Viability of an ML 1220 rechargable battery for RTC | CMOS (11th gen)

Community Support
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Unfortunately, no. I’ve gone through extensive troubleshooting with support.

Initially they told me to follow this article, and it fixed my issue… for about a week. The next time this happened (this past Saturday), I’ve been told multiple different things.

Initially they told me to update to 3.07 (assuming I was on 3.06)

I told them I’ve been on 3.07, and they then instructed me to bump my battery limit up to 100% (I’d kept it at 80%), and let it charge up for 24h.

I left it on the charger for ~18 hours (just shy of the 24h they’d told me - but this is my primary machine), and upon getting to work the next day had the same issue occur - no PD charging. I resolved it by trickle charging my setup (USB-A to C cable on the righthand side, PD charger on the left). I checked the RTC cell voltage, and it showed 3.10V (support had said “somewhere around 2.6 to 3 volts”), so I assume that’s fine.

This is the point where they said it “appears that your RTC battery was not the issue”. They told me to go through the Full Mainboard Reset process, which resulted in a functional system… but only when charging on the righthand side of it. My left IO ports will deliver power OUT, but now I can’t charge my laptop on that side - Dumb charging or otherwise.

They’re telling me to check the EMI shielding on that side, but I would be under the assumption that if it had been shorted out, I wouldn’t be able to use it for data or outboard charging.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but it seems like I’ve been in a weird moving goalpost situation, and it’s kinda nice to have everything typed out.

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188

It definitely sounds like you are facing a different issue if the RTC battery is charged, and you are still having trouble booting. I hope support is able to get you sorted, so best of luck.

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189

Please look at this post for more info on Laptop failing to start and possible causes and areas for further investigation

Another thought is… Is this problem ONLY on DIY Framework laptops?

Other post, sorry if it isn’t a link

" Power Button Fails to Start Laptop after a day or three switched off"

ok maybe it is :slight_smile:

Regards…

190

I’m currently asking Support to confirm if this is a design feature or a design flaw. I think that’s a fair question to ask. Buying into a new company and a new product is a trust thing as well as a risk.

I just want to know either way. If its a feature, then I can plan to work around it or sell it on.

If it’s a flaw then I think Framework have a responsibility to fix it or find a way to improve it (happy with either). I was sold this laptop on the idea of being fully repairable.

If after just three months, the first problem I have with it isn’t…well…

So if they cannot, then I think they need to be upfront on the sales page and advise those users that do not live on their laptops day by day, that this is a potential issue.

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I agree. Perhaps adding a link to the knowledge base article on the page might be good. It’s important to fill a gap between a potential customer’s expectation and reality to gain long-term users.

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I got a long reply from Framework to my short question -

" Thank you for your patience. Per a Community post by our Founder regarding RTC Battery functionality:

"The RTC battery (CMOS battery) powers the very low power subsystem that preserves the real time clock (responsible for providing the calendar clock to the system) and some processor state. This battery exists to allow system time to be preserved while the main battery is in ship mode, disconnected, or drained. The RTC battery recharges when the laptop is plugged into power.

Normally, when the RTC battery drains below the voltage threshold needed to power the RTC subsystem (if the laptop was left unplugged for months on the high end or weeks on the low end), the impact would be that the system clock resets. With most operating systems, this wouldn’t be noticeable, since the OS will automatically grab the current time off of a network time protocol server and update the system clock again. However, with 11th Gen Intel Core processors, Intel shared that there is a silicon bug where low voltage on the subsystem that the RTC battery powers can put the processor into a stuck state that needs to be manually reset (we wrote this guide to share the reset process: Fully Resetting the Mainboard State - Framework Guides 6 Note that allowing the RTC battery to fully recharge by keeping the system plugged in for >24 hours after a reset or after leaving the system unplugged for more than a few weeks is important). This happens randomly, in that only some instances of the RTC battery reaching low voltage will result in the CPU going into a bad state, which is both how Intel didn’t find this during development of the processor and neither we nor our manufacturing partner saw it occur during design of the laptop.

