My Framework Laptop (Intel 11th Gen Intel® Core™) is not powering on

August 9 2023 4:15pm • Est. Read Time: 7 MIN

Powering on the first time


You'll need to plug in external power to power on for the first time. When the laptop is charging, the LED on the side of the laptop between the two Expansion Cards should be illuminated either orange (when charging) or white (when fully charged).


If the side LED doesn't light up


Check the specifications of the power adapter you're using, and check if it works with other USB-C devices.  You can see the required power adapter specifications here.


If you are using 3.06 BIOS (the default BIOS Batch 5 and 6 ships with), we're investigating an issue where the system sometimes won't charge after it drains to 0% while sleeping.  If you see this occur, the current workaround until we have an updated BIOS is:

  1. Plug in a basic USB power adapter into one of the ports on the right side of the laptop.  When doing this, make sure the power adapter you are using is a basic, non-USB-PD one, like an adapter that uses a USB-A to USB-C cable, like in the image below.
  2. With the other power adapter still plugged in, plug your Framework Power Adapter or other higher power USB-C power adapter into one of the ports on the left side of the Framework Laptop.  The charging LED should then turn on, and you can then unplug the low power adapter from the right side of the laptop.  If the charging LED does not come on after plugging the power adapter in, you may be facing a different issue and should proceed down through the rest of this Knowledge Base article.
  3. After 30 minutes of charging, boot the system, and keep the power adapter plugged in to let it charge fully.

If the side LED doesn't turn on on the first time power is plugged into the system on unboxing or if the above steps didn't resolve the issue, try doing a full reset of the state of the Mainboard by following this guide.

If your power button doesn't light up when pressed

Double check the Touchpad Cable that goes between the Touchpad and the Mainboard. Sometimes this can get pulled out slightly when disassembling and assembling the laptop or setting up the DIY Edition, causing no connection.  You should check that both sides of this cable are properly inserted.  You can follow the step by step instructions on the Input Cover Replacement Guide to do that.  Make sure the cable is fully inserted before powering on.


If your power button lights up briefly but then turns off

Double check that the Battery connector is plugged into the Mainboard.  If not, follow the step here to plug it in, being careful to avoid bending the pins.

If the Battery connector is plugged in, double check that it is straight and fully inserted.  If it looks like it is not fully inserted, first pull the connector out, avoiding twisting or bending it, and then look into the connector to make sure none of the pins are bent.

If your power button lights up, but you don't see the screen come on, and the side LEDs are solid

On the first boot after installing new memory, the side LEDs will stay green for a period of time (up to a couple of minutes) to do memory training.  If the LEDs remain a solid color for more than five minutes, try powering off and reseating the memory modules or trying them out one at a time in each memory socket.


If your power button lights up, but you don't see the screen come on, and the side LEDs are blinking

If the laptop does not successfully exit the BIOS after 20 seconds, the side LEDs next to the Expansion Cards will blink out a code with the status of various subsystems/boot initialization steps.


Note: If you enter the BIOS menu, pause the boot process, or have no OS installed, you may see this diagnostic blink sequence triggered even when there are no hardware issues preventing the system from booting.


The code will blink white, then 12 blinks that are red or green, then orange, then 8 blinks that are blue or green. If the flash is green, then the check for that specific item passed.  


Blink

Description

White

Start of diagnosis

1 Red/Green

Battery connected check

2  Red/Green

Power Good 3V5V supply

3  Red/Green

Power Good VCCIN_AUX

4  Red/Green

CPU deassert sleep S4

5  Red/Green

Power boot core VR

6  Red/Green

Touchpad detected

7  Red/Green

Audio board Detected

8  Red/Green

Thermal sensor detected

9  Red/Green

Fan detected and spins up

10  Red/Green

CPU reached S0 state

11  Red/Green

DDR initialized OK

12  Red/Green

Internal display initialized OK

Orange

Start of post code section

Post code bit  0

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit  1

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit  2

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit 3

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit  4

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit  5

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit  6

Blue=1, Green=0

Post code bit  7

Blue=1, Green=0


Resolving "DDR initialized OK" error codes

If the side LEDs blink out a code with the 11th blink red, that indicates a potential error with memory.  Please try the following:

  1. If you have two sticks of RAM, test them out one at a time.
  2. Test if one of the two memory sockets isn't working by trying one socket at a time.
  3. If you have other DDR4 SO-DIMMs on hand to try, test those out.

