Warranty replacement mainboard died quickly and has no warranty :-(

Framework Laptop 13
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You are in a too happy mood and want a bitter laugh and a “me too”? Then read on. The tale is about failing mainboards.

I had bought a FW 13 gen 11 end of March 2022 and been very happy with it at first. Its mainboard had to be replaced during warranty, because of the ‘black screen’ issue that turned out to be a USB 3 failure.

The replacement mainboard was delivered and put to use mid-December 2023.

It started to fail six months after installation and was dead after eight.

At first (late June 2024), at irregular times the screens went black and the power LED dark, as if it had been shut down. The frequency of this ‘sudden death’ increased. On 27 August it happened several times a day, and 28 August the board had ceased to boot altogether. More details for the interested from shortly before the final death (boot was still possible then):

Many hours of testing and a tedious support communication later, support concluded that:
“After carefully reviewing the thread and all the troubleshooting, we concluded that there is a need to replace the mainboard to mitigate the issue. Kindly place an order in our marketplace for the Mainboard or upgrade your Mainboard; you directly use this link here​. We cannot provide a replacement for your mainboard as the laptop purchase is already out of the warranty period please be guided by Framework Warranty and Framework Terms of Sale .”

So, a mainboard that was installed as a warranty replacement for a faulty original failed after a few months itself. And because it has no warranty of its own and the warranty for the laptop has expired, I now have to throw out another €400+ for a third board that I have reason to expect will live not very long either.

Is Framework sitting on a batch of flawed mainboards from their early times that they ship in situations when they have not to satisfy a warranty?

What Framework saves now with this strategy will cause potential customers to decide against a Framework laptop, either from hearing individual experiences, or by a generally lowered reputation of the company. Case in point: The very first person (I had repeatedly pestered them with enthusiastic praise for my new Framework until they considered to buy a 16") who listened to my complaints last week about quality of product and support decided on the spot against the Framework and chose a conventional laptop that they can expect to last at least 5—7 years.

The strategy also smells somewhat like a vendor lock-in business model with subsequent forced buys: Bait the client with repairability, sustainability, and longevity, and afterwards they have to buy the most expensive and indispensable part again and again at irregular intervals, until the flawed boards are used up. Meanwhile repairability turns out to be mostly a prerequisite for easy mainboard swaps.

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For better or worse, it is pretty standard warranty practice that when a component is replaced under warranty, the remainder of the original warranty is still all you have. The warranty doesn’t re-start at the time of a component replacement.

If a product is warrantied for one year from the date of purchase, a component replaced during that warranty period doesn’t gain its own, new warranty. It is still only covered by the original, one year warranty.

I do understand your frustration at a second failed board. It’s a rough situation to be in. Hopefully you can find a way forward that works for you.

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I have no way to say if any of the following applies to you or your situation, I offer it only as potential explanations:

For context, I used to run a sales and repair department for a major big box store. This means thousands of laptops sold each year and thousands of repairs.

About a third of people (regardless of brand) would need a repair within 3 years - most common were the battery, power supply and then the motherboard. The larger the laptop was, the more likely we would see a motherboard failure because it’s harder to make those laptops rigid enough so that tiny bends and flexes that occur in everyday use don’t slowly compromise a soldering point on the motherboard. The other thing that I anecdotally noticed was that people who traveled more with any laptop would come back more often for repairs - i.e., the more the laptop gets moved around, stuffed in a bag, walked with, etc. the more likely it is to have something go wrong slowly over time.

Also, some people just seemed to be unlucky with a laptop. We’d fix it, replace the entire motherboard twice or three times, and something about it just seemed to be cursed. There was no logical reason (outside of people lying to us about how they use their laptop - which I do not believe you are) for them to experience the failures they saw. BUT when I later learned more about statistics and manufacturing that sometimes this stuff just happens. You’ll get some people who get the motherboards that are good enough to pass quality control but not last long because something random was ever so slightly off when it was made and they end up with two or three of these boards because of the randomness of the universe.

