please do not take any actions that are not suggested by the support team.
That is not fair on anyone. Having had a screw manufacturer as a customer when I was doing computer support, I can attest that there will be a percentage of screws that come off the automatic machines with defects - it is a fact of life. The assemblers won’t neccessarily identify a faulty screw when fitting it, and that results in the unfortunate situation you have. If you haven’t already, get a support case open, and let them deal with things. I suspect that if you had a support request in you would have it fixed with a replacement unit about now, if you don’t have a support request then you have doubled the time your laptop is going to be down.
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I put one in right away and haven’t heard a thing yet.
I believe we presumed it was the Framework 16 since that is the only one that has more than one SSD slot. I think the culprits were all the screws for the 2280 slots I remember people having issues with.
I recall unscrewing mine on the FW16 and it felt a little strange like it had been overtightened. I was careful to not tighten it back that tight after installing my 2230 and 2280 modules.
The screws for the FW16 are in the Marketplace.
Here is the list:
Summary
This kit contains:
Display fasteners (Black):
M 2.0mm fastener with a T5 head, which is 4.5mm diameter and 0.5mm thick (x19)
Camera and Mainboard fasteners (Black):
M 1.5mm fastener with a T5 head, which is 5.5mm diameter and 0.6mm thick (x9)
Touchpad and Fingerprint Reader fasteners (Black):
M2 1.8mm fastener with a Philips #0 head, which is 4.0mm diameter and 0.4 mm thick (x17)
Input Connector Board and small Input Module fasteners (Silver):
M 1.0mm fastener with a Phillip #0 head, which is 3.5mm diameter and 0.25mm thick (x24)
Expansion Bay Shell and Graphics Module fasteners (Gold):
M 3.0mm fastener with a T5 head, which is 4.5mm diameter and 0.7mm thick (x13)
Hinge fasteners (Black):
M 3.5mm fastener with a T5 head, which is 4.5mm diameter and 0.5mm thick (x9)
Bottom Cover fasteners (Black):
M 2.8mm fastener with a T5 head, which is 5.5mm diameter and 0.8mm thick (x8)
Storage fasteners (Gold):
M 1.4mm fastener with a T5 head, which is 4.5mm diameter and 0.6mm thick (x7)"
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Screws are usually designed (or should be) that they fail first. This means rather damage the screw like the threading inside. Issue is when they are a bit over engineered…
Also, shouldn’t there be spare screws?
So for the record, the support proposed to send a replacing mainboard for that issue
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Yes that has happened now, and really there wouldn’t be another solution. Pretty expensive price for them to pay for cheaping out on screws though. (never seen a screw break like that, and it being as frequent as it seems to be out of a relatively small production volume suggests bad design or bad materials, not just a reasonable expectation that “well, some itty bitty percent are going to fail”)
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This is also one of if not THE most transparent laptop build process from both the manufacturer and the customer side since we have this nice little community forum. So though one’s personal experience has NEVER had a screw break like this, we don’t really know if this does or does not happen within the same “percentage of error” for other laptop manufacturers. And given the issue with the macro pad suppliers earlier, we can see that even when Framework takes all of the right steps to get parts for their laptops, ultimately they could have paid for high quality screws, and the supplier sent out a bad batch. Especially since these screws are miniscule, there might be one box that fits in one hand with the SSD screws for a few thousand FW16s, and if that’s a bad batch, That doesn’t mean Framework cheaped out, but they may be having a discussion with their screw supplier in the near future.
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Same here, so frustrating. I’m waiting for supports response…
Hm, tried several photos of the broken srew head, but no matter which one I upload they are all like this…
But it looks exactly like the one from the post from amoun just above mine. [edit: initially wrong quoted photo]
I am eager to try to get it out, but I’m also afraid ob breaking at it’s neck, what would make it comletely impossible to remove, at least for me 0.o
a) fixed that, I mean your post just above mine.
b)transferred via nextcloud, so their shouldn’t be a problem there. Tried both, drag’n drop & upload button, same problem.
But still, it looks exactly the same as the only photo so far in this thread.
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If the top of the screw is proud of the bush then get some old end cutters (like electronics side cutters but with the cutting edges at right angles to the handles) and use those to grip the end of the screw while turning it.
If the screw is sub-flush with the top of the bush then sometimes it is possible to use a pointed object like the point of an old school compass to dig into one side of the screw while tapping the other end of the compass to make the screw turn.
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Sorry to hear that you are having issues. I will say that your assertion that “they’d rather spend their time on new orders instead of helping people who have already placed and paid for their orders but are having trouble” makes some assumptions which may be incorrect.
They will get back to you. Sending additional emails will not speed things up; in fact, it may slow it down. I am not a Framework employee, so I do not have inside knowledge, but it sounds like their system may use some sort of “timer” and additional emails reset that timer, One can argue about whether that is reasonable or not, but it seems to be how this system functions currently.
