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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Great. The screw of the primary SSD of my Framework 16 just broke off. I’ve now got an expensive brick. 
I turned all the screws with great care.
Framework has some very good concepts., but I am very disappointed in the production quality of the laptop. Actually I’m not only disappointed, but also angry. When looking at the forums, I can only get the impression, that Framework is well aware that they are shipping very flawed products.
Dear Framework.
The screw that’s supposed to hold the primary SSD in place broke. The head just came off and now it is impossible for me to get the rest out. One more case.
I was very careful when I screwed it in. After I looked at the head and how it broke, it is no surprise. The quality and/or choice of these screws is very bad.
This is the head:
This is the rest of the screw in the hole:
Sorry for the mediocre lighting.
I’ve been assembling computers for over 25 years now, but this never happened to me.
I wrote to the support, but nobody answered.
I wrote into another thread about the same topic, but nobody seems to care.
I can’t get the screw out without risking to damage the MB.
After taking a look at the forums, it seems that there is so much wrong with the production including QA of this laptop. There are so many issues.
I am very disappointed in Framework.
You have good ideas and good concepts, but the implementation is not good at all.
I regret to have bought this laptop. It is nice to have a repairable product, but it is awful that I have to repair it right from the start.
I’ve got the impression that you know about the problems, which leads me to the conclusion that you are either out of your depth or you just don’t care.
I can understand if you think me unfair for drawing these conclusions and/or for writing these words.
I’m stopping to write now, because I’m getting too angry.
Return it, get your money back, and move on. Or accept that there are some bumps with the rollout, work with the company to get them resolved, and move on.
Whatever choice you make, be well, have a good day, and best of luck.
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There have been issues with the SSD screw but I have found Framework to have dealt with these problems promptly and fairly when they have cropped up.
There have been some complaints around the alignment of the tracker spacer pads but generally things seem to me to have gone really well.
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Hey Local,
I’m sorry to hear about the issue you’ve experienced with your laptop. I can imagine how frustrating it must be to encounter problems shortly after receiving it.
This issue has been noted in our community and support reports, and our engineers have been actively tracking and addressing it. Initially, there were more reports from previous batches, but we’ve seen a significant decrease recently. Transparency is important to us, and I’ve personally communicated about this on our community platforms many times, mentioning our efforts to resolve it. While our engineering and quality teams work on solutions, our support and part replacement teams have collaborated to swiftly assist affected customers by providing mainboard replacements.
One challenge we face in both community and support environments is that people often don’t report when they receive a laptop without any issues. They are understandably more likely to share their experiences when they encounter problems, as you have done. While some exceptional Framework community members do share positive feedback about their laptops and the service they have received (as you can see from here, here, here or here, all from the past 7 days), it’s common for community platforms to mainly highlight issues and complaints. This doesn’t necessarily reflect a widespread product flaw; rather, it’s a natural consequence of the support-seeking nature of these environments.
Similarly, in support environments, constant exposure to customer issues can sometimes create the perception that the product itself is flawed. However, this perception doesn’t always align with reality. It simply reflects the nature of support interactions, where problems are naturally more visible.
I want to assure you that I’m not downplaying your experience or feelings. Your frustration is valid, and receiving a faulty product is far from ideal. Please know that we genuinely care about resolving your issue and ensuring your satisfaction as a valued community member. Once we’ve addressed your current concern, I’m committed to understanding what caused your dissatisfaction and taking necessary actions to prevent similar experiences for others.
I’ve reviewed your support cases and noticed you’ve already contacted us for another issue before the problem with the SSD screw.
As we have announced here today, we have a bit of a backlog with our support team and our responses are a bit delayed ( We wanted to announce this as well to set expectations with our customers, no one likes contacting support and not knowing when to expect an answer) Our support agents will be with you shortly and assist you with the part replacement.
If you prefer to return your laptop rather than proceed with a part replacement, you can find our return policy here.
Please feel free to share any additional feedback or questions you may have.
Thank you.
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Hello @Destroya ,
thank you for replying, acknowledging my issues and taking the time to stating your position.
From your response I understand that at least the issue with the screws was raised before and it was mitigated. May I ask what the changes were and from which batch onward it got better? I glady take a link to a blog post as an answer to this if one already exists.
The screws still appear to be too weak to me.
I know there is generally a great bias for giving feedback when there are issues and maybe we see more “support cases” in public in these forums. And I think it’s fair to assume that you get more support requests than we can see here in public, also.
I’m still under the impression, that the number and variety of issues with the laptops and parts are plenty.
We appear to be in disagreement here, which is fine for me.
I appreciate that this community is so helpful and most people seem polite and nice. (Ignoring I should just “move on”)
Since I was trying to have a rather particular setup (Windows 11 pro, hardware disk encryption, yubikey) and ran into trouble on the Windows side of things, I even wanted to write a guide about it. I was looking forward into participating.
But I didn’t buy the laptop to be part of the community, but to use it.
You stated:
I’ve reviewed your support cases and noticed you’ve already contacted us for another issue before the problem with the SSD screw.
I’m curious how this relates to my issue at hand.
You also said that the support team is very overloaded. Doesn’t this make my point that you don’t have the capacity to run the business as you intended to? That’s what I meant when I speculated if you were “out of your depth”.
I didn’t mean that you are bad engineers, communicators, etc… Especially not individually, you are a proof of that.
But as an organization you seem to be at this time. The response delay is “3-5 business days”, so up to a calendar week and you say it is “a bit delayed”.
As for the “return of the product” vs “replacement”.
Returning it is complicated, because I’ve bought the SSDs and RAM seperately. I know, this is not your concern, but I was expecting a product that works.
So I want a replacement, because I want my laptop to work. I really wasn’t expecting to have to invest so much time into being able to use it.
Now I will have to wait for the response and for a replacement. After that time I will not be able to return the laptop, although I didn’t have the chance to evaluate it.
And even if I would return it now, it might not get my money back fully, since there is “functional damage” (the broken screw).
So now I can only hope that someone will respond some day, that I will get a replacement some day this year, I will not be on vacation when it arrives, so it’s not getting shipped back.
Thanks for reading. Take care.
so looking at this, the question that comes to mind for me is: is there a replacement procedure for the insert? if this happens, say, 13 months down the road, is there an end-user plausible process for recovery, or is it going to absolutely require a mainboard replacement?
Looking through the thrad her it seems like there is problem with the construction or manufacture process of the screw.
When looking at these pictures it seems like there is not enough area for the head to attach to the thread of the screw.
Either the T5 is pressed (or how ever it is manufactured) to deep int the head that it is almost at the level where the head goes into the thread. Or the head is just to thin for the T5 receptacle.
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I think so, too. Framework does not seem to agree as far as I understood.
It appears the screw cannot be made wider, due to the given insert.
It also cannot be made higher/longer with more material in the junction between shank and head, because there is no space left.
One option could be, to give it an external hex head or something. That way the dimensions can be kept, but the junction can have more material. That would mean that Framework would have to add another tool to the package. But I think it’s less costly and more environmentally friendly than having to replace these parts.
I am currently in the support process for this. I have no idea when it is going to be resolved and what the outcome will be. Once I know, I will post it here.
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The just taping down the ssd instead option is always on the table.
I honestly don’t quite understand why they didn’t go with one of the plethora of toolless mounting options. Not like that ssd has to be held down all that tight.
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