Framework Computer Inc. release schematics for their laptop!

[MichaelMouton]

Approximately three days ago Framework Computer Inc. released semi-completed schematics for their laptop - the only product they are selling at the moment.

 

This is a huge step in the right direction, as Louis Rossmann says.  It's unfortunate that they aren't able to produce the full schematic, however, releasing that to the public would most likely violate several NDAs they might have with Intel and other vendors.

 

As Louis points out, though, in the grand scheme of things this really doesn't make that big a difference.  I looked at the schematic myself, and indeed it doesn't offer a whole lot of information - thus making it redundant when board level repair is needed.

 

Don't get me wrong, this is still amazing news!  I just thought I'd point out both the good and the not-so-good from this release.

 

This was reported on by LR on his YouTube channel...

 

Source

https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard/blob/main/Electrical/Mainboard_Interfaces_Schematic.pdf

[AndreiArgeanu]

Apparently the reason as to why they haven't released all schematics is different to what every other manufacturer/lobbyist says(e.g. china making fake copies of their product) although Louis isn't allowed to disclose the reason, not because he's obligated legally but because he said he would keep this private with the person at Framework, maybe Linus, since he's a major investor in the company could shine some light on this?

I personally suspect framework might be using designs that may already exist in other laptops for some parts of their laptop and they're trying to prevent a potential lawsuit from another laptop manufacturer that might be using those designs. Although of course it's only speculation on my part.

 

Anyway

 

[poochyena]

3 hours ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I personally suspect framework might be using designs that may already exist in other laptops for some parts of their laptop and they're trying to prevent a potential lawsuit from another laptop manufacturer that might be using those designs. Although of course it's only speculation on my part.

oooo
spicy

[LAwLz]

I don't really get it.

How are these news "amazing" when it is seemingly a vague document that does not contain information necessary to do repairs? I don't really get why I or anyone else should be excited over this or why it is a good thing.

[Doobeedoo]

I still can't see in future manufacturers making more modular, repairable and upgradable laptopa though.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I don't really get it.

How are these news "amazing" when it is seemingly a vague document that does not contain information necessary to do repairs? I don't really get why I or anyone else should be excited over this or why it is a good thing.

A few things, it's a step in the right direction.  You can still utilize the information as well for a repair, so it's not like it's an useless document.  There is enough information that it can still help/assist with a board level repair.  You might not be as successful as if it was a full thing, but it still is there.  Seeing a company moving towards the right direction is a big thing, because other companies would be heading in the opposite direction.

 

5 hours ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I personally suspect framework might be using designs that may already exist in other laptops for some parts of their laptop and they're trying to prevent a potential lawsuit from another laptop manufacturer that might be using those designs. Although of course it's only speculation on my part.

My speculation is that since they were a startup, they licensed parts of the board itself.  That in itself would mean there are contracts in place probably from them releasing some of the diagrams itself.  This is just my guess though.  There is nothing wrong with doing that either, if it's the choice of being able to actually start the company vs going bust (because the full design would be too expensive without sales).  If my guess is correct though, it might mean they would work on their own design and when ready be able to release it to market.

[Senzelian]

"It's a step in the right direction". I swear, if I hear that one more time I'll step in the wrong direction and walk off a cliff. 

[TetraSky]

I'll probably have to watch Louis's video, but giving a quick glance at the schematics, most of everything needed to repair the stuff that may break and can actually be repaired without specialised hardware is there. The capacitor size, resistors, etc etc... Pretty much everything needed. It's a bit all over the place so you'd have to spend some time to find what is where on the board, but other than that... It's a hell of a lot more than what other manufacturers are wiling to give out at least.

Will edit if and when I watch his video on this.

[hishnash]

9 hours ago, AndreiArgeanu said:

I personally suspect framework might be using designs that may already exist in other laptops for some parts of their laptop and they're trying to prevent a potential lawsuit from another laptop manufacturer that might be using those designs. Although of course it's only speculation on my part.

 

There are a few reasons companies do not publish schematics, non of them are concerned about companies copying them really:

1) When they contract a factory to make a charging circuit they have no proof that company has not copied the exact same design they sold to 10 other vendors. They are scared of copywriter troll law firms farming through released schematics finding things that have been copied then approaching the company that was copied and getting a contract to sue them (yes in other industries this is how most copywrite cases happen...!)

2) the raw schematics are full of third party IP that is not all public, depending on the parts you are using the vendor of that micro-controller, cpu socket, etc might not have chosen to publicly share the information (including pinout) of thier part. If you just publish your schematic in full then you end up leaking info like operating voltages, switching frequencies etc from third parties that might well be confidential info that your contract with them does not permit you to share... intel is likly the worst offender here as they are very secretive about their sockets and what every pin on the socket does.

