I’ve been using my Framework for about six months, and in general I’m really enjoying it. I’ve seen one quirk that I was curious if others have seen.
I use the Micro SD Expansion Card quite frequently. The card reader does the trick very well, but if I don’t eject the Micro SD card a specific way, the entire Expansion Card is actually ejected. Meaning that I either need to re-seat the Expansion Card or do a reboot of my Framework to get it detected again.
In Windows, if I eject using the Task Bar’s Devices icon >> Eject, the Expansion card is Ejected. Meaning that I need to re-seat the Expansion Card to use it again.
In Windows, if I eject using File Explorer, the Micro SD card is ejected properly.
I’m betting I can script an easier eject using Powershell and/or AutoHotKey, but I’m curious if anyone else has seen this, and what has been done to deal with the issue. Let me know!
@Christopher_Gallo probably means that ejecting from the taskbar disconnects the microSD card adapter from the operating system, whereas ejecting from file explorer dismounts the volume on the microSD card.
In the first case, they cannot insert another microSD card without first physically removing the adapter. In the second, they can. It is a difference in behavior.
As you know, the Framework Laptop has no support for OS-mediated physical ejection of expansion cards
@Christopher_Gallo: from the taskbar, is it possible to select the volume entry underneath the device, or is it disabled?
This is not just a windows problem I’m having the same weird issue with Fedora 40 and the USB-A Expansion Card. If I plug a flash drive into the USB-A port then Safely Remove(Eject on Windows) using the task bar it will dismount the entire Expansion Card with it, but if I Safely Remove using the file manager it’s fine.
This only seems to happen when the USB-A port is in slot 2 moving it to slot 4 seems to have fixed the issue. I’m not entirely sure why, because that slot should be fully compatible with the USB-A card.
I’m using the Ryzen 5 7640U Mainboard by the way.
I have no idea how I missed your initial reply. I got the emails from the newer replies though. Sorry about the only slightly delayed reply.
The Eject Media task manager icon shows the MicroSD card as greyed out. You can only “Eject USB Disk”.
I’m on a 13" framebook model. Originally was on a 12th Gen Intel, but I upgraded to an AMD 7840U mainboard about six months ago. It still has the same action.
I’m not really sure what to make of that and without having a SD card expansion card myself I can’t really test it, but I do have a windows 11 machine and I have noticed that windows does display things in an odd way. If the device is a Flash Drive then it will say “Eject Flash Drive” with a - “drive name (drive letter:)” underneath it, but greyed out, but if it’s a card reader it will say “USB Card Reader” greyed out with a - “Eject USB Drive (drive letter:)” not greyed out underneath it. I believe this is because many card readers have multiple ports, and they want you to be able to click on the specific card not the reader.
True! It likely stems from an OS configuration, but even multi-port card readers have limitations. Most USB card readers only support one card being used at the same time. And even those adapters allow for the direct ejection of the volume instead of the USB device.
I’ll dig around. My theory is that the firmware on the card reader or the driver that Windows uses for the card reader are likely pulling the strings.
When testing using USB Device Tree Viewer, It appears the MicroSD Expansion Card is seen as a USB Disk on it’s own. Other comparison USB Card Readers are seen as “Card Readers”. So that may give credence to my theory in my last comment.
ok, seeing that it would definitely seem like it’s a firmware issue with the Expansion Card. Makes me wonder why it would have been set up in that manner instead of just setting it as a normal card reader. If it was just being handled as a normal card reader both Windows and Linux would let you Eject each individual SD card and not the entire Reader.
I’m betting it was just an early oversight. No shade thrown or intended; I respect the framework team. This was an early expansion card design. Maybe we’ll someday get a redesign or a new version.
Also I hope the work-in-progress full sized SD expansion card doesn’t have the same flaw.
I still have the issue with the MicroSD expansion card, but I have good news! The issue doesn’t happen with the newly released SD Card expansion card! So if you plan on using MicroSD and are okay with carrying around an additional adapter, the SD card expansion card works like a dream
@Christopher_Gallo It seems to be a quirk of the micro sd expansion card because, for me, it shows up on linux as a block device (aka disk) when it’s actually an expansion card. I believe this must be some form of attempt by Framework to have the expansion card behave like a USB device and that is likely why you can “eject” it. However, because the expansion card is the USB device, when you eject it, you’re ejecting the entire expansion card. In my mind, you can kind of consider the expansion card a USB and each micro sd card as the NAND flash in that USB.
That tracks with my findings for sure. I’m thinking it’s a quirk for being the first adapter hub that is not terminating to USB. Probably an engineering oversight.
Hopefully it can be addressed in a new version. But in the meantime, I’m glad the full sized SD expansion card doesn’t fall into the same pitfall
id like to mention that on the fw16 under windows i have seen an option to eject the displayport expansion card. im probably just being obnoxious by dumping something completely unrelated here but maybe it could provide a hint as to whats going on.
