Hello all,
Got my Framework Desktop yesterday and finished the hardware setup last night. As someone who’s been building PCs for a long time, the whole process was as easy as expected and the small QOL touches, like the removable top panel for quick access to the fan headers are awesome. Great job, Framework!
Now, onto the install issues I ran into.
I’ve got an older monitor on my tech bench with HDMI and DVI inputs. The HDMI is tied to a dedicated bench PC, and the DVI cable just hangs around for one-off projects. I plugged that DVI cable into a DVI→DisplayPort adapter and connected it to the Desktop.
I could get into the BIOS just fine, but any time I tried to boot from either a Ventoy USB or an Ubuntu 25.10 installer, the graphics wouldn’t come up. Ubuntu would only display anything if I used the “Safe Graphics” (or whatever the third option is) mode—otherwise, nothing. I swapped to another monitor with the same kind of DVI→DP setup that’s been working on an AMD mini-PC for over a year, and had the exact same issue.
Finally, I switched to the HDMI input on my bench monitor—and boom, everything worked perfectly.
So, PSA for anyone seeing blank/black screens when trying to load Ubuntu or Ventoy: be careful using DisplayPort adapters with old DVI-only monitors. Not sure if this is something BIOS-related or just a signaling quirk, but worth keeping in mind.
Happy Holidays!