It looks like framework have published cut down schematics to avoid the IP issues with their partners. 

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

 

I'll probably have to watch Louis's video, but giving a quick glance at the schematics, most of everything needed to repair the stuff that may break and can actually be repaired without specialised hardware is there.

 

If you know what is broken then yes. but if you need to diagnose what is broken then much of the info is missing and this makes sense since if they shared info about the intel cpu socket its power rales etc would almost certainly be in breach of their contract with intel. 

 

 

4 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

My speculation is that since they were a startup, they licensed parts of the board itself.

It does not really matter how large you are unless you design every single part you attach to the board your going to end up in a situation were you cant share full schematics since the vendors you are buying these parts form will have shared info with you that is under strict NDA.  Sure capacitors and resistors don't fall into this but as soon as you start to work with power stages, and other IC not to mention cpu chipsets and the cpu/socket sharing information that the vendor of these parts have shared with you will get you in a lot of legal hot water... the only way framework could build a laptop were they legally could share all the schematics would be if they only purchased parts with public schematics but unless they move to some extremely old cpu (something like the original Intel 8086) they are not going to find a chip that they can use were the needing information on how to integrate it is already public. 
 

[hishnash]

5 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

I still can't see in future manufacturers making more modular, repairable and upgradable laptopa though.

Repairable and Modular are very different things.  A laptop made out of 100 little models is not repairable unless you can repair those modules. Its like people saying a NVMe is more reparable than a soldered NAND when repairing the NVMe drive (aka replacing the soldered NAND on it) requires very hard to find software to re-configure the NVMe controller chipset. And just replacing the NVMe drive and throwing away a perfectly working NVMe controller in the process is directly in contract to the right to repair movement. 

if vendors start to think they can get around right to repair by making lots of small modules then we will end up in an even less relatable state with each module encased in resin so that as soon as the vendor stops selling these modules you are stuck.

A laptop  (of the same dimensions) without any modules will have much more space for components meaning from a reparability perspective your going to have a better solution (connectors take up a lot of space).

 

[Doobeedoo]

2 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Repairable and Modular are very different things.  A laptop made out of 100 little models is not repairable unless you can repair those modules. Its like people saying a NVMe is more reparable than a soldered NAND when repairing the NVMe drive (aka replacing the soldered NAND on it) requires very hard to find software to re-configure the NVMe controller chipset. And just replacing the NVMe drive and throwing away a perfectly working NVMe controller in the process is directly in contract to the right to repair movement. 

if vendors start to think they can get around right to repair by making lots of small modules then we will end up in an even less relatable state with each module encased in resin so that as soon as the vendor stops selling these modules you are stuck.

A laptop  (of the same dimensions) without any modules will have much more space for components meaning from a reparability perspective your going to have a better solution (connectors take up a lot of space).

 

Sure, modules approach even aside, properly repairable definitely needs to be a go-to approach though also at least for specific SKUs and ranges, upgradability would be awesome as well. As much as components. I mean we've seen laptops that you could thinker with like a desktop. I'm aware to many companies they may not pose interest, but it could be eventually if made well and for some tier of products.

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, Doobeedoo said:

upgradability would be awesome as well.

I think it' s very important for the right to repair movement that we do not try to mix upgradability/modularity in with repairability.

It is way way to easy for companies to show that making something upgradable/modular has draw backs (be that power draw, cost, size, weight etc) this makes it trivial for them to argue against right to repair.  


I see a Lot of comments from YouTubers etc who mix these concepts up and thus end up making the right to repair movement less successful, it leads the political establishment to think right to repair means modular. And that makes is very easy for vendors to show up and tell them that if they support this bill then they need to say goodby to thier nice laptop since all devices after this will be suitcase sized at minimum and they will believe that since they believe right to repair is about use-upgradable/modules as this is what the general public think of right to repair.

 

 

being upgradable is a feature that appeals to some users, just like being thin and light is a feature and the community (including lLTT) needs to learn this has nothing to do with right to repair. They need to stop reviewing devices and mixing the 2 concepts.
 

[wanderingfool2]

6 hours ago, hishnash said:

It does not really matter how large you are unless you design every single part you attach to the board your going to end up in a situation were you cant share full schematics since the vendors you are buying these parts form will have shared info with you that is under strict NDA.