For folks on 11th Gen Mainboards, our guidance continues to be that if you plan to leave the laptop unplugged for weeks/months, to do so with power plugged in. If not, there is a some percent chance that the manual reset will be needed at the next time the laptop is used. We know that if this is a behavior you regularly need to follow, that it is annoying and decreases the enjoyment of using the product. Since this does occur randomly, it is possible there are processors or RTC batteries that it is more likely to occur on than others. If you are seeing this happen unusually often, reach out to Framework Support, and we will work with you to swap you out a replacement RTC battery or replacement 11th Gen Mainboard. There are possible mitigations we are investigating in firmware, like having the main battery “power up” to recharge the RTC battery when the system is unplugged for long periods of time, though over a long enough period, that would result in both the main and RTC battery being empty and still risking entry into the stuck state. This firmware mitigation is speculative though, so we don’t have a firm plan for it.

For the future, with 12th Gen Intel Core, there are a few changes that prevent this from occurring. We’ve reduced RTC battery power consumption to make the RTC rail stay powered for about twice as long with the system unplugged. We’ve also designed in a path that allows the main battery to keep the RTC battery charged. Finally, we’ve designed a reset circuit that prevents the manual reset process from being needed, doing an automatic process instead."

Swapping the mainboard would only be a valid option if the mainboard reset process is needed frequently even after trickle charging the RTC for 24 hours after non-use for weeks/months. If that’s happening, there’s a chance either the RTC battery is faulty or or the RTC battery holder might not have a solid connection to the mainboard. Outside of the above, a swap of the mainboard would not result in any meaningful change to observed functionality as it is expected.
Regards,
Framework Support"

So I’m taking that reply as -

“Yes it’s a design flaw that might (but probably not) get fixed!”

I’ll think about it over the weekend and then might just flog it off on Ebay or something.

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195

Does anyone else think it’s ironic that nrp says to go to support and support quotes nrp in the support ticket?

Support last replied to me June 15. I have sent 3 responses since them and it’s silence. While I admire the optimism of those who assume silence means they are working on it, my gut tells me the opposite is true and they are ignoring it and focusing on selling the next thing rather than supporting the existing product and backers… Kind of the opposite of a sustainability mission in my opinion.

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Given this ‘replacement’ wording, there’s no scoping / limitation of what they replace the 11th Gen Mainboard with. Usually there would be wording to the nature of “equivalent or better”.

For example, if it’s a Logitech mouse, Logitech has been known to replace older model with newer model during RMA.

Could this be the case here as well? Replace the 11th Gen Mainboard, with a 12th Gen Mainboard?

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It could be Framework scraping along the edge of compliance (of components. voltages, etc) and when Intel ships chips with silicon bug things start to go south.

I still however think it’s a duff battery.

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This is becoming quite the unintended ‘feature’:
You better use the Framework Laptop everyday, or we’ll give you hell.

Force product adoption. LoL.

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The biggest thing I am worried about is 8 days without response to my support ticket and no transparency from @nrp or anyone else from framework on what is going to happen next.

I’d be more willing to be patient and give trust if there was communication and commitment to make it right for their backers and customers. Unfortunately, it has been radio silent. This is a very bad omen.

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I can’t comment on why Support has not responded as I have no idea, but you might have better results if you tag the Support or Framework-employed moderators (not the volunteer moderators) rather than the CEO.

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Of course. However, sometimes (not just with Framework) it can help to get assistance for an open request via other means. I believe that the support queue is based to some extent on last-received message, which can make repeated queries counterproductive - within reason. After several working days absent a response it’s normal to wonder what’s going on. I say that in general - for any given ticket it may be clear that one party feels the matter is at an end or at a clear pause pending additional investigation, but the other party may hold a different opinion.

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I did this because so far every support ticket just points to nrp’s post which doesn’t actually help anyone experiencing the issue. Nrp pointed us to support, support points back to or quotes nrp’s post. Neither are actually helping resolve the issue.