Your experience is frustrating and it sucks! But it isn’t malicious at all.

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Well I suppose it’s a case by case situation. If it happened to me, 100% I’d buy another brand for my next laptop as I need something reliable. Being repairable/upgradable is not an excuse but should be an improvement over other brands.

But to put things in perspective, if I’d stop buying for this reason, I’m pretty sure it would be because of bad personal experience, more than real unbiased reasons. First, I do not expect mainstream brands to provide a good service over warranty, I’d even say I expect from them to do not provide any help at all, except maybe Apple sometimes. Second, at least your laptop is not a piece of junk as you can still buy another motherboard in the same laptop case. And third, laptop failures of almost all brands over few years used to be pretty high (like 15-20% over 3 years or something like that), so even if you’d always been lucky (like me), you should not think that laptops other than framework rarely fails because it’s definitely not true.

But I get your frustration and I’d be so annoyed having been provided two failing motherboards.

Maybe that would be interesting to have some transparency about failure rate.

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Here is a somewhat relevant little tale.

I have ordered a Framework laptop - my first - after giving up upon a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 6th Generation. That ThinkPad went through five motherboards, one of them after six months or so (under warranty), the rest within a period of a few months some five years later. Within that last period, I obtained from Lenovo - via paid repair and then ordering the mobo myself and getting a third-party to fit it - three boards. Also, the experience with the paid repair was unbelievably awful: dire communication; botched jobs (initially the ‘repaired’ laptop came back with a new, large scratch on the screen, the SSD not plugged in, and then its motherboard died); promised compensation that was reneged upon.

I am not challenging Framework to do worse than Lenovo!

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If it’s a defect framework should offer something in this situation. I agree that this many mainboard failures is unacceptable. When did your warranty lapse?

Edit: Looks like warranty ended March 2024. Did you contact them in June as soon as it started acting funny? At least you get 2 years in germany. Its a pitiful 1 year warranty here.

On the bright side with Framework at least you can buy a better mainboard where as with other laptops you’d be paying that price for the original outdated board.

It is a bit depressing to have a couple mainboards go in under 3 years. Framework could have won some service points here providing a discount gesture or something. I don’t see any legal obligation to provide a replacement though.

I think you will also be able to sell the board for parts on ebay to recoup some of the cost.

Another option is to have a repair shop look at it. Schematics are on github and I think boardview files are available to repair techs?

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Thanks y’all for the kind words, the consolation, pointers to cheaper options, background info, and general commiseration.

@amoun Throwing another buck at the machine feels too much like a sunk cost fallacy now. I’d be willing to pay the difference for a cross- or upgrade, though, to never again have to deal with that %`§%$ Intel gen 11. That would be equal to having bought a better board at at the first place.

@BigT Legally, Framework is in the clear, AFAIU. I may have unrealistic expectations, having been pampered too much here in Germany/EU, where in a blatant case like this, arrangements ex gratia are not uncommon. Maybe the market here is more sensitive to brand reputation and customer satisfaction?

@ultionis I understand about material fatigue, but this laptop and second motherboard have travelled only at shipment, and occasionally from desk to sofa or bed and back. The laptop was packed also in original package when moving house at first mainboard time.

(EDIT: corrected quote)
Yes, random events in larger numbers show random clusters of no deeper significance. It’s not personal, sure.

@JL_Framework My heart bleeds for you (well, not quite, but I understand…).
@parawizard And paid repair… If an available shop had not already a pristine reputation or a certification that actually meant something, I used to do that myself. At a time of little money but much time, I hunted down the schematics of a closely related model to my HP Probook, identified the chips, ordered them from half around the world, and solder them in place. An adventure those days… But meanwhile the SMDs have become so tiny, there’s no fun in there for me anymore. Also, nowadays I want to work with the machine, not on the machine, and value cheap, simple and easy repairs.

