if your not going to have the GPU i would wait for the 2xM.2 card which i assume is comming soon TMv(Read they are obviously making it Linus was packing them months ago when he visited the factory) the sooner the better…
I honestly would love to have the flexibility to use the GPU if needed. Having the bay overtaken by an NVME in order to provide a basic laptop functionality (in 2024) defeats the whole purpose of the Framework laptop.
I found this Delock riser which seems slightly better for my inexperienced eyes. It is more pricy and not sure it will fit though
Edit: there is also this ADT extender
Sorry for the missing details of the process I promised to provide. I’ve been swamped in work lately and thus lack the time to do so. Just a few quick comments:
I folded a piece of duct tape into a ring and applied it on the ribbon cable to avoid contact with the heat pipe. So far, even in longer gaming sessions, the primary SSD only gets as hot as 56°C max. I haven’t had time to set up my gaming OSes on the secondary SSD yet, so I can’t give you any infos about temperatures under heavy usage yet, but while the primary SSD is at 56°C the secodary stays as cool as 40°C, probably due to the thermal pad transporting the heat to the metallic bottom of the expansion bay shell.
The solutions you mentioned are similar to the initial adapter I used, so the same issue with the cables being too thick applies.
I agree with you. I was also devastated upon hearing about said limitation. Thus I hope Framework will solve that issue in the next generation of the Framework Laptop 16 motherboard. This is just a temporary solution to overcome said issue, until a better one becomes available.
The same goes for the current GPU available. With the additional length of the GPU expansion bay, the laptop won’t fit in my bag anymore.The noisy cooling due to the high wattage is another disadvantage, which won’t get solved, until a more power efficient GPU becomes available.
Until then you’d probably be better off using the OcuLink Expansion Bay once it becomes available in conjuction with an eGPU case and a desktop GPU for highend gaming.
Being a casual gamer, I’m content with the current AMD iGPU.
Thank you @ATi for responding 
I thought so. Thanks for confirming it. It however seems to me the cable you are using is not shielded?
Josh seems to be working on an eGPU/NVME combined expansion solution. Issue is it will only leave 4xPCIE lanes for the GPU. I think this will affect the performance.
I rarely game on my laptop and I have a separate gaming PC so it is not really that bad. It’s just that I lose the expandability by using the bay for an additional NVME.
Anyway, I came to the conclusion that I really do not want to hack/mod a laptop. I’d rather wait for the expansion bay (Which will happen) or go for a Thinkpad p16v amd (+/- 100 euros difference depending on the configuration).
- Here is the source directly from the manufacturer in China.
- It seems to be available at amazon.com, too.
In case you are looking for a local supplier, search for the term “ST-M2M2PCE-C”.
Citing the amazon.com product page:
… and I haven’t noticed any interferences yet.
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