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I know framework is a popular company on tech forums but it's always felt like a solution in search of a problem. Laptops I own that only have a CPU are rarely

I know framework is a popular company on tech forums but it's always felt like a solution in search of a problem. Laptops I own that only have a CPU are rarely computationally bounded in what I'm trying to do, by the time the CPU is showing its age the battery and case are usually showing their age too. But lets say I need the most up to date CPU and can't wait, why would I now need a desktop computer with no expandability based on hardware worse than my laptop? And what will I do again in ~3 years when I replace the motherboard again and now have three computers with increasingly aging hardware. This feels like a solution to a non existent problem

ThemalSpan 4y ago
I think the problem exists: the externalities of the approach to laptops you're describing are very bad. Framework is trying to promote the three R's to help combat this. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.
lantry 4y ago
I have several old laptops that I use as home servers. I replaced the HDD with SSD and pulled out the dead batteries so they only run on wall power. They're less powerful than my current laptop but you don't need that much power to run most things when it's only serving a handful of users.
- eyegor 4y ago
  You gotta be careful doing that with modern ssds, they generally fail instantly with no warning signs. I've never seen smart data report under 90% but I've seen tons of modern ssds fail in a year or less. I wish they would just be DOA, it's rare to see one to fail between 2-5 years old without heavy workloads. At least with hard drives you can hear them fail when you walk by. (Not only from the samsung firmware bug, I've personally seen about a dozen of these failures in the past 2 years alone. Drive quality went down the drain during covid.)
sonzohan 4y ago
There are three problems it solves: 1. Upgrading is cheaper than a whole new system. This saves consumers money. Modern laptops increasingly solder parts down, making upgrades nigh-impossible (I've tried multiple times). Most tech companies have trade-in programs, but with dismal exhange rates. This gives the user more options and control over their hardware. 2. Countering planned obsolence and expensive repair costs associated with modern products. 3. Enabling upcycling, repurposing, and reducing ewaste. There are a fair number of environmentally conscious people in tech and tech-adjacent industries.
- echelon 4y ago
  > Enabling upcycling, repurposing, and reducing ewaste. There are a fair number of environmentally conscious people in tech and tech-adjacent industries. I'm kind of torn by this. On the one hand, I like keeping old tech around. On the other, isn't this wasting energy on less efficient CPUs? Isn't it worse for the environment to run old, inefficient CPUs?
  - ajayyy 4y ago
    Most of the carbon footprint of electronic devices is from the manufacturing.
    - josephg 4y ago
      Especially for laptop CPUs. They’re usually tuned (underclocked) to use a tiny amount of power. Because power consumption and performance are non-linear, even old laptop CPUs are usually much more energy efficient than modern desktops. You can underclock a lot of modern desktop CPUs to be more energy efficient too (eg Eco Mode). But almost nobody bothers to actually do that.
      - fbdab103 4y ago
        I recently did some minor testing of Eco Mode on my AMD build. I saw zero impact to single threaded workloads and a ~3% drop in performance for multithreaded. Which is a trade-off I will happily take.
greggyb 4y ago
Instead of thinking of it as something less capable than a desktop, why not consider it a larger and vastly more capable Raspberry Pi or similar SBC?
- guywithahat 4y ago
  Because it's not a raspberry pi. It has a higher power draw, costs more, and most importantly you don't get to choose when you want a new one, rather you have to buy their laptop and wait ~2 years for them to come out with a new motherboard so you can justify buying a second without creating more "e-waste"
rtpg 4y ago
I bought a NAS a while back, I might not have if I had the guts to my Macbook Pro that is in a closet because I don't use it anymore (but don't want to deal with all the futziness from having a folded up laptop overheat). Especially one where there are easy upgradeable storage solutions. Half of RasPi usages don't involve any GPIO. Granted the RasPi's form factor is a part, but a very thin slice from some older machine works. Hell, a media PC to just slap next to the TV works well as well. There is a legit argument that usages for this are very close to usages for a laptop with the lid closed, but at one point the aesthetics do become nicer, and with all the TB ports the world's a bit your oyster.
morsch 4y ago
Seems to me the problem is a lack of imagination
8organicbits 4y ago
I set old computers up as gaming devices for my kids. They can't play the latest blockbuster, but there's lots of good older or low spec games. The oldest computer still regularly running in my house is 13 years old, it still runs well (2010 MacBook with Linux Mint).