Resolving error codes blinking out or side LEDs not coming on at all

In the event you're seeing the side LEDs blink out a code where other blinks are red or the side LEDs don't come on at all, you can follow this guide to fully reset the state of the mainboard

Laptop will not power on or boot with the USB-C AC Adapter attached, even after waiting 10 minutes

This could be happening due to a silicon bug present in 11th Gen Intel Core processors which can be resolved by completing the following steps: Fully Resetting the Mainboard State - Framework Guides


The root cause of the issue is as follows:


The RTC/CMOS battery powers the very low power subsystem that preserves the real time clock (responsible for providing the calendar clock to the system) and some processor state. This battery exists to allow system time to be preserved while the main battery is in ship mode, disconnected, or drained. The RTC/CMOS battery recharges when the laptop is plugged into power.


Normally, when the RTC/CMOS battery drains below the voltage threshold needed to power the RTC/CMOS subsystem (if the laptop was left unplugged for months on the high end or weeks on the low end), the impact would be that the system clock resets. With most operating systems, this wouldn’t be noticeable, since the OS will automatically grab the current time off of a network time protocol server and update the system clock again. However, with 11th Gen Intel Core processors, Intel shared that there is a silicon bug where low voltage on the subsystem that the RTC/CMOS battery powers can put the processor into a stuck state that needs to be manually reset by removing all power sources (which can be done by following the Mainboard Reset Guide).


PLEASE NOTE: Allowing the RTC/CMOS battery to fully recharge by keeping the system plugged in for 24 hours after a reset or after leaving the system unplugged for more than a few weeks is important. This happens randomly, in that only some instances of the RTC/CMOS battery reaching low voltage will result in the CPU going into a bad state, which is both how Intel didn’t find this during development of the processor and neither we nor our manufacturing partner saw it occur during design of the laptop.


For customers with 11th Gen Mainboards, our guidance continues to be that if you plan to leave the laptop unplugged for weeks/months, to do so with power plugged in. If not, there is a some percent chance that the manual reset will be needed the next time the laptop is used. We know that if this is a behavior you regularly need to follow, that it is annoying and decreases the enjoyment of using the product. Since this does occur randomly, it is possible there are processors or RTC/CMOS batteries that it is more likely to occur on than others.


If you’ve needed to perform the Mainboard reset procedure more than once on your 11th Gen system or the laptop will not power on even after following the steps above, your RTC/CMOS battery may no longer be holding a charge.  There are a couple options available that the Framework Support team can provide to resolve the issue:


  1. Framework Support can provide a replacement RTC/CMOS battery to you, free of charge, regardless of the status of your warranty. Simply request this option and provide a clear image/photo of the serial number of your mainboard and your Framework Order Number. If you do not have access to the Order Number, please provide the email used to complete the purchase on the Framework website. To access the mainboard serial number on the top side of the part, please follow the steps in the guide HERE. Also, please verify your shipping information/address (only in supported countries/regions) to avoid unnecessary back and forth communications. For information on acceptable shipping addresses, please see the following article HERE.

    If you receive a replacement RTC/CMOS battery it is important to make sure to let it fully recharge by keeping your laptop plugged into power for at least 24 hours. We also recommend keeping your laptop plugged into power during long periods of non-use to avoid letting the RTC/CMOS battery fully discharge. Note that even a normal 5V/900mA USB-C power adapter will sufficiently trickle charge the system and RTC/CMOS battery.

  2. Framework Support now has an alternative option for those with the technical skills to solder electrical components. This alternative RTC/CMOS Battery Substitution is a single solder point component which replaces the coin cell battery with a circuit that keeps the RTC subsystem powered off of the main battery.  You can find the step by step instructions for installing this module in this guidePLEASE NOTE: You should NOT request this option if you or the person designated for this rework do not have sufficient electronics soldering experience. While it is only a single solder point, failing to solder this correctly can result in damage to the system and is not covered under Framework’s Limited Warranty. If you accept the associated liability, please request this option and provide a clear image/photo of the serial number of your mainboard and your Framework Order Number. If you do not have access to the Order Number, please provide the email used to complete the purchase on the Framework website. To access the mainboard serial number on the top side of the part, please follow the steps in the guide HERE. Also, please verify your shipping information/address (only in supported countries/regions) to avoid unnecessary back and forth communications. For information on acceptable shipping addresses, please see the following article HERE.


Finally, we also recommend keeping your system up to date with the latest firmware releases. Please see the following knowledge base article which has links to the latest BIOS/Firmware and Framework Driver Bundles for each generation of Framework Laptop.



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