So for those of us that don’t 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.
The issue is not ideal but you weaken your argument when you claim that “every other laptop on the current market for the past 15 years” 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 don’t have to perform a mainboard reset, perhaps that’s 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.
Basically every laptop I’ve 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 that’s 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. I’m now looking at my 2010 Dell E6410 that I just replaced it with that fired up everytime on the same BIOS battery and main battery…with misty eyes.
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 can’t turn on a Framework laptop until you plug it into the charger, but it will still have 65% battery remaining.
It’s 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, I’m 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. That’s 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.
@John_Comeaux - I’ve run into both, but you are correct that the more common scenario is one where the primary battery drains. I have had them “dead” 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 don’t care what folks are saying. You do not sell a ‘prototype’ to the final paying customer. Prototypes are for testing to create the final sale product.
Now if you were selling a laptop marked ‘prototype’ and charged just 30% of the full retail…that’s a different matter.
Framework’s 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 aren’t even sure it is possible yet.
And as many will attest to, Framework’s 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.
Or as several of us now know, just 3 to 5 days…
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 wouldn’t 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.
Hang on so I have to use my laptop in a certain specified way…to 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 I’ve 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.
I don’t 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. You’d 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 you’d like to support.
I’m not seeing the problem myself because I don’t 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 wouldn’t 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 “design flaw” is warranted here.
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.
The reason this happens in the first place is an unfortunate combination of several things.
The point of leaving it on the charger for 24 hours is really just to charge this RTC battery, and after doing this, I haven’t run into the issue again, though I do use it about once every week for a few hours.
It is summarized decently in NRP’s response above. Granted, I’m not defending them. Just stating my understanding of the issue at hand here.
Just went to switch it on again…dead.
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 nrp’s 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 I’m 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.
@d_p - it’s a drag that you are having this problem. As stated previously, I am lucky that I am not. One of my framework laptops sits unplugged for weeks, and has powered on when I have gone to use it. I wonder if it is possible that tolerances make some setups more or less susceptible. I suppose matters could get worse were you to swap the board, but they could get better as well. That goes for @Jason_Dagless as well If I were in that situation and wanted to keep the machine I’d try a board swap.
As for design flaws, this one is a real bummer when it flares up. Hopefully Framework can resolve or at least greatly reduce the frequency or likelihood of the issue. We’ll see. Here’s a few design flaws that I have encountered in my time:
Macbook 12" butterfly keyboard - design flaw. Replaced under warranty, absolutely will fail again. The machine is usable when the switches fail but the experience is poor.
Macbook Pro 2011 (ish?) - GPU failed. Another design flaw. Board replaced under warranty. Failed again. Tough luck. Now running linux with GPU disabled.
Google Pixelbook. Keyboard partially failed, some keys simply would not work. I had to tweet at them to get a response. If my memory is correct its replacement failed as well, I believe it would not charge. Again, I had to tweet at them to get any sort of engagement (and I don’t use twitter, so this was just for that). The third one worked ok back when I was using it.
VW Diesel. Bought back (wound up on the “good?” side of this one with a healthy buyback).
Second VW diesel, post-fix. Car goes into countdown to no start mode under certain conditions (long high speed trips in near or subzero weather). When this happens if the counter goes to zero the car will continue to run but will not start if stopped. VW won’t buy back the car, and seems unable to or uninterested in fixing it. I happen to like the car (why, who knows. I’m probably just an idiot) so I paid for and applied an aftermarket tune that supposedly will avoid the issue (which is around the emissions system and DEF, which is working properly but not being sensed properly, nothing related to the running of the engine).
Chevy manual diesel. Clutch failed and was worked on three separate times, until the dealer finally pulled the transmission and replaced the slave cylinder. Another design flaw. Each time it failed I was far from home. Once at the start of a vacation, many hundreds of miles from home. The car was towed, we got a rental car which the dealer said that they would but never did reimburse, a repair was made, we picked it up on our way home and made it back. Some weeks later we were on another road trip and it failed on the way home, about 50 miles from home. I was able to shift based on speed and rpm, with no clutch, and limped it home. Had it towed to my local dealer, another repair was made, and it worked for a while longer. The final time, I was at a sports event, this time maybe 70 miles from home, and it again failed. Fortunately most of the drive was highway so I got it into high gear and only had to shift a few times at the end of the trip, again shifting without the clutch. This time they finally pulled the whole transmission and replaced the slave cylinder. Since then, fingers crossed, it has been ok. Apparently in Europe there was a recall for vehicles with these transmissions, Here, not so much.
Another car one. Some years ago I bought a car, and shied away from the prior model as there was a known issue that could cause an expensive engine rebuild every N years to make an O2 sensor work (and pass inspection). The newer model that I settled on didn’t have this problem. What it did have, which I did not know, was a rear main seal that could fail, and when it did, potentially blow the engine, requiring a rebuild or a new engine. Sounds like another design flaw. Were the cars recalled? Nope.
I bought a high end programmable coffee maker. Eventually it started having issues. When I called the company, the response was that they did not repair them and there was nothing to be done. So I replaced it with a different make and model, on my own dime.
My stereo receiver died due to a failure in one of its modules, Again, a known issue and a design flaw, but there was no recourse, and the part couldn’t be replaced.
I’ve gone on for far too long, but I could go on for a lot, lot longer. The point is that rarely are things perfect. I think that Framework is trying to do its best. I suggest that if anyone reading this is having this issue, you reach out to Support and work with them to achieve a resolution, Understand that the resolution may not be exactly what you wish. If you are not getting a response, you might try tagging some of the company reps here. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to look up who they are.
Be well, all
This feels like a whole damn massive pile of overreactions. Framework is a new company. They could not have anticipated this. They are not the absolute epitome of laptop makers. This is also a rather minor issue most users won’t experience, and future users won’t experience if they buy newer boards.
Y’all need to not hold Framework to the absolute golden standard NOBODY can achieve, on a first generation product. Y’all also need to not make a mountain out of a molehill and nitpick over every tiny thing. They’re new, they’re still figuring this stuff out. If the product quality gets worse over time, that’s when you get concerned.
You just contradicted yourself.
nrp has a job. He does not have to respond to every ring and call. He’s been very transparent as is. I’m speculating, but it appears it was designed this way because they didn’t know better at the time. This has been fixed with future models.
Anyways, I think this thread has gone on for way too long repeating the same 5 things, and isn’t productive now. We should try discussing something actually useful.
Framework must have considered this internally…we just don’t know what they’ve decided on…or maybe it’s still being considered.
I, for one, would like to offload this to someone who has a plugged-in-all-the-time use case.
Until framework explains otherwise, there’s no need to “figure this out” since there is a standard practice in the industry of using RTC batteries that last for years, not weeks. Many of framework’s team come from the industry and we’d expect already have this knowledge. Regardless, it’s more about the way it is being handled after the discovery of the issue.
No, you cut out some important bits:
I am highlighting the fact support is given some motions to go through but don’t really have the power to address a design flaw.
Unfortunately, that is also an issue of debate as the design is the same in the 12th gen version of the board, although nrp has commented they have reduced the idle drain - still, if we do the math it’s going to be up from 2 weeks to about 4, which is a huge improvement but still way less than other laptops in the industry that last for years.
Generally this is how threads work… they try to stay on topic until resolution. It still goes because many are feeling like that don’t have resolution.