LTT Secret Shopping Framework Discussion Thread

General Topics
35

I just got another reply. They asked for a bunch more pictures and told me to try the keyboard in a different position. Which I already did and told them so. I’ve tried every possible combination multiple times. And I told them that weeks ago.

They also asked me if the keyboard worked with the original mainboard, which I already told them many times.

I never asked for this. I didn’t ask for a new mainboard. My very first message to support said that my mainboard has been reliable and I didn’t need them to sent me a replacement. I just wanted to verify that my thermal results were outside of expectations, and I was happy to try some steps myself to improve thermals. They “determined” that they were going to send me a mainboard. Now they have put me through a month of pictures and tests and videos and more pictures and are wanting me to spend yet more time and effort troubleshooting a mainboard that I never even asked them to send me. I even offered to just send it back using the RMA they gave me for the original mainboard and just go back to the idea of trying to improve the thermals myself. But they keep asking me to do more and more testing with the new mainboard that DOESN’T WORK!

36

I assume that you already have done so, but I would politely ask for the case to be escalated, and insist that it be. Things are far past ridiculous at this point.

1 Like
37

I can understand that. But this then becomes a one size fits all scenario, for every incident. Maybe it’s still not apparent to some, but when you have a fix-it-yourself situation during the in-warranty period, the power dynamics is different. Now, Framework has the carrot (your replacement part)…and they say jump, you say how high. Whereas with traditional warranty, you send it in (or they come on-site), then it’s on them to deal with.

Even though there are, what appears to be, 3rd party repair centres in some regions, the experience varies.

There needs to be ‘options’ to choose to fix it myself, and / or send it away, and/or have someone come on-site, on a per-repair / incident basis.

With regard to spending on R&D, I’m all for it… The products need to be better* given the price bracket, AND more reliable right out of the gate, AND stay reliable. Without the hardware reliability, it just eats into support and parts cost.

38

I just noticed that in addition to pictures of the underside of the keyboard and both sides of the midplate, they also asked for pictures of the mainboard. I sent 26 megapixel images of both sides of the mainboard yesterday, at their request.

Edit: Sorry, I didn’t mean to derail this thread with my own support story. Originally, I thought it was relevant, because it showed that the issues LTT brought up wasn’t only a “past” issue, but an ongoing one. But now I’m sort of turning the thread into my own support story. I’ll let it go for now. You all get the ideal.

39

They said that they don’t understand why the keyboard wouldn’t work on the new mainboard, so they can’t escalate the ticket until they can visually inspect the mainboard. So I need to send more pictures. Even though I already sent pictures of the mainboard. Sorry, I know I said I was done, lol. But I wanted to address this.

40

@BigT I appreciate you sharing and it seems on topic to me.

I emailed my support again asking for an update since it’s been 8 freaking weeks. Still nothing. How can they be “actively working” with their repair center for 8 weeks and have no clue whatsoever of status. They can’t even tell me something like “you started at #100,000 in line, now you are at #80,000 in line”.

Thank you for reaching out. We apologize for the frustration and inconvenience you’ve experienced.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide specific updates on your position in line as we rely on information from our repair center. We are actively working with them to obtain update and will share any new information as soon as we receive it.
We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us.

Absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.

41

Are you in the US? I’m just wondering if my laptop will end up in the same repair center black hole. Last night, after sending them more pictures, they replied and said they want me to ship my laptop to a repair center.

I asked some questions and apparently, someone else will get back with me at some point to give me the details. A ninth person, apparently.

42

Yes I’m in the US.

43

Hmm, maybe I’ll tell them no thanks, lol!

Hopefully you get your machine back soon.

44

This is all a far cry from my Dell, years ago, where I noticed a little bit of the E key legend had flaked off and I called support and less than 24 hours later an engineer turned up to fix a new keyboard in like 5 minutes. :face_with_peeking_eye:

45

Wow, this is not suspicious at all. After having NO emails whatsoever for four weeks, and now having sent two irate emails in the past two days, they suddenly magically have completed “thorough” diagnostics and repairs.

Our repair center has performed thorough diagnostics and repairs, and based on their findings, we believe a replacement is the best course of action to ensure optimal performance.

It could certainly be a coincidence, but I have my doubts as you can imagine. And regardless, the complete and utter lack of any substantial communication from Aug 15 when I mailed it to them until today on Oct 10, eight weeks later, is still totally unacceptable.

Hopefully my case is resolved shortly.

And hopefully someone at Framework with the power and knowledge to enact positive change ensures this never happens to anyone else ever again.

1 Like
46

The good news is that you’re getting a new laptop, the bad news is that your warranty was reduced from 12 months to almost 9 months as it won’t be extended.

With a bit of luck you’ll have the new laptop in a couple of weeks :slightly_smiling_face:

Didn’t you just tell them in one of the emails that you want to send the new mainboard back? I mean, you’re actually willing to send the part so they could inspect it.

47

I did. A couple times. I told them again a few days ago and they finally acknowledged it and said that was fine, if that’s what I want to do. But, if I’d just be willing to perform a test with Cinebench R23 and get screenshots of the results and temps, they could determine what’s the best next step. It’s like they reset and don’t realize we already went through all of that before. But whatever. I did the tests again this morning, took more screenshots, and I’m going to send them.

1 Like
48

I’ll try to write about my current experience with the support team.
Sorry for the long text.

14 Jul

Everything started on Sun, 14 Jul at 10:50 when I decided to open a ticket because the paint was slowly disappearing from one of the corners.

While discussing this with the support team they asked me if there were any other issues, so, I said that the laptop runs a bit too hot.

