In my life, I usually get a long live of all the laptops(computers) I’ve got.
first was a compaq, bought for my brother than after he finished what he needed the laptop for the university I get it and almost finished my university with it.
Was a MBP (Macbook pro) with the theorical nvidia 8600 that were defect. The laptop brake after one year, but after the board replacement the laptop is still working, (yeah almost unusable today) I had it for 8 years, after I gived it to my father.
Another MBP (my previous one worked really well) that I had also for 7~8 years, not so happy, some issues with the operating system, now my girlfriend has it using windows.
and 2 years ago, I bought a frame.work 12th gen i5 with 32 GB of ram (because I expect I will use it for long long time) and this week, died, for second time. The board replacement framework send me only worked for 8 month.
which brings me to my question: my experience is exceptionally bad? or the people here also had problems with the quality of the boards? Or is the 12Gen board?
Frame.Work told me they will send me another replacement board, but of course there is no extra Warranty for the board.
Right now I don’t know what to do. I’m thinking on selling my laptop to a really cheap price and buy something else. Last time I was more than 15 days without laptop.
Posts like this are really difficult, because while we can sympathize with you for the difficulties, but we also can’t really help you because your post is sparse on details. You talk about laptops that you had which lasted, but then don’t talk about how you treated and used those laptops.
Maybe you like to use your laptop on the coach with a big fluffy blanket and partially block ventilation? Maybe you like to toss your laptop around, because you did that with all of your other laptops?
A glued and sealed laptop is going to offer more rigidity but at what cost? If I need to treat my laptop a little more gently to overcome that, and regain all the things that Framework offer, then that is a compromise I’m willing to make.
That said I have 2 Framework 13s, and 4 additional mainboards. My first framework laptop was bought right when Framework opened up. I upgraded it with a 12th gen. My wife’s is using the same 11th gen mainboard. Neither of these laptops have had a single problem in terms of durability.
The 4 mainboards are in 3d cases of various applications and are desktops and servers. All of them work today and show no signs of stopping.
This is not to say that you are wrong, or that I don’t believe you. You could have gotten lemons. I’m just saying that your posts doesn’t really allow us, the community, to be of any real help.
I put my experience with personal laptops as a proof that I try to preserve my devices as max as possible. I always try to avoid blocking ventilation, 99% of the time I used this laptop was over a table or similar. In fact, when I can, I like to put something extra in the foots of the laptops to allow better ventilation.
Good to know that you have 6 diferent mainboards and all of them work fine. Knowing more experience of other people in this case for me is helpful.
Well, time to time I compile stuff. Just before it failed, I was doing intensive CPU compilation. But that’s not the norm. At the begining I was doing a little bit of gaming, but after the first mainboard died I bought a steamdeck.
In the current one, I can tell you, because smell burn (and shows the burn). Is the PU502 chip. I’m awaiting for the RMA to get a new repaired board.
That is part of the voltage regulation circuitry. It provides a 5v output. This powers 5v items in the laptop as well as at the ports. How do you charge the laptop? Are you using a dock, powering a display, powering other devices with your Framework? If the PU502 has to provide a lot of amps for a continued amount of time, this could lead to a failure. This is why I am asking about how you are powering the laptop and things you are using with it.
arround 80% of the time is connected to his own power supply without any accessory, the other time, is conected to an usb-c hub which has the power supply (usually I work there with the company laptop), and this one is connected to the screen (has his own power suply, should not be using power from the laptop to run), keyboard & mouse. Usually nothing else.
I was looking to buy another usb-c adapter, because this one usually gets warm, which I don’t like. But not sure how the power is delivered if it’s send to the laptop and the laptop then powers the usbs, or the adaptor does it well.
Ok, to me either the power rail of the mainboard is faulty, OR something was doing something in not the best of regulation which stressed the power rail of the mainboard. Since this is your SECOND mainboard to die I would suggest you look into your display and hub situation. When you are using the hub, it is charging your laptop.
