Oops, I broke off the CMOS battery housing

Community Support
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Hi,

A few months ago I had the issue with the CMOS battery with my Framework 13 Intel 11 gen, and I got a new battery from Framework. However, recently the laptop wouldn’t start. I wanted to take the battery out to look at it, and snapped the housing off! I have two questions:

  1. Is it still possible to troubleshoot the issue without the CMOS battery? I’m able to plug the laptop in, get the LED on. I press the power button, it flashes and turns off. The LED goes white once, and then shows steady orange. It would be great to have a laptop even if I have to have it plugged in when I turn it on.
  2. What do you suggest with regards to the battery housing? I have basic soldering skills, but I hesitate to solder this tiny surface mount thing on an expensive piece of hardware. Maybe I should get that kit to bypass the CMOS battery and just give it a shot?

Thanks, Marc

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Yup. Just got a discouraging email from support.

Apparently they are unwilling to send an RTC battery and a plastic replacement clip for anything mystery box even though they are less than $2 item total. Oh, in the missing NVMe retaining screw. Kind of disappointed considering I own FW13-in 7040 at time of product release, the new 12-in at time of product release, and an older Gen 11 i5 MB with a cooler master case, all of which I paid full price for. So yeah, I’m cranky over a $2 worth of parts.

As an alternative, there’s this post that I found.

So I’m going to have to get out all my soldering gear, a magnifying glass, and fix it myself. That means clipping off the plastic, desoldering the spring mechanism that holds the battery in place, and then solder on a pigtail for two pin RTC battery. Which is a whole lot of effort.

Thank you framework customer service for being petty by making sure that I self-repair my right to repair machine the hard way.

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What part about right to repair says the company has to supply the end user with parts to repair the product that was purchased as-is in a mystery box?

The screws are available to purchase as a kit from their website.

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Why did you go off topic pkunk? This is not about the NVMe screw kit. That was an observational comment about my situation in addition to the clip.

This topic is about having a replacement RTC battery clip in the store for us to purchase … which I didn’t find via a store search. Can you find it please?

It’s a little piece of snap-on plastic that has to be pushed through the main board. If it’s not available from the store that means that they will have it in stock for main board repairs.

And the only way to get a main board repair part is to get with support. Unless of course they put that in the store for us to purchase which they haven’t.

So instead of focusing on the screw kit which I can acquire myself, please stay on topic about something that is near unobtainable. It’s a lot more helpful than wasting someone’s time to post like a troll … cuz at least my reply had a comment about how to fix our similar problem. Yours was no help at all.

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Less aggression might get a more favorable response.

The battery holder is soldered to the board via two contacts in addition to the thruholes that help secure it in place. If one of the arms is broken on the holder inserting the battery and securing it with some kapton or quality electrical tape would be sufficient to maintain contact.

If the entire holder has become dislodged hopefully the associated pads have not been ripped off as well. If the pads are still there then, purchasing the rechargeable battery from the store and soldering the two wires to their respective tabs will suffice.

That part is available here:

Carefully cut the connector off the end, strip the wires and solder them in place.

If feeling ambitious lookup the mating connector from Mouser or Digikey and then solder some wires to the pads going to the female connector, then the battery could just be plugged in. This is quite a bit more work for the same result.

Not all users know that the screw kits are available from the store for a few dollars. It seemed the easiest means to address the “observational comment” cited in the original post.

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Of course, I’m taking the risk of being off-topic further. But,

Framework may not have the part. At all.
I don’t know if the company Framework partners with to handle warranty replacements does such board-level rework. And the fact that FW sells off parts in “mystery boxes” including ones in need of board-level rework sure suggests that they have limited to no contracts for such repairs.

As for making the laptops. Afaik nearly all laptop brands contract out the manufacture of their laptops, including Framework. They don’t own the factory, they don’t directly manufacture them, they don’t have / handle the components that go into it.

In the beginning, there were no screw kits in the FW store. You could not get them from FW support, as they did not have them, could not give them to you. It took quite a while, and effort and logistics work for FW to source them, have them packaged appropriately, and stocked at fulfillment centers. Webcam cables, which are replaceable with zero special tools, and not even any skill really, they are a recent addition to the store. Previously, FW support had to tell people they needed a whole new replacement lid, because for some reason, they neglected to source the individual cables. I can only presume that they didn’t think they would break often enough to justify the expense of stocking them. Each and every part stocked anywhere actually carries an expense. One can’t assume that Framework has every part, even if it doesn’t require board-level rework to make use of.

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pkunk,

First, I do appreciate the time you put into your work around post. (I used kapton tape last weekend to hold the battery in, before you mentioned the same thing.) And like I linked in my OG post, to Framework 11 RTC to 2 pin cmos battery … I’m going to go with a proper JST two-wire replacement solution so I can unplug and replace the store’s RTC battery as needed to avoid future desoldering.

But you’re right. I can be cantankerous after dealing with FW Support. I know I’m not the only one either. I love their hardware and FOSS software support, but if there’s a support issue case, it’s painful.

My support experience with FW has always been subpar due their scripted, outsourced support. I’ve had cases carry on for several months (and that’s down time) with new purchases which included several escalations before a working solution happened (i.e. having to get someone at FW-proper to go over by hand to find & test repeatedly for a working part.) So IF you can get past their wall of support drones, then you get genuine support.

This time was no less different. My hopeful outcome a replacement custom clip either in an envelope OR for me to purchase although unlisted in the store – many companies will say for unlisted parts “sure, you pay shipping” or “for the part cost and shipping”. This time, their scripts were standard overseas boilerplates: not in the store, don’t know when it stock, search the forums for a workaround. It took an entire week for those replies. I should be grateful each reply was within 48 hours vs silence. I should also know better giving my experience with them.

So when commiserating with another customer who has an identical issue and I’ve found a [begrudgingly] janky work around, I’m gonna vent and cut through the BS over the lack of ‘care’ and honest transparency from their customer support while sharing the solution to both our problems. And I feel that other customers should know what happened so they can set their level of expectations of their support experience. In general, outsourced support corporate indifference asking for “forgiveness” and “understanding” without a genuine justification is insulting to FW’s PC enthusiast customers. For example, “We’re Sorry”.

And to MJ1’s point. I never expected FW to have every part for every mainboard after some X number of years after they halt production. The only way to find out though is to email support, but like I mentioned, I got excuses from them via support scripts. BTW, when I engage with them, I use business phrasing with evidence (videos and photos). Doesn’t matter to their conscripted support. Only being dogged and relentless seems to get any traction.

What would be nice is if FW clearly posted, how long parts would be available from support and the store after a product is discontinued. That would make sense for a company focused on transparency, Right-To-Repair.

Or if support would say something to the effect that, ‘unfortunately due to limited part supply the remaining remaining stock is held back for contractual reasons’ while including in the reply something like “Additionally, here’s links to the STL file at Printables and Thingaverse to either print yourself or for consignment printing.” Or even have links at JCLPCB or PCBWay for a high quality print.

But no. That’s best left to the community apparently. Uhg.

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