Rebelgecko 4y ago
At least with desktop, I upgrade storage and RAM more often than CPU. There's a few exceptions, but many laptops don't even let you do that.
its-summertime 4y ago
There is the socket problem with desktops, if the next gen requires a different socket, you need to replace the motherboard. There is the chipset problem with desktops, if you are wanting a feature of a newer cpu, you might need to replace the motherboard again even if the sockets match. I don't really hear about people upgrading just their CPU, its always either more ram or more video : so to consider the cpu and motherboard as one unit, I do not think it is different than how build-your-own desktop computers are now. (also noting that you can change the ram and add a videocard to current framework laptops). - - - Enthusiasts are somewhat a focus for frmaework consumption at the moment, in turn, pet projects are probably going to be the focus. Emulation-centric consoles, home servers, etc, are probably going to be a signifigant portion of old mobos - - - framework 16 has a dedicated video/expansion bay
jagermo 4y ago
For me, it is the non-soldered components. I had a real good samsung notebook, small, slick, cool, fairly expensive a when I bought it (about 2k). But one of the rams is soldered on and I give you one guess, which one had issues after warranty was over. The solution is to buy a complete new mainboard or try to fix the issues with software (linux has some features to disable defective ram segments). both options are meh, i would prefer to just swap out the defective ram. Same with current macbooks, everything is soldered in and glued together, making repairs or upgrading impossible. the samsung notebook would work great as a second device or for one of my kids to learn. but because of some shitty anti-consumer-tactics and some saved cents, it can't easily be done.
guerby 4y ago
frame.work solves a very real problem that happened to me with my trusty 4 year old Dell 7480: its only USB-C port is now loose and connections to it are unreliable for both data and power. Laptop still works but it's painful to use in a now converged USB-C world. With my frame.work if I get loose USB-C port, I just have to buy a new 10-20 EUR USB-C card, plug it and problem fixed.
alfor 4y ago
Completely agree. It’s more wasteful than the path the we are in (full integration) Laptop will more and more look like an Iphone (glue together, with no replaceable parts) Every connector, every wire, every locking mechanism, every screw has a weight, cost and reliability problem. Making the system very integrated will decrease cost, weight and failures. Apple is leading the way with their M1/M2 everything on one chip or package: cpu, gpu, ram, storage. This make them faster, cheaper, consume less energy.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  The framework laptops are still very highly integrated. Yes there's a cost to connectors, screws, etc but it is very small compared to the cost of manufacturing ICs, displays, etc. I don't think Apple really solders on RAM and storage to save money, energy or for performance. I don't think it would make any difference to energy and I doubt it makes a significant difference to performance. The real reasons are to save space (so there's more room for the battery) and perhaps more importantly for price differentiation. You can tell that is the case because the price difference between models that only vary in disk size is far far greater than the actual extra cost of the storage.
  - alfor 4y ago
    Look at the performance/power of the M1/M2, this is a result of tighter integration. I agree with you Apple does a lot of price differentiation with the amount of storage/ram where it does not reflect at all the cost of the components.
mft_ 4y ago
It's okay if something that a company offers doesn't meet your use-case. But you should consider that it might make sense to other people. Even if only a small percentage of Framework owners repurpose old parts as personal servers or powerbanks, or whatever, it's still a good thing that the opportunity is there.
killerstorm 4y ago
> why would I now need a desktop computer with no expandability based on hardware worse than my laptop? You can sell it. There might be a bigger market for a "desktop computer" than for "laptop parts". If it's useful, somebody will pay for it.
tristor 4y ago
I almost entirely disagree with you. The reason I have historically preferred desktop hardware is due to its repairability and longevity that allows it to be repurposed. Stuff like this case brings that to laptops with Framework. Many of my computer systems over the years have gone on to help others because I was able to fix them up and donate them. An i7-2600K with 8GB of RAM is still able to run pretty much any common applications, and that CPU came out in 2011, more than a decade ago. The most common parts to fail and need repair or replacement are fans and power supplies, and in laptops fans and batteries, the rest of the hardware is still good far past 3 or 5 years in age. It’s a travesty we as a society have tried to turn solid state electronics into something disposable.

