Just positing here to check: I’ve written to framework on Monday that my laptop screen has gone dead. 48 hours later, not even an acknowledgement of my request. Is the 7-day a week support still on?
You should’ve received a confirmation email immediately and a response within 1 business day. If you didn’t, it means that either they’re not getting your tickets or you’re not receiving their emails. Are you using a custom email domain or server?
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I did not receive an email confirmation despite receiving a confirmation on the site that my request had been accepted. I’ve created a new request, and have received a confirmation of my submission. Will chalk it up to an error somewhere
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Hi, its been over two weeks of trying to deal with the CS with no proper fix(admittedly 3 of those days I was away). I’m being given the run around with piecemeal steps that could have been done in one go. I’ve now opened my laptop over 15 times, with various fixes. I was told that the issue was with the display and I’ve received and replaced that with no result.
As i use this laptop for work, this has seriously hampered my mobility. Thankfully, i can use a desktop at home, but i have had to curtail my travel / mobility because i now do not have access to a proper work laptop.
I’m really disappointed with the kind of support you guys have. I’d just like to highlight the issues I have with your support:
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I bought a laptop for repairability, not to be able to repair the laptop myself.
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Maybe because I bought a DIY laptop(I had spare parts), CS assumed I would be fine with my own laptop diagnostics / teardown / repair.
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Ok, fair enough, I am game BUT there is absolutely no guide on how to do your own diagnostics!
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I’m expected to repair my own laptop, but at the same time being treated as some kind of inexperienced luddite. I am being given piecemeal steps by the CS everyday, at a time that is beyond reasonable in Europe (11pm, 12am, 4am, etc).
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Each day, i wake up to find another absurd step. Steps that a single guide could have easily solved.
(“Please send me a picture of your display pin, to make sure that its not bent”). Well, no if its bent, it because you’ve made me pull it out and put it back 5 different times!. I was perfectly happy with it stuck on. Are you gonna now blame me if it was bent? -
There has been one single POST error all this while but neither CS nor any guides will say what that failing LED means (Its the first blue after the orange light).
(maybe they don’t know either, but that doesn’t inspire confidence)
At this point, I am sure its going to be at least another week of “unplug this, send me picture of that…”. This is not what i paid for. If you want me to diagnose and repair it myself, send me a toolkit of everything, and i know i can figure it out.
But also, figure it out guys. Not everyone has the patience or acumen to actually sit down an open up their laptop every night.
Lastly, as this laptop is only a few months old and is still under warranty, can you please let me know what my rights are in this case? Can i ask for a refund or a new device? I really believe in the cause but also I’m a little tired of the lack of transparency and honesty.
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Hello!
So you’re saying that you bought the laptop for it’s statement/mission but you don’t want to use this concept yourself? That’s … a bit counter-productive.
That’s correct. There are the base versions and especially the DIY are mostly meant for tinkerers and people knowing what they do.
Because the support is sitting in America, they’re still expanding/young.
This problem is because you bought a laptop to repair yourself but you are not experienced and willing to repair it yourself. Normally Framework is quite generous when it comes to issues, even if the user caused them.
Did you specifically ask them about this?
You bought a laptop that is supposed to be repaired by the user and not run the full RMA process in some warehouse in nowhere that needs weeks to ship and return and complain that actual human beings try to figure out whats wrong and how to repair your own hardware?
You can just go ahead and ask the framework support for a return. That should be alright.
To summerize, thank you for supporting the Framework mission. Sadly you were buying a product that is not a fit for you.
(Hint: I am not an Framework employee, these opinions are mine alone and I had trouble myself before with the Framework laptop. By no means is Framework perfect, there is a long way to go. But please try to see it from a different perspective)
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@Anachron please read my post properly. There is a difference between repairability and having to do it yourself.
To make it easier:
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Repairability is the ability for the device to be repaired, whether by yourself or by a technician. It has got nothing to do with someone having to repair their own device. Some of us just want to go to a Louis Rossman who can fix it for us. By extension, someone buying a Dell or Macbook is not necessarily against repairability.
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I know how to fix PCs. Why? Because there are tons of guides out there. Every motherboard manual these days come with a post guide. This laptop(and most laptops are) is specific and we can only rely on Framework to provide the guides.
3)I’ve stated clearly that I’m game to repair the laptop myself. But here, they have no specific guide on what to do when you encounter these issues. For heavens sake, they don’t even tell you anywhere what a failing POST light means. To save you some time, since you’re not keen to look, here is the link to the article with… no guidance on the POST.
Here is a comment from 2021 that i just replied to, stating there is no guidance on the post:
4)Of course i’ve sent them the video of the codes MULTIPLE TIMES. Its like chatGPT. Some other person asks me the same thing a few days later.
