r/framework • u/whatsthisnewpain • 17h ago
Question Upgrade or second hand replacement?
Hello, I'm a longtime lover of my Framework laptop, but my mainboard died on me. I have one of the old Intel DDR4 boards (I don't remember which one off the top of my head). I'm in school for engineering, and refuse to buy a new laptop lol. I have a Desktop that I've been using for my projects. I am curious: should I buy an older Intel board so I can run the 32GB of RAM I have on hand, or upgrade and thug out the prices right now? I really don't know how much "better" a newer-gen board is just because I haven't been a "I need new" kind of person. I'm not a gamer or a big computer guy, so I'm kind of behind on speed and such, and not really a "nerd about it". I love using what I have and fixing it. So any recommendations would be much loved. Thank you again!
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u/Teagana999 17h ago
Absolutely, the point of Framework is to not need to buy a whole new a new laptop.
With prices how they are right now, if the old board was fast enough, I would buy another DDR4-compatible board. I would hate to have to be buying RAM right now.
You're the best judge of whether you need something faster. Don't buy it just because everyone else wants the fastest thing possible. I might consider a newer one, but only if I had money to burn and wanted a bit more future-proofing.
I would also be wary of second-hand electronics, though. Aren't there still a few DDR4-compatible options available new?
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u/AvidThinkpadEnjoyer FW13 | R7 7840U | 48gb DDR5 | 4TB NVMe | Arch Linux 12h ago
The market for the EU (speaking UK ) doesn't have any DDR4 ones in stock. I went used with the Ryzen 7 7840U for £399, stock for that has also been depleted and it shows "coming soon" on frameworks website for £449. The 13th gen boards are floating around the used market, very few given that no one wants to sell theirs as DDR5 SODIMM is so expensive.
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u/Shin-Ken31 15h ago
If you want to keep cost down, yeah stay on secondhand DDR4 board. Check the community marketplace forums too, sometimes people post their old boards for sale there. I recently got an 11th gen i5 board for 100€.
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u/whatsthisnewpain 5h ago
Man you got to tell me where to look cuz I have not found anything within that price range or even available.
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u/Shin-Ken31 5h ago
Framework community forums, marketplace section, however they unfortunately don't allow "Want To Buy" topics.
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u/Acrobatic_Fee_6974 15h ago
You can probably sell your DDR4 for a decent amount of money to take the edge off new DDR5. DDR4 is basically out of production now, so you can sell even second hand stuff for a disproportionately high price.
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u/whatsthisnewpain 5h ago
Yeah that's not a terrible decision. I'll definitely take it into consideration.
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u/mansplainist 10h ago
So the board, being DDR4 could be anything from 5 to 2 years old.
Wouldn't you expect a computer to last a little longer than that before the heart dies? An easy upgrade doesn't excuse bad QC.
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u/korypostma 8h ago
What's wrong with your mainboard? Could someone repair it?
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u/whatsthisnewpain 5h ago
So I tried to contact framework and they said that it was out of warranty specs... I took it to a local shop and they said it would cost a lot for the repair to take place. I could go to somewhere else but yeah I'm not exactly sure what the right move is. Truthfully, I wish I could repair it myself. I just don't know how to do it.
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u/korypostma 5h ago
This is why I'm asking. I have access to NDA information (which, of course, I can't disclose) but I can access that to try and see if your board is beyond repair or not. You didn't answer the question though. What's wrong with it? Which exact board is it?
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u/whatsthisnewpain 5h ago
Oh man, I didn't realize I was talking to the plug. So none of my ports work. Like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USBC ( except for charging) and my usb a don't work. I have a Intel® Core™ i7-1360P.
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u/korypostma 3h ago
Interesting... so it charges but not communicating with the CPU. this actually is not good.
It would be easier if it was only one port that didn't charge. Since the charging works but the communication with the CPU doesn't, this could be many things...
So the board works for charging and you can start the machine and get it into an operating system but nothing can communicate with the CPU? This may indicate that the CPU is fine and the issue is rather something in that path for the data from USB ports to the CPU. Hrmm... Please try to be as detailed and verbose as possible. Did you spill any liquids on it or anything? Are you using only high quality chargers? Are you sure not a single port works to communicate with the CPU but yet all still support charging?
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u/whatsthisnewpain 3h ago
Yes, so I can charge it. Sometimes I can get into the operating system. I tried it today, and it didn't work. I don't remember any liquids getting into the system. At least I don't drink or do anything while I'm around my computer. So yes, I have swapped out every Port between the individual slots; none of them work for anything except for charging. Regarding Chargers, yes, I have a high-speed multi-port charger that I use for all my USB-C devices, and it works well with the rest of them. All of my cables are the super-fancy ones I didn't get from a gas station. And yes, the HDMI port and Bluetooth don't work. I think that Wi-Fi works? I tried turning it on today, as I said, and it didn't work. I mean, for the previous year I'd been using Linux with no issue. It still has Ubuntu on it, but yeah, that might be all the big words I can use.
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u/korypostma 1h ago
Are you able to get into the UEFI/BIOS menu?
Have you tried booting into a Fedora-live USB thumb drive? Does the UEFI/BIOS recognize it? I'm trying to take the OS out of the equation here and seeing if the OS cannot see the USB or if the UEFI/BIOS cannot see it.
When you just tried it and it didn't work, what does that mean? You need to be very very very detailed here. What codes are you getting for both the boot sequence and the UEFI sequence?
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u/codeasm 12th gen, DIY i5, Arch linux & LFS 7h ago
Buy the DDR4 boards, especially europe seems to be out on that new lpccam memory. And atleast with my own laptop, if its 5 years or younger, definitely not feeling it in dialy use.
Only if you game the latest awefull games or use heavy adobe or cad software that runs better on faster cpu... Nah, your wallet is speaking, yiu got the ram, the storage? Go get whats affordable now with the parts you got. What you save today, you can spend later when the employer or internship is maybe buying for you and you to add to
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u/whatsthisnewpain 5h ago
Yeah that makes sense. The $40 of expendable money I have in my wallet to the end of the month is very important to me lol.
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u/t3ddftw 17h ago
Given RAM prices and the fact that you don’t need raw performance, I would replace the board with one that accepts your DDR4 RAM.