Not in June, i.e. 6 months after installation and 3 months after warranty had expired. Would that have made a difference?

The sudden death was rare at first (June), maybe 1x in two days, and it would have been hard to convince support that this was serious issue. Frequency rose with an increasingly steep curve and I started seriously searching for a cause in August and finally contacted support as late as August 26, with all the info collected already (see Sudden death, internal keyboard is not registered, irregular power button behaviour, rarely boots ). (They didn’t read them, and asked for the already provided info later on, but that’s another great lamento.)

PM everyone on the member list of this forum for their experience, to include all who quietly have jumped ship or just stopped reading here. Will you be allowed to?

(EDIT: Quote again)

A really sound strategy to build trust would have been to inform all owners of a suspected failure and a test procedure for it, and if that failure could (provably) been demonstrated, offer a fast track to replacement.

And sell known flawed batches with a reduced warranty for a small price, prominently labelled up front that they may be flawed and warranty would only mean a replacement from the same batch.

Framework serves a small market and sees a growing competition even there, and there is not much left for a unique selling point. Novelty effect is gone, and I see not much else than an emphasis on longevity, robustness and sustainability to set them apart from the field. And a reputation of reliabiliy and trustworthiness. The technical features will be common standard offered by established players sooner or later.

Repairability: As USP it is fading out fast. Apart from the usually x-washing advertising bovine manure, some manufacturers have caught on quickly: iFixit lists a number of laptops from recent years with the same repairability index as the Framework (10/10) and a dozen or so that are slightly worse (9/10, 8/10), many downrated for a very minor point (riveted keyboard, no repair docs at manufacturer site, and the like). You can get a model that is, say, a few years old second hand or refurbished for a fraction of a new Framework price, and go through 3…7 of them before break even. Big brands where you can expect to see second hand spares sold for quite a time.

Upgradeability: Sounds great, but, honestly, will you ever need it? Current consumer laptops offer a computing power that is rarely maxed out on a regular basis. Those who need it go for a gaming machine or a mobile workstation.

USB modules: Count for those who travel much (and want minimum weight) and need to reconfigure ports on the spot. Everybody else can tolerate to carry a dock and a few adapters now and then. Beyond that, engineers, tinkerers, nerds, and fascinated technophiles make up the market. A small target group.

Modularity: Not new, not special. The HP probook 4x40s, for example, could be disassembled with two screwdrivers and a spudger or fingernail in 2012. Not to mention the old Dell machines…

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I mean sounds like you’re just sour at this point but I mean it’s a situation you could find yourself in with any company? Does your credit card have warranty extension? At least you have options. FW stuff sells for a lot on ebay.

I try to temper expectations of first gen products. Your 11th gen board is one. It’s also the very first product the company made. It’s definitely had some issues. I did not buy it for these reasons.

I had to fight with them to fix an issue with my order and refund additional shipping for missing parts. Unfortunately I can’t say I’ve had many good support interactions with any company recently. A small gesture goes a long way in my experience.

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Did you read his entire last post?

Edit: I may be sour if I had 2 mainboard failures as well. I don’t agree with his assessment of the FW13. He’s entitled to his opinion though.

OP: What troubleshooting has been done? Im assuming all below has been done already but just in case.

Has the mainboard been isolated and tested using the onboard power switch?

Have you tested the RTC battery voltage to confirm its ok still?

Done a full reset following the guide?

Also wondering if you have your expressed displeasure to FW support that this is two mainboard failures in just over 2 years. Also that the issue was occurring intermittently just after warranty expired? Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

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Please, guys, don’t get infected with some residual anger. I took a few days to cool off before posting (had read the final rejection on Tuesday morning), currently I’m feeling like a disappointed lover, and even that is already fading, too. FW never promised me a rose garden, such is life, and all that.

@amoun Thank you for taking it that serious.

