You can still do that, at least clevo had a laptop that took am4 cpus (so you can stick a 100+w 16 core in there if you wanted to) but you do get a desktop cpu. Hell the beefier amd laptop cpus are straight up just the desktop ones with slightly different profiles. This however comes at a cost not everyone is willing to pay, mostly bulk and low load power efficiency.
Id love to have an in between, something the size of an x260 but filled with battery and heatsinks instead of the old mainboard. And edge to edge display of course XD.
Unfortunately, one thing is soldering a tiny BGA, another is soldering a full CPU, it is a huge component that needs a specialized SMD rework station and great skills to correctly solder the thousands of pads/balls.
Most affordable SMD rework stations have a head that is too small to heat up (or even hold) the whole CPU. Another way you could go is a full board reflow but it will shorten your components’ life (there is a recommended maximum number of reflows for sensitive components) and that needs either specialized equipment or a janky diy oven (even though I wouldn’t reccomend it for CPU solder jobs hahaha)
Likely the price to swap a mobile soldered CPU is higher than buying a new motherboard.
Yeah I’ve watched BGA CPU/GPU reworkings and it’s a real skill to do. Lots of practice and attention to detail.
Again this is fanciful nonsense to ask for this type of thing. We won’t see socketed mobile cpus ever again unless someone like the EU mandates it as an option or for all.
How’s the repairability of board level repairs if other components, not the CPU itself, fail, compared to other laptops? Since it’s much more economical and eco friendly to repair said components compared to replacing the whole motherboard
I think (I’m not someone who has performed any board level repairs, just parroting what I’ve heard) that from a physical standpoint the board itself isn’t meaningfully easier to repair (although some laptops have memory/storage soldered to the board so this is more repairable than those laptop).
The big difference is that Framework has done a lot more in terms of releasing schematics, which helps a lot with the process of determining what part of the board needs to be repaired and how to repair it. They haven’t publicly released complete schematics (some of the components on the boards are from companies that want to protect their IP by not allowing schematics showing those components to be published so they prevent Framework from doing so), however they have released detailed schematics to repair shops (that sign agreements to not share stuff) as well as some public schematics with some details redacted.
Ironically it’s probably easier to get the schematics for other laptops (just floating around on the internet for the more common models like thinkpads and latitudes or paying a couple bucks to some sketchy sites for the less common ones) than this one even if you aren’t supposed to get those at all but you can get them if you are a repair shop and sign an nda and stuff. Honestly not a big fan of that situation but I can somewhat understand it as framework didn’t design the board themselves. I do hope they improve that situation in the future.
From what I can see without the schematic there are very few “unobtanium” parts on the board and the chips that need firmware have that at least technically available.
(Notice: my post was moved from another thread “Changing the CPU of the Framework Mainboards”)
Hi folks.
Someone has probably thought about this already, but I’d like to ask if are there any plans for future Framework mainboards to support CPU upgrades / changing?
Replacing the entire mainboard just to upgrade the CPU feels like an unnecessary waste of energy and resources. This isn’t only about cost / money; it’s also about sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Hopefully, all major components will be replaceable in the future, including the mainboard chipset and / or discrete GPU and / or other anyPUs that could be included in the same mainboad.
There is no way to swap mainboard CPUs due to the way mobile CPUs work.
Mobile CPUs are soldered onto the motherboard using a BGA (Ball-Grid Array) connection. This means that to upgrade the CPU, you would need equipment that costs way more than a simple mainboard upgrade (SMD Rework Station, Solder Paste, CPU Socket Stencil, Microscope?, etc) and is out of the scope of experience of most people.
The BGA socket usually changes with every new CPU generation (like how CPU sockets change once every 2 generations), so even if you had all the equipment you could basically only upgrade from an i5 to an i7 of the same generation. You would not be able to upgrade to a newer generation.
It seems like users and tech enthusiasts could start campaigns urging companies to maintain socket standards for longer product lifespans, only changing the socket when absolutely necessary.
