Hey all, I’m using a Framework 16 (Windows 11) as a daily driver and gaming PC. Recently, my laptop has become borderline unusable. Even with nothing open, moving my cursor lags the computer, and it takes extremely long to open anything, even the start menu. I tried restarting the computer several times, and to make matters worse that’s when I realized even the boot times became gruelingly slow.
My first thought was this must be malware so I did a clean reset and reinstall of Windows (this also took a grueling amount of time), and no luck. The PC basically can’t run anymore. Even in the Windows Hello and set up process it was borderline unusable. Now I’m thinking this was a hardware issue and I’m unsure of what to do next.
Contact support and start a ticket with them and explain the symptoms.
In the mean time, try creating an Ubuntu or Fedora USB and boot into a Live mode. If the system still responds the same then it is likely hardware related. If not then it is a software issue with Windows.
There are more nefarious forms of malware that will reinfect a system if reinstallation is not done from clean media and fully wiping a drive. These are sometimes known as rootkits.
Other things to try is disconnecting all but the critical expansions cards to operate the machine and revert back to the basic expansion shell.
What’s the best way to go about wiping my SSDs while my PC is borderline bricked like this? The Windows reset process basically doesn’t work anymore. Anyway to do it from BIOS?
Use a USB stick to boot Ubuntu or Fedora. Use the gnome disk utility (or any other disk management software) and WIPE ALL partitions on your internal SSD. Then write the USB stick Windows installation and install Windows onto your SSD (the installer should partition the disk automatically)
There is slight possibility this issue is related to liquid metal, if you have on of the older framework 16’s that shipped with liquid metal it can leak out and leave exposed spots on the cpu leading to overheating and crashing. Might also be a failing SSD. The suggestions other have made are a good start, try booting a Linux live from a USB stick and see if it is still very sluggish and slow.
Unfortunately there is not a built in disk utility in the UEFI bios.
If you have access to another computer using the guide here is the updated one for creating the latest Microsoft Media Creation tool with the extra step of downloading the ZIP file and copying it to the USB drive after the Microsoft Media Creation Tool is done.
Please note the ZIP file MUST be extracted and then copied to the USB drive. Copying the ZIP file to the drive will not help when Windows gets to the step of asking to search for additional drivers to find a WiFi card.
Just as a reminder, the Media Creation tool WILL wipe the USB drive it is installed on. (Hence the need to copy the extracted WiFi driver package after the tool is complete)
It did occur to me later tonight after reading what @turbo5546 said; those are common symptoms of a SSD failing too. Especially the cursor suddenly stopping, and then moving at a random time later. Before diving into a lot of this it might be a good idea to download the software from the drive manufacturer to test the drive and see if it is reporting errors.
Even if it is reporting SMART errors and it says it is ok; the drive’s days are numbered.
@Charlie_6 suggested the most solid approach to wipe the drive partitions to make sure it is starting with a clean slate. Though, if it is a hardware issue (SSD going bad, something on the mainboard etc. ) the same issues are going to persist just to be clear. Having a USB with Ubuntu or Fedora so one can boot to SOMETHING other than the laptop SSD has come in really handy a number of times. This has saved my bacon numerous times and is a regular part of my toolkit for working on computers.
Quick Update on my situation: Annoyingly the issue semi-solved itself in a weird way. I tried another windows reset and cloud reinstallation, opting to fully wipe the drives, and it got stuck again for a while at 1%. At that point I gave up and expected my pc to just be bricked or a lost cause, so I shut it down mid process and booted it up again to see what would happen. It actually booted normally and was working normally too. I took the opportunity to make it reset again, and I noticed it was no longer lagging the screen or loading circle if I used the touchpad. This time, the reset actually went through and I was able to reinstall windows.
However, there’s still issues. First, I noticed I had BIOS 4.2 so I updated to 4.3 and installed the driver packages. Upon booting after the driver and BIOS updates, my PC was getting bad black screens and CRITICAL_PROCESS_ERROR messages. I ran DISM and sfc commands which found corrupt files and repaired them, and then I got a day of my computer working normally and as intended.
The issue is, the black screens keep returning. PC will randomly restart with CRITICAL_PROCESS_ERROR message and force a restart. Repairing the corrupt system files won’t work so now I’m worried this is a hardware issue now. I just booted the PC back up from the black screen restart, ran sfc /scannow again and no corruption was detected.
My frustration is in the lack of a diagnosis to why this is happening and the inconsistency of the symptoms. Any and all advice is appreciated
This definitely should not be happening. This is something the Support team is best equipped to look into, since they can check your hardware details and guide you through the right steps.
To get in touch with them, you can do the following:
From the forums, click Support at the top of the page.
Scroll all the way down.
Click Submit support request and fill out the form.
Then Submit it at the bottom.
Once that’s in, the Support team will review everything and get back to you as soon as possible. If anything else comes up or you need help finding the right page, just let us know.
I think this is maybe a known problem where the cpu clock gets stuck at 544Mhz
So, look at the cpu clocks using amdgpu_top or similar.
A temp fix is then:
I think I found the source of the problem. I was able to get the laptop back in working order only after installing Windows on my secondary 2 TB ssd. This leads me to believe the primary SSD was the issue and has started dying and was the cause of my problems a few days ago when the computer started randomly dying on me. I realized this after installing a steam game on my 1 TB SSD, which used to be my primary. After attempting a launch, it completely sent the laptop haywire. Screen going black, windows explorer errors, etc.
What should my next steps be? Would replacing this SSD and not using it completely solve my issues? Also, any tips on diagnosing what’s wrong with the SSD would be appreciated. I downloaded Crystal Disk Viewer and also used Windows’ build-in disk scanner and neither of them are able to diagnose any issues. The SSD isn’t in use and there’s no longer anything installed on it so I’m not surprised about that.
I made a ticket with support several days ago, this is a copy paste of an update I sent to them when I realized my (formerly) primary SSD was most likely the culprit.
Windows built-in tools and the Crystal Disk Viewer are not necessarily going to tell you that the drive is failing. Download the tools from the Western Digital (I think it is owned by SanDisk now) website and have it diagnose the drive. Though, it is safe to say that it is failing and its days are numbered. It likely is still under warranty, so contacting Western Digital for a replacement would be the next move.
If the Framework is still under warranty then they might replace it too.
too. Especially the cursor suddenly stopping, and then moving at a random time later. Before diving into a lot of this it might be a good idea to download the software from the drive manufacturer to test the drive and see if it is reporting errors.
suggested the most solid approach to wipe the drive partitions to make sure it is starting with a clean slate. Though, if it is a hardware issue (SSD going bad, something on the mainboard etc. 
numerous times and is a regular part of my toolkit for working on computers. 