I'm specifically talking about the mainboard.  It's not about the schematics of the chips and such, but rather which chip is being used and what the connectors are.  Those things would be something that they could inhouse design (the full on mainboard) and have links to the chips.  It wouldn't really be about any NDA as well.  My suspicion is is that they partially contracted out the design of the mainboard, with the chips and such (again due to cost) so there are likely portions of the schematics that would fall under and NDA.  It's at least the most reasonable explanation thing that I can think of.  If it's true though, then eventually we could see more detail diagrams (whether they get the NDA lifted or start designing their own board)

[Dracarris]

That's really... not a lot of schematics. More a block diagram. Very important things like the CPU power stages are completely missing. A full laptop-schematic pdf has somewhere between 70 and 100 pages.

[hishnash]

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm specifically talking about the mainboard. 

The mainboard has component attached to it that do not belong to Framework and that are not on the public market and publicly documented (intel cpu socket, chipset comes to mind but there will be other parts as well). 

If you include voltages and switching frequencies and other info about when different traces will be hot you run the risk of sharing info that has been provided to you under NDA from intel (or other vendors) so that you can use their chips. 

A clear example of this is Intels cpu socket, this is not public information and is under NDA if a intel partner (framework) were to publish full motherboard schematics that would include info about what voltages are applied to what pins on the socket, it would also include info about what lines are hot when and how the cpu communicates with the VRM and chipset (electrically) all of that is under NDA and would not only result in framework getting sued but also very likely mean they can never by anything from intel again (not just cpu sockets but wifi chipsets, TB repeaters/controllers etc...) 

Sure you can share a motherboard schematic without any of these details but it is a lot of work to strip this info out and ensure your not accidentally leaking something (its unlikely the hardware teams have been labelling every bit of info shared by their providers with detailed legal notes on what they can and cant share). 

I would not be surprised if most of the parts attached to the motherboard that are more complex than a simple Capacitor or resistor will fall into the category were the provider provided this info directly to framework, some of these provides might have also published this info publicly but framework will need to ensure that this has happened (or get explicitly legal approval to publish) from each of these vendors before they publish failing to do this would be implicitly a breach of NDA and also make it much harder to order parts in the future risking the entire project.  

[hishnash]

55 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Very important things like the CPU power stages are completely missing.

The reason for this is simple any info about how the intel cpu socket works, what voltages are provided, what pines are active etc will all be under NDA from intel... you don't just share that info publicly unless you want to be bankrupt (possibly imprisoned if intel feel nasty) and never getting any contracts with any hardware vendor again.  (and you cant just buy intel BGA laptop chips from a third party, intel explicitly forbid you from re-selling these if you buy them from intel you must use them in shipping products I think if you have left over stock you are required to sell back to intel). 

[Doobeedoo]

9 hours ago, hishnash said:

I think it' s very important for the right to repair movement that we do not try to mix upgradability/modularity in with repairability.

It is way way to easy for companies to show that making something upgradable/modular has draw backs (be that power draw, cost, size, weight etc) this makes it trivial for them to argue against right to repair.  


I see a Lot of comments from YouTubers etc who mix these concepts up and thus end up making the right to repair movement less successful, it leads the political establishment to think right to repair means modular. And that makes is very easy for vendors to show up and tell them that if they support this bill then they need to say goodby to thier nice laptop since all devices after this will be suitcase sized at minimum and they will believe that since they believe right to repair is about use-upgradable/modules as this is what the general public think of right to repair.

 

 

being upgradable is a feature that appeals to some users, just like being thin and light is a feature and the community (including lLTT) needs to learn this has nothing to do with right to repair. They need to stop reviewing devices and mixing the 2 concepts.
 

Yeah, the right to repair as a separate thing for sure. 

[NumLock21]

Will they be providing spare parts or they just release some schematic and say, Hey we have done out part, now go away, and go find the spare parts yourself. The problem with these start up is the lack of support. While everyone says Dell is crap, don't buy dell blah blah blah, but when your brand new Dell new laptop is giving your problems, you'll have a more successful rate of just simply exchanging it for another one, since they probably have a tons allocated just for this purpose. But for these start up, they don't.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

Will they be providing spare parts or they just release some schematic and say, Hey we have done out part, now go away, and go find the spare parts yourself. The problem with these start up is the lack of support. While everyone says Dell is crap, don't buy dell blah blah blah, but when your brand new Dell new laptop is giving your problems, you'll have a more successful rate of just simply exchanging it for another one, since they probably have a tons allocated just for this purpose. But for these start up, they don't.

Well I mean for board level repair you are still reliant on getting your own parts/chips.  With that said capacitors and such are pretty standard.

