I just got a mystery box that included an FW16 7940HS motherboard with a wanged-up heatpipe. I’m throwing this out there to see if anyone else has encountered these error codes or has an idea for a next thing to try. I’d love to get this board booted and running headless.
Test: Basic power
Bare board connected to 65W charger, power button pressed. USB-PD meter says it draws 10W, red/blue lights alternate. So far so good.
Test: Partial testbench
1 SODIMM installed in board, connected to display + power/fingerprint of known-good FW16. ~60 seconds of red/blue alternating LEDs, then diagnostic lights in the following pattern:
WRGGGGRRRGGGGOBGGBBGGG
After some searching, I found these resources for decoding the lights. My understanding is that the FW13 11th gen diagnostic LED guide should be more-or-less accurate for any Framework laptop, and that the Port80/Insyde BIOS codes are based on public information but not customized to the laptop.
Putting it together:
| Blink | Description | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| White | Start of diagnosis | |
| Red | Battery connected check | Correct. Blocks boot? |
| Green | Power Good 3V5V supply | Good |
| Green | Power Good VCCIN_AUX | Good |
| Green | CPU deassert sleep S4 | Good |
| Green | Power boot core VR | Good |
| Red | Input module fault | Correct. Blocks boot? |
| Red | No left fan | Correct. Blocks boot? |
| Red | No right fan | Correct. Blocks boot? |
| Green | GPU module OK | Correct, in the sense that there’s no GPU module to have a fault |
| Green | CPU reached S0 state | Good |
| Green | DDR initialized OK | Good |
| Green | Internal display initialized OK | Good |
Then POST code is 001 1001 or 0x19. That’s
#define BDS_CONNECT_USB_HC 0x19 // USB host controller initial
Anyone seen POST code 0x19 before and know what it implies about the USB controller? I don’t think it’s just the lack of input modules - when I was reassembling my complete FW16, I left out the input board plug and the screen lit up to tell me about the problem. But that might be related to the BIOS version.
I don’t know what BIOS version is installed on the mystery board, and I don’t know what options are set in the BIOS. If I reset to defaults, will the standalone mode work?
Is the best bet to test functionality to completely install the mystery board in a shell? Is there an alternative?