My Framework 16 experience has been unstable. How has your's been?

Community Support
, ,
1

Some quick system info to get that out of the way.

I’m running Windows 11 Pro 24H2

  • Framework Laptop 16
  • Windows 11 Pro 24H2
  • Ryzen 9 7940HS w/ Radeon 780M Graphics
  • Memory: Framework’s DDR5-5600 - 64GB
  • Expansion Bay Module: Graphics Module (AMD Radeon™ RX 7700S)

I’ve tried using the FW 16 for both gaming, and work. I figured it would be great with dual drives to be able to dual boot windows 11 pro’s one for work, one for play. On paper this laptop was everything I’d ever want in a laptop.

However, the instability has been absolutely terrible for me. Just randomly it feels the computer just randomly acts as if it lost power entirely, and reboots.

Gaming experience has been very inconsistent, unstable, and at its best has been “good” but for almost the 3k I spent on this laptop, I would’ve expected at least stable if not “great” performance. I can go into detail here, but I’ll spare you the extra scrolling, I already shared it all with FW support lol.

As for work:
Sometimes some stuff as stupid as plugging in a random USB drive causes the whole machine to lock up for a quick moment and reboot. I work at a college for IT Support, so some just new off the shelf USBs we use kingston, samsung, and some microcenter branded USB drives. Its a problem that is very hard to reproduce, but just randomly happens and has happened on all three of those brands against different USB A and C ports across the Framework 16.

Framework Support has been trying to help, but it took almost 3 weeks for back and forth troubleshooting for them to send me a new mainboard. Which solved a sleep issue I had with the Framework 16, but hasn’t resolved some of the above behavior I called out above.

Also a small gripe (but annoying) I received the new mainboard and it didn’t include the keyboard deflection kit, and for some reason I can’t get the support team to send me another kit for the new mainboard? Not sure what the hold up is there.

Anyway - All the above to say, like is my experience isolated? Is anyone else having problems? If you have, what were your fixes? I hope I’m alone in my problems, b/c I want FW to succeed and the platform for the FW 16 to flourish.

For additional context I have an 11th gen Framework 13 and it has been a very normal stable experience. It was just missing some dedicated GPU love, and dual M.2 slots, which influenced my decision for purchasing a Framework 16.

Had I known that the Framework 16 would be this type of experience I would’ve never spent almost 3k on this laptop, and instead of would’ve upgraded my 13 to use (at the time) latest Ryzen 7840u.

Anyway, Thanks for reading, and I hope you’re having a lot better luck with your FW 16 than I have.

3 Likes
2

Hello! My framework 16 experience has been overall fairly decent.

I’m using a 7940HS with 7700S dGPU, 64 GB of 5600 CL40 memory, and a solidigm P44 pro 2TB/P41 plus 1TB. I replaced the stock WiFi card with a Qualcomm QCNCM865 for WiFi 7. I also ordered a delta 240W charger, and have an issue raised for dGPU degradation on GitHub (DGPU isnt using full power limit on 240W charger while in performance mode · Issue #27 · FrameworkComputer/SoftwareFirmwareIssueTracker · GitHub)

I feel like as a batch 1 user of the laptop, I got a chassis that is free from most major issues people have with it. My spacers are slightly uneven/loose but it’s not major and doesn’t cause any issues for me.

I experienced significant degradation from the Liquid Metal pump out issue, to the point where I RMA’ed the original mainboard. I got another board that had Liquid Metal, and began to notice more degradation shortly after replacement. I replaced the Liquid Metal with a PTM shim sandwich, using thermal grizzly phasesheet. My laptop cpu performance has been significantly higher than the performance with the Liquid Metal ever was.

I’m using various Linux configurations at the moment, all of them using kernels 6.13 and above.

Regarding the laptop seemingly losing power, have to tried disabling battery extender in the bios? Lots of issues seem to be popping up from it, and we (the community) are waiting on a newer firmware version to patch some of the issues.