We started checking the thermal issue on the 16th of July, and after 7 long days of testing and recording my screen, it was decided that I needed to send the laptop to the repair centre.

23th July

On the 23rd I asked a few questions:

  • how long it will take
  • do I get extra warranty days
  • do I need to leave my RAM and SSD in
  • do I need to send it with the keyboard and expansion cards

29th July

After 6 days they finally replied with:

  • 5 days after the laptop is received
  • nope
  • YES
  • YES

After checking the answers I decided to remove all the data from my system SSD and replace it with Fedora, as I couldn’t send a laptop with private data on it.

So I did that, and replied with “Ready for collection”

31 July

This is where it gets a bit odd and, not so funny.

I was told that I need to:

  • remove expansion cards
  • remove SSD ( After I replaced my system with Fedora :man_facepalming: )
  • remove RAM

3 Aug

I couldn’t understand why I didn’t have a label yet. I mean, it was already agreed that I’d send my laptop back.
After sending an email and asking where’s my label, I received it the same day.

6 Aug

My laptop was received by the repair centre.

9 Aug

A second not-so-funny moment. I was told that in fact, it takes 10 days or more to have it repaired. So, why was I told that it could take up to 5 days before? I have no idea.

16 Aug

Got the confirmation that my laptop was repaired and on the way back.

This is where I got a bit annoyed as nobody provided a tracking code with this confirmation, so, I had no idea when it would be delivered.
Luckily, I have an account with most of the delivery companies, so they added this to my account.

17 Aug

I received the laptop with the wrong mainboard! YEY! Lucky me.
It was also full of dust and with some scratches on a part that they had to replace. Double yey!

20 - 21 Aug, round 2

It was decided that I’d get a new laptop.

Round 3.
5 Sept 2024

The new laptop was as bad as the first one regarding the CPU temperature

So far, the only bit that was fixed was the part that was having some issues with the paint.

11 Sept

It was decided that I needed to replace the mainboard

A few days later…

I received the mainboard just to realise that is as bad as the other ones.

Replaced the Liquid Metal with some PTM7950 as I couldn’t go through another round with the support team, and now I have a happy laptop.

The good:

  • It feels like they want you to have a working product
  • If something is wrong and you can prove it ( good luck with that ), they’ll replace the part
  • They’re doing their best to help you out

The bad

  • The support team needs to find a way to discuss between them and not ask the same questions whenever someone new takes over
  • It feels like you need to write a design document detailing what you tried, why it doesn’t work and, 1000 more things that you could find about that issue
  • The repair centre is the worst place a laptop could land
  • If you need to use the repair centre, don’t, see if you can repair it yourself
  • Framework should try and not make the same mistake they did with the bios battery on the intel laptops. They should learn from that and look into the thermal issues

Unfortunately, after this experience, I can’t recommend this laptop to anyone who needs a laptop as a daily runner or, as a business.

So far, I feel like you need to have two identical framework laptops… mainly because you need one to keep debugging with the support team and the other one to do your job.

Lucky for me, I have more than one spare laptop.

Sorry again for the long long text :sweat_smile:

Overall I like the laptop :slightly_smiling_face:, but, it has some issues.

5 Likes
49

Similar to @Alex_Uta above, I would probably no longer recommend the FW 16 to anyone who doesn’t like to tinker, or to anyone who needs the laptop for critical work as their only machine.

I originally planned for the FW 16 to be a replacement for a “desktop” computer. I was going to use it for some light gaming, but mostly as a video and photo editing machine, and for running some other creative programs. Unfortunately, I had a project that needed done while I was waiting around for FW support, so I ended up hastily building myself a cheap-ish, small form factor, desktop editing rig. I was able to get my project done on time with that, while my FW 16 sat, wating on the next reply from FW support. Technically, I could have kept using it. Other than max fan noise and potentially reduced performance, it did work. But FW support kept asking for more tests and such, and I just didn’t want to be in the middle of important projects while also going back and forth with different mainboards for testing.

Don’t get me wrong. Any computer can fail. I don’t know that you are necessarily any less likely to have a problem with a Dell/Lenovo/HP/etc. But when a problem with the machine may result in a month or more of back and forth emails with support, that’s a tough ask for a machine you need for work, or whatever.

3 Likes
50

I think that the big “takeaway” for the Framework support team is this: Customers should be getting a premium support experience for their premium priced laptop.

Slightly longer version: Framework should not be outsourcing basic repair duties to customers unless the customer explicitly requests that level of service. Furthermore, RMAs should be traceable 24x7 via the support website with any RMA milestone notices getting pushed directly to the customer via their preferred method. Framework will be greatly limiting their customer base if they keep going down this road of assuming that everyone that purchases their product has a basic competence in electronics repair.

3 Likes
51

To be fair, I purchased a DIY laptop and I’m more than happy to troubleshoot and repair it myself. But it does get frustrating being asked every question two or three times by different people; being asked for the same pictures multiple times by different people, and being asked to perform the same tests multiple times by different people.

1 Like
52

Jeez louise. The saga continues. A week after them saying they’ll send a replacement laptop, and I get this:

The replacement laptop is still undergoing additional testing to ensure it is fully functional before it is returned to you. Please rest assured that we will notify you once we receive an update from our repair center partner.

Ridiculous.

53

That’s… strange tbh :slightly_frowning_face:

Are you going to receive a new one from the factory, or, a used one?

What tests do they need to run on a new laptop? :person_shrugging:

54

Precisely. Very strange. I think this must mean I’m getting someone else’s laptop which has/had a different set of issues. I am not looking forward to conducting my own thorough diagnostic after receiving it, and potentially finding a different issue.