Rework Instructions for 11th Gen Mainboards to enable powering the RTC circuit from the main battery

Community Support
135

This looks totally doable. Waiting for a link to buy it.

136

And this is the hardest part of any electronic product especially for FW.

137

We’ll be sending the module for free by request to folks on 11th Gen who have run into needing to perform the reset on their Mainboards and who prefer and have the ability to solder this module rather than receiving a new coin cell. It will still take us some time to get this process started, as we need to position the parts at our warehouses for fulfillment.

13 Likes
138

Thanks for this fix. Please let us know when we are able to request it

1 Like
139

Probably will be on request via support.

140

10 posts were split to a new topic: Confusion over login on guides.frame.work

143

So the part will only be available on request through support instead of general sale on the marketplace? Is there an expected time we can start filling a ticket?

149

Josh,

I saw the steps and as others have commented, soldering on an expensive motherboard is an exercise in courage or foolhardiness or a piece of cake for those who pride themselves on their tech savvy. Or, in my case, as a total newbie, a jump into the unknown.

Glass half empty for putting the onus on the user for fixing a Framework design mistake, yet half full for admitting that mistake and coming up with a solution.

1 Like
152

alowndar,

As near as I can tell from the posts here, if you want the fix you are required to ask for it from Support. Not sure.

153

That is correct. It will be available at no charge by request once they have them in stock in quantity. nrp has said he will let us know once they are available.

154

I wasn’t worried about paying, I just don’t want to open a ticket and have to do the reset run around/guide ping pong with tech just to prove I can get one.

I would hope it’s as easy as providing the original order number to confirm the purchase of an 11 gen board. That’d be great.

1 Like
155

Completely agree. I think we’ve endured enough with this problem. Making us jump through extra hoops just to get a fix that everyone with a 11th gen board needs eventually is a bit of a stretch…
Please reconsider your workflow here. Request through support yes, but troubleshooting steps back and forth no…

3 Likes
156

Have they said they will require troubleshooting steps back and forth in order to receive this module? I know at other times they were suggesting troubleshooting steps while they worked on a solution, but hopefully they won’t require a lot of messing around for those who want this module in order to perform this modification. It didn’t sound to me like they will, but we’ll see I suppose.

1 Like
157

FWIW, I submitted a ticket and got boilerplate answer to ask for a new coin battery to be sent out. So, the short answer as far as I know, is Support has not yet set up a system for the fake battery solution for I5 users.

158

Re-read what Nrp last said.

He did not say it’s available right now, and he did not direct anyone to contact support to try to get one. Support is handling very high loads right now. Status of Framework Support (July 31st, 2023)

Framework will let us know when the fulfillment warehouses are stocked, and how to request one when it’s time to.

3 Likes
159

Folks, please read Nirav’s message. This new single-solder point alternative is NOT ready yet and our Support team is unable to provide either the alternative, or timing, as there’s still work to be done to make it available. Our team will continue to offer a new RTC after troubleshooting determines that the original has been deep-cycled too many times.

@MJ1 is 100% correct. We’ll let the Community know when it’s ready and the part is available in our Service centers. Thank you for your continued patience.

8 Likes
160

Yes, they have. NRP said (emphasis mine):

This means you need to meet an even higher requirement to get the board. There are two separate issues that manifest differently:

  1. Your button battery could fail and then your laptop won’t boot if its been off a charger for 10 minutes. This doesn’t require a mainboard reset to fix, all you need is a replacement button battery.
  2. You could hit the small percent chance that the low voltage on the RTC line causes the machine to become unbootable until you reset the mainboard. This state is different from #1 because plugging in a charger won’t make your laptop boot if you hit this state.

NRP’s post says you have to be in camp #2. Perhaps he misspoke, idk, but I doubt they’re going to be more loose with handing out custom small-volume circuit boards than they are mass-produced standardized dirt cheap batteries, so at a minimum you can expect the same hurdles those of us in camp #1 have had to jump through, which include:

  1. Tell them when the issue started
  2. Estimate how long your laptop was left unplugged before the issue started
  3. Tell them which charger(s) you are using including make, model, and power output
  4. Check that you are on the latest firmware and take a photo to prove that you are
  5. Perform the full mainboard reset anyway (even though you don’t need it if you’re in camp #1)
  6. While your button battery is removed, take a clear photo of the button battery holder
  7. While your main battery is disconnected, take a clear photo of the allegedly super fragile main battery connector to see if you damaged it.
  8. Take a photo of your mainboard with “the sticker/shroud removed”
  9. Put everything back together
  10. Charge for 24 hours

That is unless Framework finally realizes that every interaction we have with their customer support is rapidly draining the enthusiasm we had for this once-loved product.

(PS, the whole process took 12 days, 3.93 of which was time waiting for framework to respond on email and 4.68 of which was shipping time. The rest of the time was time waiting on me.)

4 Likes
161

At this point, you may just want to download the files from GitHub and go to PCBWay or something and get it made yourself. Will probably be faster than waiting for and going through support to obtain one.

162

You guys sure encourage Framework to be public about developing and testing things like this in the future.

And I’m sure if they had rushed it out and there were problems that they didn’t get to work out, you’d give them hell for rushing.

These things take time. I suspect everyone will live.

11 Likes
163

Is there a possibility to have this workaround and a coin cell? I am afraid if the battery is empty, the BIOS settings will reset.