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