 

The rest of the components though they sell.  You can buy the mainboard, wifi, RAM, display, bottom tray, top tray etc.  So if you want to upgrade you can literally buy a new mainboard and there you are an upgraded laptop.

[Blademaster91]

On 5/16/2022 at 6:34 PM, hishnash said:

Repairable and Modular are very different things.

Except that Framework has proven you can have both, and a lot of laptops used to be pretty modular in the way you could replace failed or broken components. The screen broke? Just pry the bezel off and replace the display, a keyboard was replaceable with a few screws, and if you didn't pay up for extra RAM you could upgrade it later on, instead of throwing the laptop away.

On 5/16/2022 at 6:34 PM, hishnash said:

Its like people saying a NVMe is more reparable than a soldered NAND when repairing the NVMe drive

So which manufacturer will replace the NAND chips instead of just installing a whole new motherboard? Replacing the NVMe drive is much less e-waste than a company replacing the whole motherboard, then shredding all of the boards with failed NAND chips.

On 5/16/2022 at 6:34 PM, hishnash said:

A laptop  (of the same dimensions) without any modules will have much more space for components meaning from a reparability perspective your going to have a better solution (connectors take up a lot of space).

The solution to that is make the laptop slightly larger, I doubt most people would care, and some extra room in the laptop chassis allows more room for better cooling.

I would much rather have a slightly heavier laptop with repairable components that I could replace and upgrade than a laptop that would be e-waste after a few years.

[hishnash]

33 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

and if you didn't pay up for extra RAM you could upgrade it later on, instead of throwing the laptop away.

If you solution to needing to upgrade memory is throwing a working laptop away then you need to look at your tree credentials. there are many things you can do:
1) pay a board level repair location to solder on higher capacity memory, this is not going to cost you that much as LPDDR is quite cheep these days due to its mass production on phones and the solder job is not that hard a job.
2) sell your old laptop to someone else who will have a good use for it.

You should never throw it away due to not having enough ram!!! people who throw a laptop away for not having enough ram are also the people who are not going to open it up even to check if it is modular.
 

35 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

So which manufacturer will replace the NAND chips instead of just installing a whole new motherboard? Replacing the NVMe drive is much less e-waste than a company replacing the whole motherboard, then shredding all of the boards with failed NAND chips.

Most will refurbish, when you provide it to them they might provide you back a new refurbished board but the old board will go to a refurbishing centre were it is repaired, the cost of the parts is worth the work but they do not want you to wait for it to take place that is why you get someone else's re-furbished unit (at leas this is what large vendors that sell in high volumes do). 
 

37 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

The solution to that is make the laptop slightly larger,

Its not slightly larger, if you make everything modular your talking about a signing power draw increase so larger battery for the same lifespan (NVM drives and socketed ram draw 2x to 10x the power of the soldered alternatives).  If you try to regulate to require everything it is very very easy to show that this will make machine worse by a large amount, also how do you regulate the modular nature of things, do you require a given standard connector and protocol?

 

39 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Except that Framework has proven you can have both

They have not, the battery life on framework laptops is not as good for the given perf as other laptops in the market and the performance for the given dimensions and weight is not as good.  

They have shown that modularity is a feature that some consumers want but they have not show that you can be modular without functional downsides.

For right to repair to be successful we need to show that right to repair can exist without any functional product downsides that is why we should ensure that we do not conflate right to repair with modular user upgradable. The first is something all electronics should have by law the second is a feature that deepening on the use case is more or less attractive to the consumer.  I have seen a lot of people mix these, and many companies also mix these as going modular is easier for them than being pro right to repair, but going modular does not make anything easier to repair unless in so doing you make the modules themselves easier to repair. 

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Well I mean for board level repair you are still reliant on getting your own parts/chips.  With that said capacitors and such are pretty standard.

 

The parts that are hard to get (and hard for others to make compatible units for) are those that are on the motherboard.  But as long as they are building x86 laptops there is no way they would be able to sell the entier parts catalog of the mainboard as both AMD, and Intel forbid people who buy there BGA cpus and chipsets from re-selling them! 

if framework want to make a laptop with a truely repairable motherboard they will need to move to ARM or RISC-V were they are permitted to sell the SoC directly the issue here is there will likly still be other parts that they cant sell on like Intels TB controllers if they want that support.

[Mark Kaine]

seems to be a hot topic but i don't understand how... either stuff is repairable as in not soldered on custom parts or it isnt, a "schematic" is neither necessary or a big deal. ESPECIALLY from a no name manufacturer.  imho.

 

 

[williamcll]

yes but how do I fabricate a new VRAM to replace another broken one?