Nrp posted here but I had more questions that didn’t get answered. Support finally replied to my ticket and just quoted nrp’s post again. There is zero real concern around this within framework. It seems like they are showing they aren’t going to stand behind their product to ensure investors and backers are kept whole. I’m so disappointed. Other than Valve’s Steam Deck, there hasn’t been a technology offering I’ve been this excited for and this big a cheerleader for in a very long time. I really wanted this to go well but framework is really killing any faith I had.

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This thread has been going for so long that I think many people have lost perspective on Framework’s openness, and I want to put some things into a clearer perspective, especially for people who haven’t seen this issue on their own devices as they don’t seem as invested in the topic even if they follow it daily.

This thread was very active for almost a week with several people claiming to have similar issues, and that Support was not following up on open tickets about said similar issues.

The founder made one non-committal post about how Framework suggested this

He also spoke of how they thought there was a possibility of charging the RTC battery from the main battery with a firmware update they don’t know if they can do.

The major issue of the processor going into a bad state probably won’t happen on the second gen boards due to the fact that the bug is part of the 11th gen Intel processors, and the second gen boards are moving to Intel’s 12th gen processors.

Then a week goes by with more people chiming in about support telling them the only thing they could do if they weren’t satisfied with the product is sell the laptop.

There have also been some people chiming in on how Support pointed to the founder’s note which points back to them.

Throughout this time, there has not, to my knowledge, been any further response on the forums from Framework, despite multiple questions being posed about functionality, and how they planned to proceed.

I can imagine that they would need a week to discuss internally about how to proceed, but Support’s responses are definitely troubling, and this is no way for a company to be “helping” people with things that are not well known or common behaviors in the industry.

Yes, I expect to get some flak for putting my opinions here.
Yes, I expect people to say I’m overreacting.
No, I don’t care, because I just want Framework to actually take responsibility for issues they have created.

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208

Support replied and told me they will not fix the issue and that is “final” and advised me again to sell the machine.

After referring several of my colleagues to framework, I will now be actively doing the opposite.

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210

That sucks…

So much for having that post from nrp. Disappointed that you had to do the runaround…and that’s the final outcome.

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Framework…The Unrepairable Reparable laptop!

Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

Let the social media backlash begin… :roll_eyes:

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Basically I use my workstation for 99% of my work. So my Framework sits in my laptop bag (usually 80% charge) for sometimes 3 days or over a week before I use it.

Now before my 12 year old Dell E6410 (I used it as a “I don’t care about this old thing” laptop) would fire up even if I left it for a month or more. Never had to think about it on 2010 tech.

As far as I’m concerned I just want that basic usability with my Framework. Not having to diary in 24 hour charge periods and pre-job boot checks.

At the end of the day I may just try and live with it. But I won’t be recommending Framework going forward. Had Framework said “Yes we have found this to be an issue and we confirm we will be working on a firmware update or fix to mitigate this!” I would be more on board. The firmware fix etc. may not have worked but it would have been nice to see more confidence and affirmative action from Framework till we got to that point.

Instead, reading between the lines it feels like “Oh sh*t, they have found that bug we knew about months ago and now want us to fix it! Trouble is we are now fully committed to getting the 12th gen stuff out! This is the last thing we need so downplay it and hope they go away!”

I still think there are other things they could do rather than just fob us off. I’m just waiting for the fix to appear as “Well if you purchase a new £700 12th gen board the issue is fixed!”

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I mean, could it be possible that folks who are having this problem often are just dealing with a rechargeable battery that has drained too many times and for too long and just doesn’t have anywhere close to its factory capacity? In this case getting a new battery should do the trick.

I really get how this is frustrating to folks who just want their laptop to work.

I do think Framework is doing the best they can. On the one hand they designed a product based on Intel’s spec sheets, and now find that there is an Intel bug which exacerbates one of their design decisions. It isn’t fair to Framework, but this is the situation.

I would ask those of you who are not frustrated beyond your threshold to remember the bigger picture. At least give Framework a chance to address the problem by sending you a new battery or mainboard (where warranted).

To reiterate, the 2 framework laptops I have to do not have this problem. I do use mine kind of regularly though.

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