Generally speaking, let’s stick to the technical, economical, procedural. There are cultural and individual differences in how tone is interpreted. Sorry if OP was too harsh.

He, he, experience is what you have right after you needed it. :slight_smile:

@parawizard The technical gist of the initial mail to support is in the OP. After that, with support guidance we looked additionally at (quotes from my replies to support):

The FW charger and power in general

It does ‘rapid charge’ a Fairphone 4.
Apropos power and AC:
- I have tested all four ports, with Framework AC adapter and cable,
- trying three cables total,
- a single power source at a time: Framework AC adapter, power from monitor’s AC adapter, and battery.
For the AC adapters the battery was unplugged.
==>> All showed the same failure.

Modules?

The above was already done with cards removed.

A first video of the LEDs here was too blurry. My bad.

The main battery was physically disconnected while I recorded the video. … The power button does react, which is definitely visible (although not very impressively, I admit).

Shot a new video under better lighting conditions. Does anyone know a free upload host that does not delete stuff after a week? A month should be sufficient for this thread.

Touchpad Cable and connectors?

Check connectors of keyboard and trackpad: all were OK.

Also shown with pictures. Ditto RTC holder and mainboard without the matte stickers, and battery connector and plug.

Mainboard reset

Already mentioned in the first mail.

Added:

When the video with the blinkenlights was taken, the laptop was powered from a LG 27UL850-W monitor, rated for USB-C 60W power delivery. It has a long time been powering the laptop and there were never issues even under high load.

A full SW1 reset and boot (procedure at the bottom to keep this readable): Same failure to boot, power LED blinked in several colors, internal LEDs red.

Good point. I’ll let it charge over night (it’s getting late here) and report back if something looks suspicious.

Did. Should have pointed out the timeline, though. Too late now.

Do I understand you correctly that a part that Framework shipped as replacement during warranty is not covered under a warranty of its own?

And that in consequence I have to buy another mainboard?

I am asking for an explicit statement to that effect to include with the necessary materials to invoke the European Consumer Centre (About Us | European Consumer Centre Germany). [Did not, legally the case is clear.]

Please understand that after that long support thread in which supplied information has obviously not been read and then asked for[*], I am beginning to become a bit impatient.

(The “[*]” was a footnote with an example.)

Support always reacted quickly, for which I am very grateful, though they must be under a really heeeeaaaaavy load… That’s a different issue, let’s leave it out here.

Credit card has no extra services. I’ll face it squarely: nothing to salvage from from that board. Not sure what I’ll do, maybe take it as sport-y challenge with schematics when life gets boring…

Thank your for your brain cycles.
:pray: :brain: :pray:

SW1 reset
SW1 is located straight up from the top right corner of the right RAM, if installed, or slightly East of straight North from the “Y” of the right “MEMORY”. Or West-North-West from the mainboard screw. It is labelled above with a tiny “JECDB” .

  1. Turn off the laptop.
  2. Disconnect all expansion cards, the charger, the input cover, RAM, SSD, RTC coin cell and the main battery. Press and hold the SW1 switch for 20 seconds. Then leave everything disconnected for 15 minutes to allow the mainboard to fully power drain.
  3. After 15 minutes, reconnect the main battery, RTC coin cell, RAM to channel 0, and the charger. Leave the SSD disconnected.
  4. Turn on the laptop using the SW1 switch and observe whether the diagnostic lights behave the same, if the fan spins, and if anything is displayed.
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I would just take a multimeter in dc voltage mode to the RTC battery. Would be a definitive answer if it’s good or not. I read through your last post but couldn’t see if you actually removed the board from the chassis or not. Sometimes it ends up being some sort of short to chassis issue or a very apparent issue that is easy to fix.

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Taken out, 2.4V after a night on charger and main battery … hm. Tried a fresh coin (3.0V, measured): no change. Power button pressed: it lights up, after a moment goes dark again.

No, all testing took place inside the laptop. I’ll take the board out and have a closer look later in the week.

