After rereading my thread with support and nrp’s post above, I think I am now more upset than I started because I feel like there is political maneuvering going on. If you are a new company with a loyal following, you need to admit mistakes, explain them, and make it right. Instead, there is some finger pointing going on both internally (between here, nrp, and support) and externally (blame Intel, manufacturing partner).
The fact nrp solicits users opening support tickets and then support is advising me to sell my machine back to this community makes me feel like they are trying to take advantage of the good will they had previously generated among their supporters (including myself).
Does anyone else think this is the road to generating more waste rather than preventing it?
…that’s because I’ve accepted my fate…at the point where, for this particular issue, there’s nothing to be done in my case. It’s Intel’s issue. For other people, the most they can do is a RTC battery swap, or a board swap…which Framework/nrp mentioned is the path forward.
To me, the past doesn’t matter…it’s the actions going forward that matters now.
In my case, the 11th gen board is a sunk cost. I’ll look to the 12th gen board reviews.
Nope, support said they won’t do this so it’s not available to anyone. This is basically a series of finger pointing with no admission of mistake or actual resolution.
This is why it hits so hard. I was caught up in the Just Cause of framework. I’m on vacation with my family right now - I brought my framework and of course dealt with all of these issues (again) so pretty much my whole vacation has been consumed with researching and reading forums and trying to contact support to find out why I have to deal with this every time I go to use it. This is supposed to be a time of relaxation and yet…
I was inspired and caught up in what framework was supposed to be… There are so few companies these days that you can truly get behind and vote with your wallet. But instead, yes I am feeling a little ignored and a little abused a lot let down.
Ugh, but that’s exactly what I was trying to avoid! I ordered on July 30, 2021. Received the laptop finally in October and only used it a handful of times - each time dealing with these issues and spending time reading and researching, doing resets and bios updates, hoping it was fixed. Now finally find out its a design flaw they won’t own up to, where the only fix is a new laptop (or a new main board they won’t swap or sell me).
At this point it’s a year of “hopium” and frustration and it seems like framework wants me to just get rid of the laptop so they don’t have to deal with this issue. Most expensive beta test of all time - both in money but also frustration and emotional investment destroyed.
I get it. I absolutely get it. Trust me…I’ve been there mentally, emotionally, financially…
I do wish they have an old-board trade-in program. At the moment, all 11th gen customers are just suckers and guinea pigs (myself included)…willing ones too, unfortunately. It’s definitely a lesson learnt…don’t buy gen 1 products…ever. Now, I’m just going to wait it out, and see how the 12th gen boards play out. Going back to ThinkPads, or Precisions, or zBooks in the meantime…people who really CAN build laptops.
You’ll be better off just cut your loses…and save your sanity and mental health. At least, that’s what I’ve decided on. Hope you’ll find peace.
By the way, since it’s an Intel silicon bug, it must also affect other brands as well. Has anyone found any mention of this anywhere else? Specifically, how are other brands handling this?
Well, that probably went as well as could be expected.
They openly admitted that there was a problem, gave (sparse) technical details about the cause, and offered to work to resolve the problem for people who were having serious problems.
Some of us said “Great! Was that so hard?!” and a few of the more passionate of us are still deeply dissatisfied.
I’m sure that’s part of why they were hesitant to communicate about this in the first place – but I’ll heartily put myself in the “Thanks!” group and hope that this motivates them to keep the open communication coming.
Sure, I wish they had a quadrillion clams in their back pocket to add “free Gen 12 for all that want it!” to the message … but I knew exactly what I was getting into with a startup disruptive company and I’m certainly not wanting or expecting them to do that. I just want them to do whatever they can to fix the problem, and if they can’t find a solution then just acknowledge the crappy situation, apoligize and do whatever they can to make sure it isn’t repeated.
If you guys ever need a beta tester to give a free laptop to, you know where to go!
Overall I’m satisfied.
But luckily I don’t have a consistent problem with mine, so that’s easy to say!
I use my laptop only occasionally and this is a painful/tedious/annoying issue for me, where my laptop will sit unused in its bag for months at a time. I use the also painful/tedious/annoying practice of having to reboot into BIOS and enable the battery disconnect feature every time I shut the system down, otherwise a month later when I pull the system out of its bag, the mains battery will be hugely discharged (causing more recharge/discharge cycles and shortening the life of the battery). And to add even more joy to the process, I now have to dig out my AC adapter every time and plug it in, or it won’t boot when you last shut it down with Battery Disconnect enabled.
At this point, I would gladly return my laptop for a refund if I wasn’t so far out side the return period. This issue really sucks and Framework will get nothing but bad press and bad word of mouth from me.
I can not in good conscience use or recommend a product with these kind of painful usage issues, especially considering the number and variety of other laptops I’ve used in 30+ years of software development that did not suffer from any of these problems.