5)Unless you know about the RMA process more than I do (and I’ve not found any guides on that… ha!), most of your statements are not valid
To summarise, thank you for your unhelpful post. Yes, I know I am venting, but better here than in some other social media. I’d like to assure you supporting a cause doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of fanboy
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@Chironjit_Das I would have to disagree with the tone, but agree with the meat of your post. There really should be a Framework Hardware Maintenance Manual. Not just a how to replace this part or that part, but whatever internal documentation customer support is working off of. How many flashes your power button gives and what they mean should be no mystery, you should be able to go to customer support list the code, and any troubleshooting steps you have taken and move on from there. Live chat would also be incredibly helpful shortcircuiting unreasonably long times to diagnose problems. I don’t mind the email support for most things, but live walkthrough to get some sort of resolution the same day/next day is definitely what Framework should be shooting for, but yeah start with the low hanging fruit.
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@Chironjit_Das This describes my exact experience with support to a T which is sad as that was about a year ago and seem little has changed.
Like you I was not able to get a response to more than one question at a time, given steps to do that are directly in opposition to advice on the forums (eg reseat the EMI shielding on the type C ports) or things that were seeming unrelated to my issues.
Being based in the EU and the time differences this slowed down troubleshooting progress unnecessarily.
Regarding post code I had to directly ask for the post codes meaning over multiple emails eventually got given a link to Framework Laptop port80 codes · GitHub.
Frameworks mission is (as I understand it) to make electronics repairable not to make everyone repair their own electronics. It is this very distinction that a lot of people misunderstand about RTR and caused them to reject the notion “I don’t want to be force to repair my own device!”.
In my eyes buying a repairable laptop does not mean buying a laptop that requires DIY to repair rather a laptop than can be repaired. Framework would be foolish to think they can “change the electronics industry” by serving only customers than can DIY and from a business model than is a small user base…
Buying the DIY Framework should not make any difference to the level of support being offered and if it does it should be made clear before purchase.
I think you are missing the point of what you quoted here, they steps they ask you to do are illogical if you know what you are doing which they seem to not have.
Framework’s model allows the option to ask the customer to fix their own device, this should be seen as the advantage it is and not an expectation of the customer. Any a customer should be well within their rights to RMA within warrenty.
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Maybe I should make a few things clear here:
- Nobody claimed you couldn’t do an RMA here. What I said is that the possibility of self-repair would prevent a long RMA process.
- I guess it’s not the standard to support RTR but not actually want to repair things yourself, which is why it causes some issues along the way.
- Currently most of the users that buy these niche laptops are people caring about RTR and also being able to repair themselves if something breaks. A lot of users even expand the Framework products by creating expansion cards, modifying existing ones or even creating tablets, NAS-systems and alike.
I guess what would be good in this process would be a “Let me just RMA this, I dont have any experience and I want you to fix it for me” support option that skips most of these questions.
Perhaps it is just a misunderstanding but to me this reads as you saying you are meant to fix it yourself.
RTR is the right to repair as opposed to devices that cannot be repaired. Think fully integrated Apple M1 vs Framework. Supporting this mission is about reducing environmental damage and e-waste from making a whole new board rather than fixing/replacing the bad component (even if you don’t have the skills or experience to do the repair).
Yes indeed that is indeed true that is not what I understand FW goal to be, to serve this thin slice of the world. If we care bout RTR we need to have it the norm not the nerdy…
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Whatever harsh words i have for the company boils down to this. If the above is not the company’s position, they have fundamentally misconstrued the RTR
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@Usernames I’m not sure how to interpret this. My POST is green except for BLUE on first blink of the second set would you know what that means? Alternatively, how do i get these port 80 codes?
| Blink | Description |
|---|---|
| White | Start of diagnosis |
| 1 Red/Green | Battery connected check |
| 2 Red/Green | Power Good 3V5V supply |
| 3 Red/Green | Power Good VCCIN_AUX |
| 4 Red/Green | CPU deassert sleep S4 |
| 5 Red/Green | Power boot core VR |
| 6 Red/Green | Touchpad detected |
| 7 Red/Green | Audio board Detected |
| 8 Red/Green | Thermal sensor detected |
| 9 Red/Green | Fan detected and spins up |
| 10 Red/Green | CPU reached S0 state |
| 11 Red/Green | DDR initialized OK |
| 12 Red/Green | Internal display initialized OK |
| Orange | Start of post code section |
| Post code bit 0 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
| Post code bit 1 | <======= Blue here |
| Post code bit 2 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
| Post code bit 3 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
| Post code bit 4 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
| Post code bit 5 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
| Post code bit 6 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
| Post code bit 7 | Blue=1, Green=0 |
Honestly I wasn’t really sure how to interpret them either and didn’t explore it further with support.
Suggest further communication on the POST codes be in the other thread to keep this one on the rails 
Maybe I’m a bit thick-headed, but what’s preventing taking it to a repair shop for them to do the diagnosis and coordinate RMA with Framework support? You’d likely have to pay a fee to the shop but if you’re interested in supporting RTR then that money is going directly to the people on which RTR is built.
