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Comment by rwbt | Hacker News Reader

I purchased the first generation of FW13 laptops and got burned. The CMOS/RTC battery drains if not plugged in so the laptop never keeps proper time. I don't think I've ever used a gadget in the last few decades that needs setting the correct date & time every time I turn it on.

Granted, it was their first ever shipping product so I gave them a free pass but I thought they would atleast issue a recall or have a repair program where you send in the laptop to get it fixed. Instead they first denied it was even an issue, later on when enough people complained - they started a battery program where they send you a new ML220 coin battery that will also eventually stop working.

I was told buying a new mainboard (12th or 13th gen Intel) would fix it, but I decided to just buy a new ZenBook instead.

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We have the full detail and a permanent fix for this issue here: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/RTC+Battery+Substitution+on+...

We still provide the RTC substitute module free to any 11th Gen owner who requests it.

The permanent fix involves soldering stuff on the mainboard, which I don't have any prior experience. The RTC substitute module you mention is just the ML220 coin battery that will also eventually stop working.

The RTC substitute module is the permanent fix, which does require soldering one wire to a point on the Mainboard.

I did this repair and it was not nearly as easy as you imply. The wire is extremely thin, and the pad on the motherboard is extremely small. I had to purchase special eye-wear in order to see what I was doing, in addition to a soldering iron.

It was and is totally wrong that Framework requires users to repair a component that was faulty from the factory. You should ship the laptops back to your facility and repair them, at your expense. At worst, offer a substantial discount on a motherboard replacement.

This experience is a big reason why I went from a strong Framework proponent to a strong detractor. You do not support your products, and users cannot trust you to do the right thing. You now bask in the idealistic haze of nerddom but your actions show that you're just a business for whom repairability is a sales strategy to justify premium prices.

The warranty suggests that Framework would "ship the laptops back to [their] facility and repair them, at [their] expense," as you said they should. Did that not happen while your warranty period was in effect?

https://frame.work/warranty

No, it did not. And you had one of their representatives in this thread verify that fact. They expected you to do the repair with a soldering iron.

My question was about what happened during your warranty period. nrp's response was independent of warranty obligations.

The issue did not arise until after the warranty period expired. The manufacturing flaw drained the real-time clock battery which lasted about a year. Their first fix was to send a new battery; the second fix was a soldering job. I am not a lawyer, but this does not seem like it is legal. The manufacturing flaw was present from the beginning but was masked by the battery's charge.

They just offered free batteries.

Nope. I don't think they even recognized the defect till many years later (probably for legal reasons?).

For users, that were still under warranty - they offered free RTC batteries (which also stopped working later).

Either way, I won't buy anything from them going forward.

I appreciate the response, but my suggestion would be to offer a mail-in service program so that users don't have to fiddle with potentially dangerous soldering (ideally Framework bearing the shipping costs or atleast subsidizing it).

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