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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Apple absolutely does not fix bricked systems out of warranty, regardless of cause or fault. Certainly not two years removed from the warranty. They can, in very rare cases, get bricked by failed updates. It’s not totally unheard of.
“Unequivocally wrong” is highly debatable. You may feel that way but I don’t. I’m not defending anyone, I’m just providing a reality check on how things work when you buy a product from anyone.
I think the only thing framework did wrong is fail to provide a BIOS restore fallback function, which my desktop motherboard has, but not every laptop has a feature like this.
For one thing, any conclusion that a BIOS update failure is automatically Framework’s fault is a big jump to conclusions. A BIOS update has a small risk of failure with any device. Find me a motherboard manufacturer who will bail you out outside of the warranty period and I’ll do three cartwheels for you.
So you are saying if your laptop is out of warranty, they are free to do everything they want without any responsibilities ?
Like if this update bricked like thousands of out of warranty laptop, they are still free to go?
This sounds like an extension of my logic beyond my meaning. This implication is that any manufacturer can just brick devices en masse, perhaps even on purpose, with no consequence or recourse, which is not at all what I was saying.
Here's a little story to frame this a little better and help you understand my meaning: My second-to-last MacBook Pro before I quit the Apple platform was the 2016 MacBook Pro with the butterfly keyboard.
That machine had a flawed design that was never 100% fixed, and Apple swept the whole issue under the rug until media pressure intensified. They then made a warranty extension for the keyboards.
The fix did not work 100%. The underlying keyboard design was flawed. I got my MacBook Pro "fixed" under this extended warranty,
The result was a huge class action lawsuit, for which I just received my last check this year. I was not fully compensated or given a refund. What I ended up doing was unloading the laptop much earlier than my normal upgrade cycle to switch to the 2019 16" MacBook Pro (Intel) that no longer possessed this fatal design flaw.
This incident damaged Apple's brand perception with at least one customer, me.
So, I'm not saying there are zero consequences for Framework not making this right. At the same time, every company that makes products draws a line somewhere. A restaurant isn't going to compensate me for a bad meal I had a month ago. Dell isn't going to buy me a new computer because my 7 year old Inspiron is on the fritz even though I expect a device like that to last longer.
If you bring a 2016 MacBook Pro in to Apple to get the keyboard replaced under the keyboard replacement program, Apple will not do it for free. The program has expired. Even though the system cost Apple millions of dollars in a class action suit and the design is fundamentally flawed, Apple will not make it right for their customers indefinitely. They offered a limited time resolution for customers who experienced that issue.
There is not a customer expectation that all the products they buy will last forever or will be indefinitely fixed for free regardless of issue, so in practice it's a balancing act between minimizing your long-term support costs and pissing off your customer base.
To directly answer your question though, a lot of times bricking or severely handicapping products happens and companies are free to go. Ask me what happened to my second generation Google Nest thermostat. Of course, my reaction to that was to throw the thing in the trash and resolve to never buy a piece of Google hardware ever again. But I'm sure thousands of people responded by justifying an upgrade to the latest and greatest and calling that a win because shopping for something new and unboxing a package is a fun dopamine hit.
I don't think that everything I described above is what is happening with Framework in this situation. I don't think there is any indication that failed BIOS flashes are a widespread issue. It seems that the standard rectification for a bad BIOS flash is a replacement board because it is considered a rare occurrence.
Remember that, if you don't want to worry about this or any other hardware failure, you can go ahead and buy a 3-year extended warranty at time of purchase, and that sort of option is available with basically every piece of consumer technology on the market.
I would agree that it would be better for them to be able to service it for a lower cost or maybe have a BIOS recovery function built-in to the hardware, but other than that I don't see anything that deviates very far from standard industry practice and policy.
You've given so much data about why it's reasonable for hardware to fail. I get it. Hardware fails. In the Apple example that keyboard shit was unequivocally WRONG. They eventually admitted that and offered a fix. They handled it poorly. But they did acknowledge it. IT WASN'T AN OPTIONAL SOFTWARE UPDATE EITHER HOLY SHIT.
Also in your example with google..
.. why did you resolve to stop buying Google products? ..
5% of all hardware fails, google can't possibly make things perfect, blah blah fucking blah, same fucking argument applies. They didn't do it on purpose! They can't make all hardware perfect! How dare we expect them to do the right thing?
Because the way they handled that case was WRONG. Framework is WRONG. Apple's keyboard's were horrific and their response sucked but at least they tried to respond and tried to make it right on some level?
Framework have calculated that doing the right thing here is too expensive and they (so far!) aren't doing it. That pisses me off. It should piss you off too. Defending them is wild. They don't care about you. Their behavior is WRONG.