a CPU issue or something related to Framework. Would I experience the same issue if I got a laptop with an AMD Ryzen AI 300-series CPU from a different vendor?
I would guess that there are (at least) two questions here:
Can this be resolved without a hardware change?
Will the Engineering team fix it as a priority?
I think the best answer is “we don’t know”. You can ask Support but without an in-depth investigation from a different department, they might not know either. That’s why I would lean towards a refund in your case - it’s not fair on you to have a unusable laptop for months on end.
Perhaps other folks in this forum will chime in; we have a few EEs here.
I have seen reports of that also in other threads.
This is why the Kingston RAM is in the AMD 7040 ram compatibility list, but absent from the AI-300 list.
I have the Kingston KF556S40… RAM in a FW16 AMD 7040 and it is working.
You could look in the market here and on ebay for people selling the FW13 AMD 7040 series mainboards.
That is unfortunately not a solution. I received message back from support confirming that my RAM isn’t supported due to XMP and while it should fallback to slower speed, this does not always happen according to support.
I have asked to escalate my case to the engineering team to see if they can support at least fallback in the near future. It will take 7 days according to support to get a response back from the engineering team. In the meantime I will return the laptop as I am sure this is something that isn’t solved in days.
If Framework was selling the 7000 series I would have opted for that..
Ok.. So I did not know you can buy a full kit which is almost everything except mainboard, wifi card and expansion cards. I do see the intel ultra series mainboards are in stock and it comes up to the same price as ordering them as DIY (which is not available) I might opt for the Intel one. @Charlie_6@James3
Thank you for your patience, this case was escalated for assistance. With regard to your question about your RAM, we currently do not have any plans in the future to enable any overclocking features via the BIOS at this time. The mainboards are hard-capped by design and may lack the necessary power delivery adjustment options for the XMP/EXPO overclocking required for these specific RAM modules. We hope you find this information useful. Please let us know if there is anything else you need.
I have no idea. All I know is that my Kingston RAM does not work on the AMD AI 300 series mainboard and it seems that Framework does not have any plans in supporting this for whatever reason.
What’s the difference between a 4800MT/s RAM that cannot be run at a higher frequency, versus a 4800MT/s RAM that can be XMP’d to 5600MT/s?
What’s the frequency of the XMP’d RAM runs on a XMP-incompatible mainboard such as the 7040U series?
These questions may help the users to determine the reason of the AMD AI 300 Series’ incompatibility. Whether it’s refusing to work with an XMP-capable RAM or it’s compatible to 5600MT/s only RAM, no more no less.
I got it all wrong, the KF556S40IBK2-32 doesn’t even mention XMP and it runs at 5600MT/s natively
Yeah the only “odd” bit about is it that it uses the faster cl40 jdec spec and not the looser cl46 crucial and friends use. Still if it doesn’t like cl40 jdex allows using slower specs with faster ram so why doesn’t it just step down to cl46? Probably something that could be fixed with an agesa update if amd wanted to.
Pretty sure I have seen reports of this with other ai300 platforms so this seems to not be a framework specific issue.
Frameworks track record with firmware issues is not exactly stellar, even for stuff they have direct control over so I am not holding my breath about them improving something they don’t have direct control over.
You are right about reports from other platforms. Doing a quick search on Kingston RAM and AMD Ryzen AI 300, HP users also report the same. Either way, I opted for the Intel Core Ultra Series 1 mainboard, and my RAM works fine on this one.
