Troubleshooting 11th Gen Intel mainboard installed in coolermaster case (standalone mode)

Framework Laptop 13
1

I have an 11th Gen Intel FW 13 mainboard that I took out of my laptop when I upgraded to an AMD board last year. I’ve since bought a coolermaster case, installed the mainboard into the case, and I’m trying to get it to running now.

  • I don’t know what firmware version the mainboard has
  • The firmware is not in standalone mode
  • I have plugged a laptop battery into the mainboard
  • The CMOS battery has been in the mainboard for over a year while it was in storage, it’s not been plugged in during this time (could be dead)
  • I recently went through the mainboard reset procedure ( Fully Resetting the Mainboard State - Framework Guides ) and I received the blinking red lights.
  • I then put the CMOS battery back in and plugged the battery back in
  • I then plugged the power back into the mainboard

Status:

  • Blinking red LEDS came back on the mainboard, same as when it was in reset mode
  • Monitor powers up with the framework logo and a solid cursor in the upper left of the screen
  • No lights on my USB A keyboard which is plugged into the mainboard

Pushing power button:

  • Monitor goes off
  • Keyboard light briefly comes on
  • Mainboard LED lights continue to blink red

Push power button again

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

Update

  • I’ve since realized the blinking red LEDs just mean the case is not closed. I’ve fixed that with a piece of scotch tape for now.
  • The board now powers on and goes through a different blinking LED sequence and the display is still the Framework logo and upper left cursor
    • First 12 blinks: all green except #7 (audio board) which makes sense
    • Green/Blue blinks after orange: all blue except for 3rd blink (post code bit 2), which was green
  • I tried hitting some Function keys on the keyboard but that didn’t change anything

Update #2

  • I tried holding down the F2 key immediately after power on and that got me into the bios
  • From there, I was able to make adjustments to the boot device order and get my live USB booting
  • Now I’ll work on a BIOS update and standalone mode

Update #3

Updating the bios wasn’t straightforward for reasons detailed at Clarify process for updating older FW 13 11th Gen Intel bios (standalone) · Issue #119 · FrameworkComputer/SoftwareFirmwareIssueTracker · GitHub .

TL;DR:

  • I found old bios release notes in the forums that noted LVFS updates still worked for 3.17
  • I followed the instructions on that post and successfully upgraded from firmware version 3.02 to 3.17
  • I enabled standalone mode in the bios and was able to boot the mainboard without the battery attached

Going to wait on a response to the issue above before trying to update to the latest firmware.

2

Did you set it to standalone mode in the bios before you switched it out? Although it is a bit of a pain, you might pop it back into the laptop, update the bios while you have it there, set it to standalone mode, then put it back into the coolermaster case. Best of luck!

3

I didn’t because I didn’t realize such a thing existed when I took the mainboard out of the case. However, I hoped that by plugging in the battery it would be “close enough” that I could update the bios and put it in standalone mode. Apparently not.

4

Yeah, it’s a bit of a pain. I think that it can be done, but the time that it takes to pop it back into the laptop shell may wind up being less than figuring out all of the hoops and jumping through them. And updating the bios in the laptop shell (with battery) is a lot less hassle. Ask me how I know…ha.

5

In this case, the shell is not just a shell. It’s my primary laptop with mostly newer components. I don’t want to take chance of messing something up by pulling all that stuff out just to put the old mainboard back in.

6

Understood, but having done it just today, swapping a mystery box board into a different machine, it boils down to disconnecting the battery, popping out the four expansion cards, unscrewing the wifi card and popping the antenna wires out of the rubber grommets but leaving the wires connected, unplugging the wifi card from the board, disconnecting the display and webcam cables, disconnecting the audio board and speaker cables, removing the 5 motherboard screws, and taking the board out. Then put the old one back in, secure it with a couple of mainboard screws to ground it, connect the various connectors, and update things. It sounds like a lot, but the board can be swapped in 5-10 minutes.

I am not trying to say that there is not some effort, but it’s not overwhelming, and in my opinion it is a lot simpler than trying to figure out how to get the old board updated and set to standalone mode outside of the case.

Best of luck getting things sorted out, whatever path you decide to take.