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So I took out the mainboard, placed it loosely with electrical insulaltion on top of bottom chassis and had everything connected again.

Result: boots, but seldom, most times just power button going dark a few moments after lighting up. (Still, random booting and sudden deaths makes is an unusable machine.)

So teensy tiny differences in mechanical tension may be a co-factor; after all, the screws always had been tightened manually. A broken lead or contact that had some residual conductivity that varies with the most minute bend of the board?

Another thought: A broken pull-up or pull-down resistor (possibly caused, or together, with the above), could allow the un-pulled pin to react to random irradiation. Two floors above me is the basis of a mast with a lot of antennas - but OTOH, wifi, bluetooth, radio all work without problems. OTthirdH, that would fit to the observation of suspicious sudden deaths exactly at the moment of a mouse event; the mouse a/o cable could be leaking.

Anyway, without schematics and board layout the near-zero chance to fix that board is, oh, cipher, nil, zip, and love.

I thank you all for helpful hints!

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Schematics are on github and boardview is available under NDA to technicians afaik.

Why not test the board competely isolated? Only a stick of ram and use the on board power button. This will rule out any sub component issue.

Behavior sounds like maybe flakey power good signal. Might be a fun project if you want to sell the mainboard for parts.

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Yup, found them last night around 4:30… Must have been due to that blind rage one hears about sometimes. :slight_smile:

So not for me. Anyway, the schematics are a start.

Good tip! I’ll give it a try.

I’ll look into that first, then.

Not yet. Maybe if I can’t really find a fix. And then there’s the old voodoo from CRT times: re-solder every soldered point, sometimes their aging was the root cause. So, if all turns out to be definitely lost, the hail mary would be a reflow – first slowly heat in the oven to drive out infiltrated traces of moisture, then a heat gun (with a broad gentle blow or the SMDs fly all over the room).

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I’d skip the reflow and sell it as that would likely effect the large BGAs poorly. I’d be checking:

  1. Voltage rails at each inductor
  2. EC is receiving power
  3. Bios chip receiving power
  4. Bios chip activity with a scope
  5. Thermal camera or finger test for hot components
  6. Look into top right usb port for EC debug console. As EC mught give you a clue
  7. Visual inspection under taped/covered areas
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Looks like a busy weekend… Thanks for the tips! :+1:

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Based on the pattern of the failure. I.e. gradually failing over time.
I suspect it might be a simple component like a capacitor that has failed, causing one of the power supply rails to stop working. Capacitors mostly fail in a short.
It should be pretty easy for a repair shop to fix.
If the cause is something else, then it might be uneconomical to repair.
If you have the knowledge, you could probably test the power rails with an oscilloscope to check they are all steady.
It is a shame that FW don’t release the full schematics and boardviews as it would be much easier to repair oneself then, and people could upload youtube videos explaining the various faults people have found and then help everyone out as a community.
For example, for mobile phones and some manufactures laptop that have released the schematics and board views, it also includes details of what the voltage should be at various test points. Making it easy of anyone to diagnose problems without needing a repair shop.

On one device I came across. The EC would measure the volts on all the supply rails and it let you do a test whereby it would try to power on the device, take a measurement of the volts, and report that back to the test engineer. Thus saving one even having to use a oscilloscope or a probe. One could also manually supply volts to the EC in order for it to carry out the test, even if the EC was not getting power properly. It just made fault diagnosis a lot quicker.
There was also another option, once the power rail test passed, to do a more full BIST test, whereby it would test a majority of the motherboard.
It appears the EC does take some temp measurements and fan speed measurements, but does not appear to take supply rail measurements.

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@James3
Steep learning curve ahead. :slight_smile: Thanks!

Edit: Didn’t know about schematics being open until last night.
Schematics, and other material are here on github
See also this repo, it has some additional material.

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The schematics do seem incomplete. Id be asking support for a more complete one on NDA if possible.