It could be a faulty issue with the mainboard power rail, or it could be the way power is getting supplied to the mainboard. Things to consider perhaps.
A while ago I posted a reply indicating Framework Laptop’s 5V output has less power rating than other laptops with example.
This could mean at a given usage scenario, an FL13’s 5V circuitry load % is higher compared to other laptop models, which may or may not contribute to broken boards. I could be nitpicking
The power output capabilities of the ports is certainly one of the weak spots in the current framework lineup, hope they improve that on future revisions. If we could get like 30-65W pd out that would be even neater but being able to do 5v 3a would already be a lot better than what we got.
the usb hub is allways connected to a power adapter.
I don’t think the first mainboard died for the same reason, there was no burn smell, and also the simptoms were different. This time no light was on, no matter what, previous time I remember that the ports in one side detected the charger when plugged.
Also, I’m pretty sure that the usb-c hub is powering the devices directly when the hub has power. I just tried disconecting the hub from the computer, and the light of my keyboard was still on.
one question that it come to my mind right now, I don’t remember the disposition of the usb-c internal conections, can it be possible that at the moment of unplug (I think was the moment my computer stop/burned) get some kind of shortcircuit? Of the line that was charging the laptop to the 5v?
I also have a Framework 13 12th gen with i5. I want to love it but it doesn’t let me…
Bought the laptop in 2022, ordered in september, received in November.
First issue happened in November 2023 when the laptop from one day to the other didn’t charge or power up. followed support instructions and had to change the mainboard at the end. solved around december 2023.
Seconde issue happened October 2024, same isue then last time with the laptop not powering up. Had to change the mainboard again, noticed that almost the same components burned. (One of them being the PU502)
Third issue just occured, January 2025. In december the Touchpad stopped working. After some investigation I found a burned chip on the backplate, so I opened a support case. They asked for more pictures and after I took them the laptop would not power up anymore. As it smelled burned, I unmounted the mainboard : and could see that the PU502 had burn marks again.
I just sent everything into the support case… Not having much hope since now I’m out of warranty I guess…
So unfortunately my experience with the circuit quality of Framework is very bad.
I don’t know which one is PU502, but I have read a lot of the threads here and there has probably only been a few mentioned with melted chips/components. So compared to how many have been sold, it’s probably a very low percentage have the problem.
I would maybe start suspecting something you plug into the laptop instead. E.g. a psu, hub, dock or display?
There are many different things this could be. For example, one person had a mainboard that had a temp sensor fail intermittently. But the mainboard would just fail to turn on any cooling fan as a result and the system got very hot.
A safer approach might have been to max the fans out if the sensor is failed. It might annoy the user, but will save the hardware.
On a more common sense approach, if there really was a widespread problem related to PU502, they would probably have replaced it with a 13th gen board instead or some board that did not have the fault.
I think if you itemise, make, model, all the devices attached at the time, other people might chime in, “me too” if they have the same devices and same pu502 problem.
My main problem with your statement hereover is : I’m daily driving a Dell for the Work and a Xiaomi at home alongside of the Framework (The framework should have replaced the Xiaomi but as it never made it over a year I kept my Xiaomi up to date).
None of the other laptops have any issues and I use them on the same chargers/dockings/screens then the Framework. The Dell gets replaced every 3 year and my Xiaomi is more then 7years old and I’m typing today on it as my framework won’t power up.
So I’m wondering what do the other laptops have that is missing in the Framework to avoid these burns…
I disagree a little bit on your comment about the numbers, That only two people commented this in the Official Frame.work forum, doesn’t mean that we are the only two people that had problems. In fact, I expect that if other people is like us, they will go and maybe throw the laptop, or sell it once is repaired (In fact that was one of my thoughts).
I bought mine almost at the same time. Which starts make me feeling like a bad batch, and the first replacement was a repaired one. Now the board I’ve got seems is a new board. Let’s hope this works better.