I love what Framework is trying to do for the industry, but at the end of the day, I need a laptop that doesn’t ask me to stand on one foot every other tuesday and sacrifice a chicken just to get it to boot.
It’s understandable for people to be upset and Framework has consistently dodged all the threads on their boards around the issue until now. Now that 12th gen has rolled out they can safely acknowledge the issue because it wouldn’t hurt future sales. I don’t buy laptops often so spending the same price or more than established manufacturers only to be told later my parts have a defect is frustrating.
I am confused by nrp’s response and agree with @d_p, because it’s not a rare occurrence like they keep stating; ask anyone who doesn’t charge every single week. It was never explained in the site guides why this was needed because in doing so would put them in a spot where they might take a financial hit (loss of sales, warranty, outright returns).
I also fail to understand how it helps us to swap a defective board for another defective board. This seems to be just a hollow gesture to hopefully get everyone to stop talking about the issue.
I understand that this issue is incredibly frustrating for those who are experiencing it. We likely never will know the details of the content and timing of responses. I don’t find speculation as to motive to be helpful for previously mentioned reasons. This is not intended to brush aside the frustration of those who are having the problem. I understand and agree that it would be maddening.
Moving on, I am fortunate to have two framework laptops - my daily driver, and a family machine. I pulled out the family machine yesterday, booted it up without connecting to power, and found that the last shutdown date was 5/20. I believe that that is correct, but I’ll leave it until the end of the month to see if it fires back up. So I am lucky that I am not experiencing this issue. My daily driver is batch one, the family machine batch six. I am happy to test things out on the secondary machine to see if there is a trigger for the issue. Not that I want to experience it, but that I’d like to help. When I am done using it I shut it down fully. I believe that lines up with what I’ve seen from others who have the problem. That machine has 2x usb-c and 2x usb-a. I’ll see where the charge is on the main battery when I fire it up in a couple of weeks.
Factually true. But if the defect is coming from Intel, then I’m not exactly sure what Framework can do… Unless “Intel silicon bug” only occurs on some batches of Tiger Lake, and we’re expected to somehow go through silicon lottery to get a processor without the bug? i.e. If it’s not a fault of Framework, then I don’t think they should take the hit (financially) / heat.
So, I’ve been trying to find if this “silicon bug” issue is mentioned elsewhere, but I’m not able to find anything. It should be happening with other brands’ laptops too, right? I wonder how they’re dealing with it.
Making a broad assumption, I’d assume it would be less of an issue for other brands if they have lower power consumption RTC battery circuits, and the typical larger RTC batteries that would last much longer than the ones present in Framework laptops. They might last long enough though that it would become a problem in 4 years instead of 10 for laptops that don’t have this silicon defect.
I guess my questioning technique didn’t come through as apparent.
Framework is now pointing the finger to Intel. Other brands don’t seem to be having this issue. …see where I’m going?
(trust me, I’m sceptical as fxxx as to who’s actually responsible…but we now know it’s a hardware issue…and one that Framework has been trying to shy from publicly commenting on for months.)
Imagine if a well known Youtuber bring Intel into this…it could trigger a wider discussion.
I’m just cutting my loses with the 11th gen board at the moment…can’t really be bothered to battle it out. Just going to wait and see what the next gen will be like.
Also, I’m slightly bias here in the sense that I want / we need Framework to survive …and become mainstream approach to consumer electronics design. I much rather seeing improvements in the next gen, than to get bogged down in the past.
i.e. The benefit of the doubt has been given…for 1 generation (approx $1500 CAD).
I need Framework to continue on fulfilling their mission statement now that they’ve admitted to hardware issue.
If I’m paying a significant amount of money for a laptop that is being marketed as premium I expect bugs like these to have been ironed out as it affects usability. Other manufacturers received the same chips but don’t have the same issues. I don’t understand why Framework could not have designed around the problem before releasing the product. Surely they must have known there were issues. Disappointing to say the least.
Yes. Totally agree. And your expectation was also mine as well, but I came to the conclusion that, for me, 11th gen mainboard is a trial run for Framework… Which led them to Series A…and now 12th gen board.
The public will not truly know if this was a known issue or not…unless a class-action is filed. For now, Framework is saying it wasn’t a known issue.
Consider the price paid is kind of like a kickstarter thing…1st gen being 90% baked here…which is better/more than a lot of other kickstarter projects.
This issue is a deal breaker for some, not so much for others. So the ‘impact’ is user-dependent / usage-pattern dependent…luckily(?).
I’m hoping that if we look back at this, say, 3 years from now, that we made the right choice to support Framework. It would be a real tragedy for such a drastic industry change potential to fall apart on such a small issue (in the grand scheme of things).
On the bright side…if you charge / dock it regularly, they it’s a mostly decent unit. (Not a trusted mobile unit though unfortunately)