I unfortunately had/am having more than a few issues:
March
First issue was a rattling/loose touchpad. Contact support they suggest trying the touchpad rubbing fix to no avail so I was sent a new input cover.
New input cover is a definite improvement but still has some rattle, I accept this because I came up with a DIY tape fix which I shared with support and I want FW to succeed!
Second issue is USB A ports die within minutes when using my laptop cooling pad requiring reinsertion to start working again. I had this pad since 2015 never had issues. I then tested with 12 other devices the FW laptop is the only one to have issue. Supports decides to replace my mainboard as a result.
Third issue power drain form USB-A ports and apparent high power drain from the touchpad (between 1-2 watts additional power just resting fingers on the touchpad). The port drain turns out to be a problem with all non USB-C ports. A forum member indicated that the touchpad drain is normal for touchpads due to the CPU load to handle the input.
April
My first replacement mainboard arrived bent like a banana. Surprisingly for the single most expensive item they ship the package seems less well protected than the input cover. Is is a box just a bit longer than the board itself with a greater Z hight for the packing material inside a padded parcel envelope. I contact support and advise them the packaging seem inadequate. They thank me for the feedback and say due to this incident they will review the packaging process.
May
Second replacement board arrived undamaged with the same packaging as previously damaged board. The USB A ports losing power with my cooling pad persists. FW order the same model cooling pad for testing on their end. Unfortunately (for me) this newer revision doesn’t seem to have issue so they cannot troubleshoot it directly. Lead engineer does what he can with the limited information.
Support ask if I want to continue the ticket or close it. I say continue stating concern for port reliability, I don’t know if I can trust the ports with external HDD so I send images of the cooling pad PCB and a video demonstrating the issue (power flickering several times before eventual port shutdown). Support respond 16hrs later that they have to close the ticket but the lead engineer will respond in the forum on the issue which he did. The media I sent over was never viewed/downloaded.
I respond expressing disappointment we couldn’t find a solution and that the media was not viewed before closing the ticket but that I understand their position. I thank them for their support efforts and let them know their returns process has incomplete instructions and is missing information on the export documentation. No response.
June
Forum discourse on peak boost lead me to test my system. I am able to get to ~40W of the advertised 60W boost with Cinebench/CPU benchmarks. I try re-pasting a few times and see similar if not lower results. Contact support with this information.
They ask me to update BIOS and check the power setting in Windows is set to best performance, if it wasn’t PL2 would be 30W so this was not the issue and BIOS was updated. I let them know issue is still present. They ask me to check the EMI shielding of the USB ports and send them pictures of them for some reason.
While taking these pictures I notice a spot of melted plastic that I recognised from a thread about overheating MOSFETs . While I was testing boost I notice the laptop is unusually hot around the RAM (finger burning hot RAM) so decided to look there too. Brown burn marks around one MOSFET. These are the MOSFETs associated with the back left and right ports these are the ports I use to power the system. I’m advised to stop using the laptop until a replacement mainboard has arrived.
I receive my shipping label information now with additional detail about the export documentation, nice.
Around this time I shared images of my boost test and that is when I noticed another issue. When marking up the image with red lines. If I physically click in the bottom left corner the quadrant will not always respond.
July
I receive the replacement mainboard this time from Germany not Taiwan but there are issue right away.
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The ESD bag containging the mainboard was unsealed in fact the entire package had signs of being resealed.
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It was packaged poorly, the protective packing material was stuffed all on one side causing the box to bulge on that side and leaving he rest of the PCB unprotected. The package is the same style as before but now comes without a larger envelope. The ESD bag has some imprints of components from the board indented into it where is was under pressure without protection. The core packaging is unchanged except now the large envelope it came in is absent. Even if packed correctly I’m not happy with the packaging aside from the commendable use of paper instead of plastic.
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A few loose copper strands were adjacent to where the NVME screws down. Thankfully I saw them when inspecting the board for damage before powering on.
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One of the screws for the fan shroud is partially stripped and there shroud has been partially melted in one spot.
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Sound and microphone do not work with this replacement board along with higher CPU/energy usage the fan basically never turns off with the new board.
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Peak boost is slightly worse than the previous board.
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Disabling quiet boot in the BIOS and using the one time boot menu (F12) causes the system to not POST with the codes white x1 green x12 (diagnostic all good) red x1 (start POST code section) green x3 blue x2 green x3.
My ticket has been escalated and that takes us to today.
Update: New board on the way.
Update 2: New board solved my audio problems and came much better protected.
The 60W boost of the 11th gen CPU that is “not promised or expected to be possible”
Please note the wording around boost is identical between 11th and 12th gen boards so I’m not sure if this will also apply to 12th gen.
Finding it impossible to get the advertised 60W boost across 4 different boards and seeing others users with the same issue and getting resolution with the aid of support. Additionally NRP showing a Cinebench run peaking at 60W on a 12th gen board. I decided to contact support.
First support response:
“…systems should be able to get to or close to the stated 60W depending on the load and ambient temperature.”
Second response:
“The 60W PL2 post that you refer to above is specific to our 12th Generation Intel Core processors, we do not promise or expect a 60W boost to be possible on the 11th Generation Intel Core processors, these can vary typically from 45-55W”
This seemed like an error by the rep. given all materials indicate 60W is possible but is “Dependent on workload and ambient temperature conditions”.
Third response:
“I can confirm the validity of the statement, on 11th Generation we were able to achieve 60W Peak boost but this varies from CPU to CPU, and ranges from 45-55W under typical circumstances.”
This was genuinely a surprise given:
https://frame.work/laptop-11-gen-intel
With the only qualifier being “Dependent on workload and ambient temperature conditions”.
To be sure I asked more questions, including how they got 60W in testing,
Fourth response:
“Regarding peak boost, there are a number of variables that will affect what can be achieved, some of these can be controlled/adjusted by the end user such as ambient temperature and thermal paste - and some that are not, namely CPU binning which is somewhat of a lottery.
60W was the upper limit of what we were able to achieve in tests, but we broadly use the expression “up to 60W” as not all customers will be able to achieve this - even under otherwise ideal circumstances.”
Personally this feels deceptive and has me less confident in claims and statements made by Framework. I’m hopeful however this is just another gen 1 hiccup I didn’t expect.
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Problems out of the way, phew.
I love the screen ratio and brightness not the gloss finish or the oddball resolution.
Keyboard is good physically but layout is suboptimal, particularly the arrow keys, the lack of rounded edges between them make it harder to distinguish them by feel and they a tiny. I have made some suggestions for how this could be improved.
Touchpad can be good but I’m having issues so…
The speakers are bad. When using headphones there is constant static also with headphones when the power management activates/deactivates the sound card (after a few seconds of inactivity) there is a not so pleasing chirp.
The hinges are not strong enough and the lid in general is a bit flimsy.
Update: Sent a video to support, they are sending me new hinges.
The battery is too small for my liking as such runtimes are limited.
I always remove my USB A and HDMI expansion cards to get more runtime and standby time but having large gaps in the laptop makes for a bad user experience.
It is great how easy it is to upgrade/replace parts and I believe/hope that in the future generations these sorts of issues will be resolved. It will be interesting to see how 12th gen boards will play out.
I love the userbase this laptop has garnered, they (you all reading) are IMO such a valuable part of what Framework has to offer.
Support have been OK I say this because I have see some people praise support highly.
In my experience:
You really cannot present more than one question at a time,
You get a different rep. each time and they don’t always seem to look at previous emails or read emails carefully,
At least the L1 are not technically informed and just give canned responses.
So nothing extraordinary/unexpected here.