Review of hardware durability and repair (1.5 years)

Framework Laptop 13
43

I thought I was bad. My laptop gets lugged through rainforests, banged up in cities, dropped, and abused, but you definitely beat up your laptop.

I started with a FW 11th gen batch 5. Have since done the following:

  • Replaced defective hinges (under warranty)
  • Replaced the microphone/camera unit (microphone stopped working)
  • Replaced the power button. (That one was on me. I messed up the wire while replacing the hinges)
  • Upgraded to the CNC cover
  • Upgraded to AMD 7840 (turned the 11th gen into a standalone machine with the CoolerMaster case).

Overall, I’m pretty much in line with @TJ1. My Thinkpad X1 Carbons have been much more durable. But the ability to upgrade and evolve the FW is hard to beat: with the AMD upgrade/CoolerMaster, my one FW has now replaced two X1 Carbons.

And the FW has been far more robust than my XPS13s.

5 Likes
44

Ha, I thought you had done more to yours than I did! Hmmm…since you upgraded to the CNC cover, I probably should do that, too.

I don’t think it would really take more than a couple of mm and some engineering around the corner areas to make it much closer to indestructible. It would also allow more battery life and even the thinkpad keyboard that half the lurkers have been waiting for.

Yes, perhaps the backlighting is the problem that causes the weardown. If this one wears out, then the next replacement I’ll get blank ansi. So this test will take about 5 more years…

45

I agree. The corners tend to take brunt of the (numerous) falls. Mine are still in good shape, but I put that down to luck more than anything else.

1 Like
46

My definition is “droppage is a regular part of the life of my electronics. That isn’t harsh.” Accidentally sitting or stepping on it might be a bit over the top.

Mine’s definitely been banged up and rained on. My laptop bag isn’t cushioned–I have a cushioned sleeve, but then I have to worry about getting it in our out of the sleeve, and I’m basically lazy about that sort of activity.

Crumbs and ingredients on the keyboard are a thing. I do chocolate for a living, so that’s just part of the game. I usually flip the laptop over and gently tap it a few times, but occasionally the compressed air comes into play.

My FW is in surprisingly good condition. Keyboard is completely readable and everything’s working properly. I have Dbrand skins on to protect the beast–especially the input cover. You wouldn’t be able to guess the amount of abuse it takes by looking at it.

3 Likes
47

You abuse it by looking at it ??? :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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48

Are those costs just the sum of costs or have you applied some kind of discount rate (e.g. inflation or interest rates)?

How is the battery doing after almost 3 years?

49

Sum of costs with no adjustments.

From upowerd --dump, it looks like 83%. I’m surprised the cycle count is so low. I did reset the motherboard roughly a year ago, so the count might be double? Or perhaps it only counts full discharges.

    energy-full:         45.4916 Wh
    energy-full-design:  55.0088 Wh
    energy-rate:         8.8704 W
    voltage:             16.102 V
    charge-cycles:       108

Edit: Just recently changed the firmware to limit the charging to 85%. Not sure if that really makes a difference as the battery is already around 80%.

51

You’d best believe it.

53

I can only say….yikes

3 Likes
54

If it’s only done so few cycles it sounds like it’s used mostly plugged in. If it hasn’t seen a full discharge-charge cycle, it’s more of a wild guess at the capacity than what it actually is.

1 Like
55

My FW’s currently spending the day under a tornado warning in the Florida panhandle. I thought it needed a little breeze and humidity to help clean the keyboard.

8 Likes
56

Now have 32GB RAM. Thought this should be documented in this thread because Framework made a one-time exception to replace the original 16GB module.

In June 2023, I was having some issues looked like a disk / memory issue, so I bought another disk and ram. Turns out it was fixed by a motherboard reset, but the RAM did turn out to be bad, so I replaced it.

And last month, I finally initiated an RMA with Crucial. Only problem was that I needed an invoice which shows the I purchased the RAM. The original invoice doesn’t show that it is Crucial RAM, so I had to contact support to get an invoice I could use with Crucial.

Seems like someone had done it before:

For some reason, over a series of emails spanning a week or more, I got back various responses, none of which addressed the problem at hand. I even included the forum link above. Perhaps my request was too confusing, but the first two responses were:

  • how to download the invoice
  • how to apply for an RMA at Crucial

However, on the 3rd try someone understood my request. Instead of providing an invoice and then dealing with Crucial, they made an exception to RMA the RAM directly.

Process started on 2024-04-05, escalated on 2024-04-10, ack’d by RMA team on 2024-04-12, new ram arrived on 2024-04-16.

Went to ship the old ram back the next week, and to my surprise, I didn’t have to pay for return shipping. So a bit frustrating to start, but all is well that ends well.

3 Likes