This is crazy. We were assured the cracking problems would be addressed beyond the one year. In fact, my top cover was replaced after the 1-year warranty, and I’m almost certain others here have gotten out-of-warranty replacements. There must be wires crossed somewhere with the support contractor.
My guess is that it was a mistake or a miscommunication. Hopefully that’s the case.
Either way, it resulted in someone becoming so frustrated that they are abandoning their machine, which is unfortunate.
I hope whatever you end up with results in a smoother experience for you. Cheers!
1 Like
Not for forever, but yeah… as of right now it should be covered.
Hey! Shoot me your order number or support ID. Ill take a look and see if there’s a mistake or another reason.
Yeah, it makes sense that there would eventually be a cut off. I just hope that it will at least be covered while the issue is still being investigated. Just wanted to make sure.
I’m sure Framework isn’t any more excited that this issue is still ongoing than the end users are, lol. For everyone’s sake, I hope this gets sorted out soon. Of course, I’ve been saying that for a year now, so…
1 Like
As of right now::
Any that are popping up that are still the older material are getting replaced with little questions asked unless the cracks are in a weird area, or theres other damage that shows it may have been dropped, etc.
For machines that show its the newer material ( the middle group ), we are still replacing, but bringing some of those in for inspection.
For any that are showing confirmed newest material ( both material and geometric change), we are bringing all of those in for inspection. Thus far, for the newest material, Ive only seen hinge damage or massive over torque to be the culprit. Still replaced those anyway as good will while we continue to inspect / investigate.
9 Likes
Thanks for the clarification. And thanks for all you do.
I wouldn’t want this to turn into a situation where the issue is fixed, but the pitchforks are up, so Framework feels forced to replace stuff they shouldn’t. In fact, I even argued against Framework replacing the case of the machine I had done “durability testing” on. But they replaced it anyway. I guess that’s why I was surprised to hear they denied a case replacement at this point.
Cheers!
3 Likes
Can those of us who pre-ordered the second generation rest easy regarding this issue? Or will it result in shipping delays?
This only affects 1st Gen.
1 Like
Interesting, didn’t know about that. So there has been one more revision beyond the manufacturing correction last year. Could you maybe give us manufacturing date brackets for each group? I’m curious as to which one my bottom cover falls into. My guess is that I had the original older material (batch 7 preorder), got replacement from the middle group and the 2nd replacement is also from the middle group (since it’s the same manufacturing date).
Also both replacement bottom covers that came to me had a small pack with screws with threadlocker applied - what are those meant for? My guess was that those are for the hinges.
The newest material should show week 50 of 2025 or later. There was a mid group that was a bit before that, but I cant remember the dates off hand.
For the screws, not sure which ones are being sent / referred to, but I would imagine them to just be normal replacement screws. Dont quote me on that though.
I would ask for you right now, but technically Im the only one ‘in the office’ today due to the US holiday. Im online to get some queues worked on since we are behind.
1 Like
Both my bottom cover and the hinge set I received came with some replacement screws with a bit of thread locker on them.
I think they were mostly for the hinges, but there might have been one other type of screw included as well. Basically, it was all the ones that originally had thread locker on them. If you look at which screws you remove have thread locker on them, you’ll probably find matching replacement screws in the little pack.
Thanks for the info. Week 50 is in December so I was right I’m in the middle group since manufacturing date is from November. As for the screws I mean this small brown paper envelope
To be honest, during 1st replacement it didn’t occur to me those are for the hinges, only during 2nd replacement. I don’t know if it’s a mistake to reuse hinge screws or not but I guess screws with fresh threadlocker are better than ones that have been unscrewed and screwed back in a few times.
I appreciate your offer, but I have already replied to them. I slept on it and gave it some time. I will await there reply. I have provided them with an updated message regarding the issue and see where it goes.
I am not happy with my experience. One of the things I was asked to do was to boot into a Live image of Ubuntu to see if my sound issue occurred there. This is completely reasonable. I had the same sound issue there. That was followed by being told to try a list of things in Fedora (My Normal OS) to resolve the issue. I did those things and no change. Some of those things broke things in my Fedora install. Everything has been related to the sound issue! Nothing about the cracks on the chassis. It was mentioned early on and then completely ignored as time went on. I am sure if I continued doing all the things I asked I would eventually end up at a point where I would be told because I chose to provide my own SSD and Memory that we cannot proceed further. That is the path we were going down. I have an email thread with 16 messages over a week.
The bottom cover costs $49, $61.48 with shipping and tax. That is all I need to fix the laptop.
I work multiple jobs, one of them is tech repair. I fix logistics and warehouse tech, think Honeywell CK65 and Zebra MC9300 devices. These are not the easiest things to fix. I can disassemble a FW12 with a single T5 bit in ~5 minutes, its easier then Lego’s.
Edit: Nothing has changed just more back in forth with support. I am at the point I want to smash both of my Frameworks with a hammer.
1 Like
After watching this thread for a long while, I finally sent in my support ticket. We’ll see how that goes. I’ve been watching my cracks (near screws furthest from hinge) for quite a while now and they have slowly gotten larger over time. I’m not a daily driver of my framework but even with my light use around the house it still is a problem. Hopefully it’s not to hard to swap out. Haven’t taken apart my framework since I first built it in February 
1 Like
Hopefully the support experience and the swap out goes well. I’ve done the swap a couple times now, as have a few other people on here. If you need any tips, I’m sure there are folks on here who could offer them, lol.
Cheers!
Ad swap out: the official guide is very good, but there was one very very useful tip. The guide says to completely disconnect the Wifi module. IIRC it was @BigT that recommended unplugging the module but leave it carefully dangling at the antenna cables. Not that big of a deal but there are several stories in here where re-connecting the finicky antenna cable(s) was the most tedious part of the procedure. I was very grateful for that tip and it worked great.
3 Likes
That sounds like a great tip. I’ve replaced my bottom cover twice now. Those micro-coax connectors are by far the worst part.
Thanks @BigT and @wolfie! I’ve seen that antenna tip before and having worked with wifi cards before in retro laptops, I know they can be a pain. I’ll avoid disconnecting best I can lol.
https://community.frame.work/t/tracking-fw12-cracking-issue/72827/930?u=duksomi
Well, @Eagle assured they will have you covered whether in or out of warranty. Of course nobody knows, if they’ll keep their word. But so far… the device is great. And even buying a new cover after a couple of years would be perfectly fine with me… it’s not that expensive. You’re right there shouldn’t be an issue like that, but things happen.
The company is awesome, the products are awesome. I would still buy again every day. Just my two cents.
1 Like