Switching socket standards without real need is a tactic that fuels consumerism and planned obsolescence.
We could questioning more why so many components are soldered instead of using sockets. Even with mobile CPUs, it’s possible to use socketed designs. Some older laptops allow CPU upgrades precisely because they use sockets.
This is an important topic, and we need to discuss it more.
The production of electronic components has a significant environmental impact and creates numerous challenges worldwide that affect everyone. It’s crucial to increase awareness around these issues.
If a company begins producing mainboards with socketed mobile CPUs, this approach could be more economical, attracting consumers with the potential for low-cost future upgrades.
To drive change in the market, it’s essential to create affordable solutions. By offering lower-cost options that prioritize people and environmental care, products that embody these values become more accessible and practical.
This creates a win-win-win scenario: companies benefits, consumers benefits, and the environment benefits, promoting health, well-being, productivity and prosperity.
For several generations Intel mobile CPUs were produced in both socketed and soldered variants. The market at large chose soldered CPUs due to price (connectors carrying the requisite signal speeds are quite expensive) and thickness.
I consider Framework’s compromise of making motherboard replacements relatively cheap and easy to perform to be reasonable. Even if Framework wanted to use socketed CPUs, though, they’d have a hard time convincing Intel to make them. I’m not sure I’d consider that likely in the short-term anyway, as physically fitting a socketed CPU would likely require a thicker chassis, meaning they’d have to either make both socketed and soldered motherboards or leave previous-generation owners behind.
I think it wouldn’t be too difficult to design mainboards with socketed mobile CPUs.
Instead of soldering the CPU, a solution like the “CPU correct frame” could be used, similar to the product linked below:
This would allow the CPU to sit flush against the board, much like a soldered connection, without significantly altering the thickness of the final chassis.
Therefore, we could design a prototype mainboard with these characteristics: we buy the CPU (not soldered) and simply fit it into the mainboard. That’s it.
We could design a generic prototype where the CPU and the mainboard chipset (perhaps in the second step) are integrated using this solution. We can buy the CPU and the chipset in separated (not soldered) and simply fit it into the mainboard. That’s it.
Sadly, the majority of the market does not want this (indirectly). Many people want a thin and light laptop to carry around and soldered everything is how manufacturers have decided to approach this.
Most people do not care much about the upgradeability of their laptops, so it usually leads to the manufacturers getting away with the cheapest way to do something for the most benefit, hence soldered down CPUs. This has evolved now to the entire mobile market using soldered down CPUs and CPU vendors catering to that segment.
Yes, @Elliot_Lu, I recognize this process. Thank you.
Part of the issue also lies in the “convenience” and “lack of awareness” among consumers.
However, we could take a different approach.
Just as Framework has begun reviving the concept of interchangeable parts like RAM and GPU (Framework 16), and the innovation of swappable connectors, we can take it a step further by reintroducing CPU upgrades, along with innovations in chipset upgrades and beyond.
Step by step, we can shift the paradigms.
We initially need to improve the design for a more efficient and affordable solution.
To be fair to the component makers you are showing a “lack of awareness” about how modern electronic systems work. Taken to the extreme you would want to have the modern high speed CPU still using 8 bit 256MB SIMM modules - i.e. things just don’t work like that. As CPUs change the interface with other components change and require different signal speeds, different interface voltage levels, different clocking systems, and different number of I/O bit widths. You just cannot make a CPU socket that will handle all these things, while maintaining signal integrity across unsoldered signal paths while having the required number of I/O pins. You will NOT get reliable PCIe 10GHz signal paths without a lot of work. That is why in compact systems such as a laptop everything gets locked down as far as possible, and if a joint can be soldered, then that is what happens. You only need to peruse the threads in this forum to see the people having problems with RAM sockets, think how much worse this would be with socketed CPUs where the PCIe channels are running at 2-3x the speed of RAM signals.