If you are uncomfortable with a product for which support is handled via email, then this may not be a good fit for you.
With all of that said, from what I have seen in the forum around this issue, it likely will involve a mainboard swap. That’s a pain for the consumer and for the company, so I expect that behind the scenes they are working to figure out what is causing this and put a stop to it. In the mean time, if you are comfortable doing so, you could tape down the nvme drive where the screw would go, so that you can use the system until you get things resolved.
Again, sorry to hear that you are having issues. Best of luck getting things resolved, whichever path you choose. Have a great day!
Thank for your input. The assumption I made was based on the auto-generated email they send after you contact them. The wording they chose in the email makes it sound like they’re too busy to reply in a timely manner because they’re inundated with new orders. Perhaps they could word that differently since that’s what I took from it. And I haven’t emailed twice, I emailed once, and submitted a support ticket once. If those go to the same box and restart a counter, then I have no way of knowing that. And I do agree with you that perhaps this isnt a good fit for me. I am a very patient person and never complain about things. But not being able to get an answer quicker than a week does bother me a bit and makes me uneasy as to what kind of company I bought from. I was nervous to begin with because I had never heard of them before, but my son assured me they are legit. I agree also with taping it down, and my son thought of that, but I had no idea what they will want us to do, and I was afraid to do anything more with the laptop until I could speak with someone about it in case they would want us to send the entire thing back, unused. And additionally I shouldn’t have to tape up a brand new, out-of
-the-box, $1800 laptop.
Here’s my take. Take it for what it is worth. Maybe zero, maybe more than zero, maybe less than zero.
- They are a legitimate company, that stands behind their products.
- They are also a small, startup company, not Dell, Lenovo, or Apple.
- They are in the midst of a batch roll-out of the 16" laptop. Due to the very high volume of systems being shipped, as opposed to once they exit the batch backlog, it is to be expected that there will be a higher volume of questions to Support, systems such as yours with issues, and so on. That’s what I would take as the reason for the delay, not that they are chasing new sales.
- I’m sorry that you are uneasy that there is no means by which to contact them directly, such as a phone number, but at the risk of being blunt, that indicates that you did not do much research before ordering.
- I believe that if you are willing to extend some trust and be patient, you will be happy with the system and with the support that you receive once they engage.
- If you take a step back, you might assess your comments regarding next steps as aggressive, even if you find them not to be threatening.
- I have three Framework laptops and am very happy with them. They were not without some bumps, which in my opinion were of minor impact to me. I was able to work around and ultimately resolve the minor issues that I encountered. Sometimes that involved help from Framework, whether through Support, or the release of the RTC battery replacement module for the 11th gen Intel 13" machines. Framework is not perfect. No company is. But in my opinion they have worked and continue to work to get better, and I am willing to continue to support them. That does not mean that if you choose not to do so that you are wrong. You need to make the decision that is best for you.
If you got this far, thanks for reading, and have a great day.
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It doesn’t tell me that, it tells me they have that many new items out in the field with niggling problems - just like yours - that they are snowed under with support requests, and it will take a few days to get to yours.
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I suspect the act of punching the Torx indent into the head goes too deep for the head thickness, leaving very little meat between the threaded stem and the head. The punch would need to be onlt slightly off centre to make this interface quite weak.
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I don’t know, I wouldn’t have thought so though.
But to make it less susceptible to failure I think the screw needs a thicker head, if it was about 50% thicker it would pretty well eliminate the failures, and wouldn’t impact on the midplate.
Hey, thanks for letting me know about this. Receiving your laptop and facing an issue right away is definitely not ideal, and I’m sorry you experienced this.
I understand that you have some feedback about the wording of the automated support email you received. Thank you for sharing that as well.
" Framework Support is currently experiencing a high volume of contacts due to the start of batch processing for the Framework Laptop 16. Responses will be delayed. We are working as quickly as possible to respond to inquiries in the order they were received. Thank you for your patience. "
We have a dedicated support team for customer issues, separate from the team focusing on new orders. The message meant to convey that we have been receiving more tickets related to Framework Laptop 16 orders (cancellations, order modifications, or issues such as the one you reported), which sometimes causes us to fall behind our SLA. The support team usually replies within 1 business day, but it can take longer due to high volumes. We are in the process of expanding our support team to provide better service and definitely appreciate your feedback.
I double-checked your support case and see that you contacted the team on Monday and received the automated response on the same day. However, I also see that support replied to you on June 6th, asking for pictures of the mainboard and the broken screw, and they have been waiting for your reply since then. If you have not received this email (make sure to check your spam folder and other inboxes), please let me know.
Thank you.
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I will be waiting for your response then!
It looks like the email from the support was sent on the 6th of June, hope this helps.
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