ThemalSpan 4y ago

I think the problem exists: the externalities of the approach to laptops you're describing are very bad. Framework is trying to promote the three R's to help combat this. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

lantry 4y ago

I have several old laptops that I use as home servers. I replaced the HDD with SSD and pulled out the dead batteries so they only run on wall power. They're less powerful than my current laptop but you don't need that much power to run most things when it's only serving a handful of users.

eyegor 4y ago
You gotta be careful doing that with modern ssds, they generally fail instantly with no warning signs. I've never seen smart data report under 90% but I've seen tons of modern ssds fail in a year or less. I wish they would just be DOA, it's rare to see one to fail between 2-5 years old without heavy workloads. At least with hard drives you can hear them fail when you walk by. (Not only from the samsung firmware bug, I've personally seen about a dozen of these failures in the past 2 years alone. Drive quality went down the drain during covid.)

sonzohan 4y ago

There are three problems it solves: 1. Upgrading is cheaper than a whole new system. This saves consumers money. Modern laptops increasingly solder parts down, making upgrades nigh-impossible (I've tried multiple times). Most tech companies have trade-in programs, but with dismal exhange rates. This gives the user more options and control over their hardware. 2. Countering planned obsolence and expensive repair costs associated with modern products. 3. Enabling upcycling, repurposing, and reducing ewaste. There are a fair number of environmentally conscious people in tech and tech-adjacent industries.

echelon 4y ago
> Enabling upcycling, repurposing, and reducing ewaste. There are a fair number of environmentally conscious people in tech and tech-adjacent industries. I'm kind of torn by this. On the one hand, I like keeping old tech around. On the other, isn't this wasting energy on less efficient CPUs? Isn't it worse for the environment to run old, inefficient CPUs?
- ajayyy 4y ago
  Most of the carbon footprint of electronic devices is from the manufacturing.
  - josephg 4y ago
    Especially for laptop CPUs. They’re usually tuned (underclocked) to use a tiny amount of power. Because power consumption and performance are non-linear, even old laptop CPUs are usually much more energy efficient than modern desktops. You can underclock a lot of modern desktop CPUs to be more energy efficient too (eg Eco Mode). But almost nobody bothers to actually do that.
    - fbdab103 4y ago
      I recently did some minor testing of Eco Mode on my AMD build. I saw zero impact to single threaded workloads and a ~3% drop in performance for multithreaded. Which is a trade-off I will happily take.

greggyb 4y ago

Instead of thinking of it as something less capable than a desktop, why not consider it a larger and vastly more capable Raspberry Pi or similar SBC?

guywithahat 4y ago
Because it's not a raspberry pi. It has a higher power draw, costs more, and most importantly you don't get to choose when you want a new one, rather you have to buy their laptop and wait ~2 years for them to come out with a new motherboard so you can justify buying a second without creating more "e-waste"

rtpg 4y ago

I bought a NAS a while back, I might not have if I had the guts to my Macbook Pro that is in a closet because I don't use it anymore (but don't want to deal with all the futziness from having a folded up laptop overheat). Especially one where there are easy upgradeable storage solutions. Half of RasPi usages don't involve any GPIO. Granted the RasPi's form factor is a part, but a very thin slice from some older machine works. Hell, a media PC to just slap next to the TV works well as well. There is a legit argument that usages for this are very close to usages for a laptop with the lid closed, but at one point the aesthetics do become nicer, and with all the TB ports the world's a bit your oyster.

morsch 4y ago

Seems to me the problem is a lack of imagination

8organicbits 4y ago

I set old computers up as gaming devices for my kids. They can't play the latest blockbuster, but there's lots of good older or low spec games. The oldest computer still regularly running in my house is 13 years old, it still runs well (2010 MacBook with Linux Mint).

