I've had Dell XPSs and Lenovo Thinkpads exclusively prior to Framework, and they all died by component failure. Sure, Dell will send a technician to your house and Lenovo has off-shore call centers, but the end result is the same: either buy an eye-wateringly expensive warranty that won't cover most failures or buy a new laptop.

While I'm all for stronger consumer regulation when it comes to this stuff, on balance I prefer the Framework approach here relative to the other options available to me.

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cschep 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Can you really compare failing components to an optional update they sent you an email to encourage you to install that bricks your working laptop? This is 100% their responsibility to test thoroughly before recommending right?

I agree nothing is perfect in the grand scheme, there are always trade offs. But using that as argument against this specific failure being wrong and bad doesn't help IMO. Framework should handle this better, and maybe they still will.

	▲	Grombobulous 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think all manufacturers generally vet their BIOS updates and that it's probably not possible to stop 100% of all BIOS update failures. This laptop has been owned for 3 years, so you have to benchmark against other 3-year-old laptops. What percentage of those fail or get bricked in some way? What is the cost of a solution for those failures? It would be nice if this laptop had a BIOS recovery feature, and perhaps competing laptops have such a thing as well. I've mostly seen that feature with desktop gaming boards, and if it's common with other PC laptops, Framework should implement it. If an update bricks your MacBook Pro or Lenovo, I imagine the cost and method of repair is exactly the same. These laptops get sent to a service depot or a tech comes out to your house, and they replace the board. Unless you happen to find an extremely nerdy repair shop like a Louis Rossmann situation, the techs don't mess with reflashing BIOS or other board-level stuff like replacing capacitors. It's just not really worth the labor/parts balance. Spending an hour or more on labor will likely cost more than spending 10 minutes on labor and $400 on parts. Perhaps this looks worse for Framework because you the consumer is seeing how the sausage is made. Framework doesn't have a white glove repair service since the computer is designed to not need one. You're just buying the part yourself and installing it. This solution doesn't cost more than the competition, and maybe it even costs less. Plus, you might even get an upgraded board out of it, which is unheard of with the competition. But it doesn't feel like "repairability" compared to dropping off your computer at your local certified Dell or Apple tech and picking it back up "repaired."

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Grombobulous 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Right, really what Framework is saying is "we don't have a repair center that tries to re-flash BIOS." Neither do the other manufacturers, it's just too much of an in-the-weeds repair that's not worth their technicians' time.

The fact that the RAM isn't soldered is such a huge benefit here as well. The most recent 7040 series board that sold on eBay with no RAM or SSD included only cost $269. Even if the author decided to just buy that board, that kind of repair cost is unheard of. That's battery service cost territory if you own a MacBook Pro.

Or you can just use the opportunity to upgrade, which a repair from a competitor is not offering.

I disagree with a lot of the assessments the author made:

> First, it is clear that Framework’s BIOS updater is broken, at least on the AMD 7040 series.

This is only true anecdotally. I have installed this exact same BIOS version just fine on my 7040 series unit. It's not broken, works on my machine, my anecdote is worth exactly the same as theirs.

> Secondly, Framework encourages users to perform BIOS updates in their newsletters, and yet if the update results in bricking

Again, anecdotally.

> Thirdly, Framework claims to have made a repairable laptop, and I think my experience and the hoops I had to jump through to flash the BIOS have decidedly shown this not to be the case.

I would definitely welcome a built-in recovery flashing mechanism and more general repairable design within the mainboard. Any improvement is welcome. That said, Framework is already well above industry standard in regard to repairability. There are not many laptops out there with non-soldered RAM and removable WiFi modules.

The trouble here is that they invite this criticism upon themselves by offering repairability as a flagship benefit, but the reality is that it's not very practical for 100% of the computer to avoid every possible pitfall with long-term ownership. Yeah, after 3 years of ownership, X% of laptops get bricked for some kind of reason. This is why extended warranties cost hundreds of dollars regardless of brand. Consumer electronics are just not risk-free purchase transactions.

You also see how the sausage is made because you are doing the repair yourself. If you brick your MacBook Pro and take it to an Apple repair center, they might just be throwing your board in the trash and replacing it, charging you $500, and you get your computer back "repaired." Framework doesn't have a repair center since all repairs that they would perform in a repair center are repairs that you can perform at home, so you get to see how repairs actually work in practice. No computer OEMs and essentially no authorized repair centers hire component-level repair technicians, it's just not a business they want to be in.

I'm sure if you took your Framework to an electronics market in China you could get your BIOS flashed by dozens of vendors for $20 while you wait.

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cschep an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> If you brick your MacBook Pro and take it to an Apple repair center, they might just be throwing your board in the trash and replacing it, charging you $500, and you get your computer back "repaired."

No one bricked their own laptop! They installed an update provided by the people that made the laptop! You bet your ass if installing software provided by apple bricked a macbook pro they would fix it for free. If they didn't it would be equally as unacceptable. Why are you defending a company that is doing the wrong thing? Framework is unequivocally wrong here.

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quantum5 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Original author here:

> This is only true anecdotally. I have installed this BIOS version just fine on my 7040 series unit. It's not broken, works on my machine, my anecdote is worth exactly the same as theirs.

I linked an entire thread where people have had similar bricking issues with this exact update: https://community.frame.work/t/bios-update-stuck/83416

If it's just me, I would chalk it up to a freak accident, but it's not.

And in the repair thread, you see it's been happening on and off since last year: https://community.frame.work/t/success-in-recovering-from-ba...

This isn't an anecdote at this point, but a pattern. I don't think the BIOS updater is working as intended if every update is like playing Russian roulette.

> That said, Framework is already well above industry standard in this regard. There are not many laptops out there with non-soldered RAM and removable WiFi modules.

Yes, but they are below industry standard for BIOS flashing issues.

> The trouble here is that they invite this criticism upon themselves by offering repairability as a flagship benefit, but the reality is that it's not very practical for 100% of the computer to avoid every possible pitfall with long-term ownership.

The part that upsets me isn't that they aren't warrantying this. The problem is that they promised to make a laptop I can fix myself and provide all the documentation to do it with confidence long after the warranty ends. That's why I bought into the ecosystem in the first place.

Turns out, they claimed to do better and then does all the anti-repair design anyway for BIOS flashing. They didn't even provide any documentation for fixing it myself, which I would have done gladly and then praised them for having documentation.

	▲	Grombobulous 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right, that's a thread with 38 posts. Only the people who have a bricked system would post to a forum, the rest of them with working systems are not there. The repair thread has 78 posts. Keep in mind, not every post is posted by a unique person (people post multiple replies to the same thread). Are they below industry standard for BIOS flashing issues? How do you know? Do you have some data to point to? Do vendors like Lenovo or Apple make that information public? I'm not trying to shill or defend them or anyone else in this industry, and I think they should have a BIOS recovery method built-in like my desktop does. However, it's important to understand how statistical analysis works for issues like these. As of 2024, reports indicate that Framework has sold a six-figure quantity of laptops. So we have here about 116 posts on the subject of BIOS update failures, 0.1% of sales volume or less. I realize this napkin math is flawed in itself since we should be isolating to the AMD 7040 series, and we should not assume that every person who has a BIOS flashing issue is posting on the forum, but I think it gives you a very rough idea on why we can't say one way or another whether these issues are common. If there was a forum post with thousands of anecdotes about this issue, or even better, a class-action lawsuit (law firms will only do this if there's a large enough class to make it worth it), I'd be more inclined to be on your side.