I don’t disagree that Framework should have a support solution for people who aren’t interested in doing their own diagnostics or repair, just thought I would mention the option.
Hello @Chironjit_Das,
I’ve reviewed the ticket and yes, the gaps in communications is due to our hours of operation. Your responses to our inquiries are coming in our very early morning when we do not have staffing available. We currently do not have 24/7 support given our small size as a company and will be adding a European hour shift in the coming weeks. We always strive to respond with 1 business day.
Your first inquiry into Support stated that you had written in previously and had been waiting 48 hours for a response, but per our system, no ticket was received at that time. You had written in on February 19th, and after a few troubleshooting steps communicated, we moved forward with replacement of the display kit on February 24th. On March 3rd you responded stating that the replacement display kit did not resolve the issue.
At this juncture, based on the troubleshooting steps we’ve provided, there is no known root cause to what you’ve described if the display kit did not resolve your issue. Nothing points to any specific component requiring replacement. The only option at this point is for us to get your original laptop back for diagnostics and refurbishment and send you a new replacement laptop. Please understand that the troubleshooting questions that are asked are to understand whether the issue is hardware or software-related and to narrow down a potential root cause to avoid unnecessary hardware replacement. We’ve been successful in resolving the majority of issues through this troubleshooting. Our agents have been polite and professional in their responses throughout the entire interaction. I understand you are frustrated by your situation, but there were multiple day gaps in responses back to us, and we were already on the path to this final step to potential resolution.
We still have quite a bit of maturing to do as a company (we’re still sub-50 employees globally) and we’ll continue to scale our operations in a way that is in-line with our continued growth to ensure we’re around for the long-term. Our Operations Lead will be responding to your ticket later this morning. Thank you.
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Can confirm support have alwasy responded with a friendly and polite manner and responded within one business day, honestly your team is great in this respect and if this could be matched with more effective communication given the 24hr turnaround (for EU customers) on replies you would be top tier IMO. Currently it kinda reminds me of the inverse of “Lady One Question” from Banzai!
The greatest improvement could be the live chat solution mentioned above, this potentially could help with troubleshooting turnaround time greatly though costly I’m sure… Maybe down the road.
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Live Support requires significantly more resource commitment including redundancy, and I think many underestimate the recurring costs associated with it. We’re still sitting at over 90% CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) lifetime, with an average 5/5 rating in survey responses, so while yes, we can’t meet the support expectations of 100% of our customers, we have to strike a balance in feasible operations and overall customer satisfaction. There will unfortunately always be times where we are unable to meet expectations on an individual basis, but we’ll always work within the guidelines we’re constantly adjusting based on feedback received to provide the best support we can as efficiently as possible.
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@TheTwistgibber I think i have to address some issues that you’re papering over:
Firstly, i’d like to note that yes, your staff have always been courteous and replied appropriately on weekdays. It is also why, I have chosen to write this here, and not have to vent to a customer service person for asking for the POST message the third time or making me jump through hoops again connecting an external display when it was already tried before.
Firstly, if you go through the email trail, everything in the first week could have been done in one email. If you expect us to fix our own laptops, give us the right tools and information.
I don’t want to have to sit down every day, unscrew the laptop and reopen my laptop, pull out the battery, pull out the keyboard, etc another time because you guys couldn’t be bothered to write down the instructions all in one go.
Every day of the first week, i would open your email with another step that could have been done had someone taken the time to write it down in the previous email.
You’ve now replied that you don’t know what the issue is. You could made that call on the first week, because the post code hasn’t changed since then. Its taken you guys 1 week to send a display and its going to take you guys another week to send me the instructions to ship over the laptop? Why couldn’t you just have said that 2 weeks ago?
My key points are:
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I bought the laptop for its repairability, not to have to repair it myself
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If i have to repair it myself, i expect a company claiming “repairability” to offer me the right tools and information to diagnose and fix the issue. For example, no one in the email chain has even told me what the POST code mean, nor is that information even made available.
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At the time frame you’re working on, i will not have a device for more than a month. This is not really any better than any other company that does not have some form of repairability claim. Really, a laptop without access to information and parts is not repairable.
Honestly, this is not the kind of support i’d expect, whether i am a techie or not.
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With or without live support, what i expected:
- Send me all the diagnostic steps if you want me to diagnose it myself
2a) You know what the issue is now: send replacement parts
2b) Don’t know what the issue is: send in the laptop for repair
The point is that your team, either deliberately or otherwise, is dragging out this process, and I am without a device for what now seems will be more than a month
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Honestly, i can understand the turnaround times and timezones. That is all really fair. What i’m shocked is that they have had no idea what the issue is for over 2 weeks, and at no point did they say, “maybe send it in and we’ll have a look”.
The key issue with this is that I am now without a mobile device for almost 3 weeks, and if i have to send it in, i will be without one for what now seems like more than a month. Its affecting my travel plans as i now can’t travel for any meaningful time
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