1 Like
3

Ahh nice batch 1 :wink: I was batch 6. I haven’t had too many issues with thermals (at least that I’ve noticed) I may throw linux on the secondary drive so I can test out gaming and use amdgpu_top. I have the FW 180W charger. Idk if you’ve noticed playing any games where the frames just drop significantly? It’s almost as if its thermal throttling, but report Windows 11 temp is consistent, and unplugging the power adapter and replugging it into the laptop makes the game run smoothly again for a few seconds, and then goes back to choppy frames. I usually fix it by needing to close the game and reopen it. Its happened on like Age of Mythology, Total War Warhammer 2, CoD, BG3, and Frostpunk 2 are the notable mentions, but doesn’t seem to discriminate between game or game launchers.

For Windows, AMD has this software called just “AMD Software” and whenever you start a game or do something that requires some graphical power it “switches” from the APU to dGPU and that almost always causes a stutter as it switches. I wish there was a way to tell it to always use the dGPU, but I wasn’t able to find a way to do this by playing with the “mux position” in that software.

I have a feeling that probably isn’t something you run into with Linux?

Also a quick note on the fit and finish, I mean aside from the keyboard flex, I am mostly okay with the imperfect spacers, its not like my favorite thing, but doesn’t bother me much either.

1 Like
4

I do notice significant frame drops due to the 240W charger.

I have a few questions regarding your configuration:

1 - Are you using bios version 3.03 or 3.05?

2a - Are you using just the framework driver pack for graphics or are you using the latest ones from AMD?

2b - If using the latest from AMD, did you set the iGPU memory to gaming in the bios for it to install?

3 - Does the software have an option to switch between Hybrid and Smart access graphics? If so, does it make a difference regarding the stutter on switching between the graphics?

4 - What power mode of windows do you play in?

I haven’t personally experienced it with any significant issues, although depending on the OS you use steam may try to launch on a suspended dGPU and the window doesn’t appear until you close steam and open it on the iGPU.

1 Like
5

I have two thoughts after reading this thread.

  1. Windows doesn’t like being dual booted, and is a fairly noisy neighbour. Messing with all sorts of settings in bios/uefi. I would suspect that someone is messing with the bios between windows shutdown and boot.

  2. You can deactivate devices in windows, and i hope in the bios. If you truly desire to only use the dgpu try to deactivate the igpu.

/Zoe

1 Like
6

Windows 11 bricked itself, but I’ve had a great experience on a Debian based distro

7

I own a small electronics repair shop, thus far I convinced two of my customers to get laptops from here, both were the FW16.

First one, customer seems really happy no major complaints at all really.

Second one, was actually my dad. He needed a new laptop to do work on the road. I built him a desktop back in 2019 as he’s an engineer running AutoCad so he needed something with some power. The choices we came down to were the FW 16 and the Lenovo P16. He opted for the FW 16 as per my recommendation seeing as it was an upgradeable and serviceable laptop.

He’s had it for about a month, maybe month and a half now and up until this point, the laptop was working quite well. Earlier this week, he started getting random BSODs but I think I might’ve narrowed it down. I created another post in regards to this issue. It might be related to the WD Black SN770 SSD we installed. When we ordered it, we got the storage and RAM through FW. Apparently the SN770 has driver issues and from what I can find, it appears they’ve pushed an update. I guess it has something to do with the HBM policies in that 24H2 of Windows 11 tries to allocate too much memory and causes the drive to crash. We do plan on installing this update, but we’re going to wait for him to get home before we try that. Although the computer does have this issue, it’s still in a somewhat functional state, and he’d rather leave it be. Unfortunately we live in different states and he’s on vacation in another. I guess the kicker is, he was just visiting me a couple weeks ago, just before this started happening. So, I can’t get my hands on it to check everything over. He should still have the included screw driver to open it up.

I’m hoping the issue is just the drive. I’m really hoping to get one of these for myself for gaming and a bit of work. I’ve got an older desktop I built almost 10 years ago and it struggles to handle the newer titles I want to run, and I’m not paying a damn scalper for a GPU.