The first issue here is Framework has a high draw idle state AND chose a tiny RTC battery. This has nothing to do with Intel.
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Unfortunately it appears Framework has not admitted any fault. They have pointed to an Intel bug that makes their design decision worse (unrecoverable when RTC drains). My understanding is other 11 Gen laptops are not effected because they are using traditional high capacity, long life clock batteries and donât have high drain.
For 12th Gen, it looks like Framework chose the same design. There likely wonât be an Intel issue but youâll likely still have to deal with clock dying faster than most laptops when stored and having to connect AC and manually reset clock. Nrp has stated they have lowered the drain so it should last longer but still much shorter than all other brands.
Unfortunately 12 gen boards are not available via the website or support so even though nrp has solicited for those with issues to open support tickets, support is unhelpful so no one suffering from this issue has a path out of, even if they pay their way out to test a 12 gen board and report findings back (Iâve offered both to pay and to eval the new board to report if my issue is resolved) but support has stopped responding to my ticket.
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My cynical side would suggest renaming the title of this thread to include [Unsolvable] at the beginning similar to how one would add [Solved] to the beginning if an answer is found, but my practical side explains that this would be petty.
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So for those of us that donât use our laptops every day but expect them to power on when we need them (like every other laptop on the current market for the past 15 years) what is Framework going to do about this?
Can we get a full refund if we return it? Seriously asking as I was hoping to keep this for several years but this aint going to cut it.
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The issue is not ideal but you weaken your argument when you claim that âevery other laptop on the current market for the past 15 yearsâ is immune to the issue. Many, if not most, are. All are not. I have several that have a similar problem of losing charge when powered off for a while. I donât have to perform a mainboard reset, perhaps thatâs what you were referring to.
If this is a dealbreaker for you, which it legitimately may be, then you likely are faced with the option of seeking a refund or reselling the machine.
Whatever path you choose to take, be it holding out and hoping for a fix, returning, or selling, I hope that things work out for you,
Have a good evening.
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Basically every laptop Iâve had (dozens for work and personal use) since having them from 1998 has not had to have the BIOS battery removed to get it to boot after being switched off for 3-5 days if thatâs what you mean.
This is a major design flaw. A design flaw!
Would I have bought one had I know. No.
I just hope there is a long-term solution. Iâm now looking at my 2010 Dell E6410 that I just replaced it with that fired up everytime on the same BIOS battery and main batteryâŚwith misty eyes.
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I believe what you are referring to is the main battery drain, which is a different battery than the one that only handles the Real Time Clock, and maybe some BIOS settings. Yes, plenty of laptops come with idle battery drain, and run out of charge, but that is fundamentally a different issue.
You could be faced with a situation where you canât turn on a Framework laptop until you plug it into the charger, but it will still have 65% battery remaining.
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Itâs unfortunate that you are having this issue. Your best bet is to engage support and seek a remedy through that route. I understand and agree that it would be very frustrating to have this happen, Iâm not disputing that at all. I am fortunate that I am not running into that issue on either of the framework machines that I have. If you truly are having to go through the mainboard reset after the machine sits for under a week, then I cannot imagine that the board would not be exchanged immediately.
My final comment has to do with your bolded text, which I will not reproduce here, rather I will let others read it in context. Framework is a startup, the laptop is a first generation product. Would it have been wonderful to have a perfect machine with no issues? Of course. Was it likely? Of course not. It is reasonable to hold the company accountable to helping to work through issues. I believe that they are, Your opinion may differ. I expect that there is a reason for the content and timing of communication, and I choose to give the benefit of the doubt that it is not to try to ignore issues or sweep issues under the rug. My completely uninformed speculation is that it is based on advice from the legal department. Thatâs just a guess. In general, engineers want to solve problems, share ideas, and so on. Holding cards close typically is against their nature. I say this not to excuse things but to present another possibility.
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@John_Comeaux - Iâve run into both, but you are correct that the more common scenario is one where the primary battery drains. I have had them âdeadâ and had to reset the bios settings. I have not had to perform any sort of mainboard reset. That is a big difference, and a real pain for those who are having to deal with it.
