Can I also add the question of:
Why is this a thing? āprocessor goes into a bad state with low RTC battery voltageā
Iām guessing that addressing the RTC battery drain (whatever that root cause is) will mean the bad process state would occur a lot less frequently (say, once every 5 years, maybe)? As opposed to every bloody week (for some users).
I can offer to help test this out. I may wind up wishing that I hadnāt, but I will. I have a second framework that is a family machine and used infrequently. I typically shut it down when done using it, so itās not in sleep mode. I have not run into the no-boot case, but maybe I havenāt let it sit long enough. Typically it gets used weekly, if that.
In order to help me to test this, can someone summarize what the situation was leading up to the issue? There may be many different modes to test here, so I will try to collect them and keep a list going.
For visibility hereās the initial thread I was a part of:
@lbkNhubert for testing I have simply left the unit fully powered off for at least a week before trying to use it again. The power button fails to start the boot. I am unable to get the laptop to boot until I plug it into AC
Thank you for the input. However a more worrying concern is where someone has to open the laptop and remove the RTC, to let it recover enough so that it will allow the laptop to start when plugged in.
Oh sure, you can definitely open it up and remove the battery following the reset guide every time but it since it doesnāt really resolve the drain issue Iāve since stopped bothering.
When it fails to boot for me I simply plug it into the wall now
That would have been sad decades ago, but never heard of it until now ~ but isnāt there a silver lining to every cloud and a gold one to a dark cloud ~ waiting ~ waiting
I originally started seeing this about a month or two ago. I really only use my framework once weekly to play D&D with some buddies on the weekend. After a couple of missed sessions, I stopped being able to turn the laptop on at all, and started pulling the RAM, SSD, RTC battery, etc. out to see if that would help, and after a bit of tinkering, it would turn back on. Usually after plugging it in to the charger for maybe a minute total. Then it started happening every week that Iād have to do this.
Since speaking with Frameworkās support team, and not having a pleasant experience with it, but that is separate, I had left the laptop charging for about a day and a half, and stopped experiencing the issue while they were sending a replacement main board. I havenāt had the issue since, and have occasionally checked the RTC battery voltage. Itās been hovering around 2.8 V pretty much the whole time after.
I have the i5 model, though I donāt believe this is an issue with any particular model from what Iāve seen on the forums.
I was only testing with the original for a few days before the replacement main board arrived, and I havenāt even had that for a month yet. It hadnāt happened on the original for the few days after I tried leaving it charging for an extended period, and it hasnāt happened on the new one since, as I have been careful to put it on the charger on weeks I wasnāt using it.
I dont buy the sustainability justification at all. Non-rechargable button cell RTC batteries last YEARS and can be recycled (at least in the UK). This is a case of micro-optimisation that is far more trouble than it is a benefit.
Forget that comment itās a typo. It should read āit just wont boot from battery aloneā.
This problem has been solved nowā¦ button cell holder was not soldered to board properly. New main board fitted and everything is fine. Did notice further comments on button cell depleting quickly. This is happening to me now. But all other problems are solved. Sorry for the confusion.
Took 17 emails with support before they admitted there was no fix - hardware or software planned for this. I asked to return my relatively unused machine since I canāt boot it up without connecting AC. They refused. I think they are trying to downplay this design flaw and it really has me disheartened about the company.
I am considering joining Floatplane and seeing if I can bring it to Linus attention at the next WAN show. Heās exactly the kind of person that would call out how terribly this is being handled.
I was so optimistic for framework to bring the change we needed. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I will be āwrittingā to Framework with views which are simialr to yours very dissapointing and asking for some sensible explanation and options to mitigate.
Thanks for your input and sorry youāve had this horrible experience.
Luckily for me I use the laptop every day for many hours, usually plgged in, so I do not suffer but knowing I canāt put it away for a week or two is very disconcerting.
Without reading all you can get a very distorted and unbalanced approach and for legal reasons it may be good to ask Framework if you can see their correspondence as by definition it wasnāt for the public to read.
I will be emailing support and explaining I want to copy my questions to them here and for them only to answer if they are happy for me to copy their replies too.
My guess is tech support is doing their best but this is an Engineering and Product Management issue. Unfortunately, there is a serious lack of transparency to the public over the real root of the issue and its making me very suspicious of framework overall. I feel like Iāve been suckered into the exciting idea of an open and transparent company that wants products to be good, fair, and to last but in practice there is still quite a bit of obfuscation going on.
I would really prefer framework leadership to acknowledge there is an issue and agree to look for a fix. Given they are signaling the opposite via support - they believe the issue does not affect the majority of users (but still there is an issue) - Iād want them to offer to take my machine back for refund as I believe it fails to deliver what is generally expected by customers of this type of technology.
I donāt even have this problem and I feel the same way.
At first I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they āhave a lot going onā but at this point it seems clear that theyāre being overly cautious about commenting on problems.
I can see where thatās coming from ā if they acknowledge problems or innadvertently over-commit to a solution that never materializes itās easy to argue you shouldnāt have said as much.
But there is most certainly a better balance from what weāre seeing ā radio silence is the exact opposite of what I expected from this company given the community enthusiasm that they have to work with.
Iām going to write Have just drafted a letter to Framework and will post it here as a downloadable pdf for comments etc. and then send it when I think the forum users are happy that it fully addresses the issue(s) as seen by the users.
All the best
OK this is going to take some time. This is only a rough copy but itās playing on my mind and I want to get on with it.