Rebelgecko 4y ago

At least with desktop, I upgrade storage and RAM more often than CPU. There's a few exceptions, but many laptops don't even let you do that.

its-summertime 4y ago

There is the socket problem with desktops, if the next gen requires a different socket, you need to replace the motherboard. There is the chipset problem with desktops, if you are wanting a feature of a newer cpu, you might need to replace the motherboard again even if the sockets match. I don't really hear about people upgrading just their CPU, its always either more ram or more video : so to consider the cpu and motherboard as one unit, I do not think it is different than how build-your-own desktop computers are now. (also noting that you can change the ram and add a videocard to current framework laptops). - - - Enthusiasts are somewhat a focus for frmaework consumption at the moment, in turn, pet projects are probably going to be the focus. Emulation-centric consoles, home servers, etc, are probably going to be a signifigant portion of old mobos - - - framework 16 has a dedicated video/expansion bay

jagermo 4y ago

For me, it is the non-soldered components. I had a real good samsung notebook, small, slick, cool, fairly expensive a when I bought it (about 2k). But one of the rams is soldered on and I give you one guess, which one had issues after warranty was over. The solution is to buy a complete new mainboard or try to fix the issues with software (linux has some features to disable defective ram segments). both options are meh, i would prefer to just swap out the defective ram. Same with current macbooks, everything is soldered in and glued together, making repairs or upgrading impossible. the samsung notebook would work great as a second device or for one of my kids to learn. but because of some shitty anti-consumer-tactics and some saved cents, it can't easily be done.

guerby 4y ago

frame.work solves a very real problem that happened to me with my trusty 4 year old Dell 7480: its only USB-C port is now loose and connections to it are unreliable for both data and power. Laptop still works but it's painful to use in a now converged USB-C world. With my frame.work if I get loose USB-C port, I just have to buy a new 10-20 EUR USB-C card, plug it and problem fixed.

alfor 4y ago

Completely agree. It’s more wasteful than the path the we are in (full integration) Laptop will more and more look like an Iphone (glue together, with no replaceable parts) Every connector, every wire, every locking mechanism, every screw has a weight, cost and reliability problem. Making the system very integrated will decrease cost, weight and failures. Apple is leading the way with their M1/M2 everything on one chip or package: cpu, gpu, ram, storage. This make them faster, cheaper, consume less energy.

IshKebab 4y ago
The framework laptops are still very highly integrated. Yes there's a cost to connectors, screws, etc but it is very small compared to the cost of manufacturing ICs, displays, etc. I don't think Apple really solders on RAM and storage to save money, energy or for performance. I don't think it would make any difference to energy and I doubt it makes a significant difference to performance. The real reasons are to save space (so there's more room for the battery) and perhaps more importantly for price differentiation. You can tell that is the case because the price difference between models that only vary in disk size is far far greater than the actual extra cost of the storage.
- alfor 4y ago
  Look at the performance/power of the M1/M2, this is a result of tighter integration. I agree with you Apple does a lot of price differentiation with the amount of storage/ram where it does not reflect at all the cost of the components.

mft_ 4y ago

It's okay if something that a company offers doesn't meet your use-case. But you should consider that it might make sense to other people. Even if only a small percentage of Framework owners repurpose old parts as personal servers or powerbanks, or whatever, it's still a good thing that the opportunity is there.

killerstorm 4y ago

> why would I now need a desktop computer with no expandability based on hardware worse than my laptop? You can sell it. There might be a bigger market for a "desktop computer" than for "laptop parts". If it's useful, somebody will pay for it.

tristor 4y ago

I almost entirely disagree with you. The reason I have historically preferred desktop hardware is due to its repairability and longevity that allows it to be repurposed. Stuff like this case brings that to laptops with Framework. Many of my computer systems over the years have gone on to help others because I was able to fix them up and donate them. An i7-2600K with 8GB of RAM is still able to run pretty much any common applications, and that CPU came out in 2011, more than a decade ago. The most common parts to fail and need repair or replacement are fans and power supplies, and in laptops fans and batteries, the rest of the hardware is still good far past 3 or 5 years in age. It’s a travesty we as a society have tried to turn solid state electronics into something disposable.