I am not an electrical engineer, but I would be interested to understand if it would be possible to modify the system somehow so that it would use a non-rechargeable battery. If the drain is high. that may not make a bit of difference. Hopefully people smarter and more knowledgeable than I in that area weigh in.
So through all the initial testing, no one left one around on a desk for a few days then powered it up?
This is not a prototype! I donât care what folks are saying. You do not sell a âprototypeâ to the final paying customer. Prototypes are for testing to create the final sale product.
Now if you were selling a laptop marked âprototypeâ and charged just 30% of the full retailâŚthatâs a different matter.
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Frameworkâs official response, which you can see higher up in this thread, basically said to wait for the 12th gen boards, as the issue is fixed there, and there may be a potential firmware solution where they can leach off the main battery, but they arenât even sure it is possible yet.
And as many will attest to, Frameworkâs support team have just ghosted people who try to get a real fix.
This is actually something that legitimately might not pop up in early testing, as it would take around 2-3 weeks of being shut down, and unplugged for the RTC battery to drain.
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Or as several of us now know, just 3 to 5 daysâŚ
If it was a month I could live with it. But having to take my laptop apart everytime I want to take it out is a bit of a issue. 
Has this continued to happen after leaving it on the charger for 24 hours? My understanding is that it would continue to happen until this, as you wouldnât have given the RTC battery time to charge.
At the point where it is still happening after charging it for 24 hours, that may actually be a defective board, which they should replace if you go through support.
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Hang on so I have to use my laptop in a certain specified wayâŚto use it?
My usage is like many others. I have my laptop, I use it, it might then get put away with 50 to 80% main battery. It can sit in my bag for 3 to 10 days before I need it. In every other laptop Iâve used, it will power on just fine after that length of time with either 20% or 100% battery.
What laptop needs charging for 24 hours? I have never ever had to think about the BIOS battery unless its a 10 year old laptop that has date and time issues. Not what I expect on a 3 month old laptop.
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I donât think so. They did need to choose a capacity for this rechargeable battery and it looks like they went with a capacity that is significantly lower than the standard button cells a lot of motherboards use. Youâd have to validate your choice of capacity here, which means you need to measure average drain rate and estimate what kind of power-off time youâd like to support.
Iâm not seeing the problem myself because I donât really power off the laptop, but I would expect the laptop to have a shelf life of at least 6 months while powered off. I wouldnât be surprised if it needed its battery charged, but I would expect its clock to still have the correct time (modulo drift). Watches from the 80s were able to keep the time for a couple of years on a single battery. I think the term âdesign flawâ is warranted here.
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Yeah someone made a really dumb design choice here and signed off on it.
Going forward I have a expensive device that I cannot fully rely on to work when I need it.
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The reason this happens in the first place is an unfortunate combination of several things.
- They are using a low capacity rechargeable button cell battery for Real Time Clock, and BIOS settings.
- There seems to be high drain on the RTC battery, which they claim to have lowered on 12th gen boards.
- They claim, granted they havenât shown any documentation, that there is a silicon bug with 11th gen CPUs that can occasionally cause the CPU to fail to start up if the RTC battery voltage drops too low.
The point of leaving it on the charger for 24 hours is really just to charge this RTC battery, and after doing this, I havenât run into the issue again, though I do use it about once every week for a few hours.
It is summarized decently in NRPâs response above. Granted, Iâm not defending them. Just stating my understanding of the issue at hand here.
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Just went to switch it on againâŚdead.
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Support did offer to exchange my 11th Gen board with another 11th Gen board but after some additional prodding, did admit it would not fix the bigger issue which is by design. They then pointed me to nrpâs post in this thread and have stopped responding.
There has still been no clarity from support or nrp on why it was designed this way and why there is such a short life on the battery. There is no benefit, only detriment and it is unexpected by those who have used laptops before.
Support will not offer any refund, exchange, update, fix, explanation, or apology and Iâm thinking they are not authorized to. My guess is the only one who can make it right is @nrp who has gone silent after the post above, leaving much unanswered.