THIS is Why I Bought a Framework Laptop
Duration
19:23
Captions
1
Language
EN
Published
Sep 12, 2025
Description
UGREEN Nexode Portable Power Bank 300W: https://amzn.to/3If0txo Check Out UGREEN Nexode Power Bank Series: https://amzn.to/4nmfkVO ► Want to support the channel and unlock some perks in the process? Become a RAID member on Patreon or YouTube! 🔓 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hardwarehaven 🔓 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgdTVe88YVSrOZ9qKumhULQ/join ► 3D Models: - Framework 13 Industrial Case: https://www.printables.com/model/1049890-framework-industrial-mainboard-case - Compact version of Industrial Case: https://www.printables.com/model/1412113-compact-framework-industrial-mainboard-case - Other Awesome Designs: : https://www.printables.com/contest/449-framework-computer-mainboard-case ► Checkout items I used (includes affiliate links from which I may receive compensation): 🛍️ Framework 13: https://frame.work/laptop13 🛍️ Framework Parts: https://frame.work/marketplace?compatibility%5B%5D=amd_ryzen_ai300_series 🛍️ USB C Hub: https://amzn.to/47Y7Bcf 🛍️ UGREEN 100W: https://amzn.to/4gp2BiT 🛍️ 5Gb USB C Adapter: https://amzn.to/4gkUzaJ 🛍️ 5Gb M.2 Adapter: https://amzn.to/3I9OVM4 🛍️ M.2 E Key to M Key: https://amzn.to/47AV91N 🎥 Curious About the equipment I use to make my videos? Click Here ► https://hardwarehaven.media/gear --------------------------------------------------- Music (in order): "CRENSHAW VIBES" - GARRISON (https://soundcloud.com/garrison-brown) "Sunshower" - LATASHÁ(https://soundcloud.com/best-music-pro...) "VULF JAMS" - GARRISON "Hardware Haven Theme" -Me (https://youtu.be/FwD2mOYDPNA) --------------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 This Laptop Was Overpriced (but worth it) 2:00 Why I Upgraded 2:48 Upgrades 4:46 UGREEN Nexode 300W Power Bank (Sponsor) 6:05 The Upgrade Process 6:54 My "New" Laptop 8:05 The Framework 13 Mainboard 8:52 Case and Project Ideas/Options 9:47 Potential USB and Expansion Issues 11:01 Standalone Operation and CMOS Battery 12:58 Proxmox and Idle Power Draw 13:41 Using PCIe 15:35 5Gb Networking 17:14 Smaller Case
Captions (1)
About two years ago, I bought this
laptop, which well, frankly, was just
overpriced. I could have spent a
fraction of the cost on a laptop with
the same or even better CPU and
comparable features. But at the end of
my review of it, I came away saying, "I
am extremely happy with this purchase,"
which might not make much sense unless
you're familiar with Framework laptops.
A few years ago, Framework set out on a
mission to build systems that are
designed from the ground up to be
repairable, upgradeable, and reusable.
So, what that meant for me was that
while I was initially paying more for a
somewhat average laptop, I'd eventually
reap the benefits of being able to
easily and affordably repair my laptop
if needed and also upgrade the
components that I want in the future
rather than having to pay for an
entirely new system. But even on a
channel like mine where I pretty heavily
focus on repairing and reusing hardware,
I had naysayers in the comments calling
this a joke or a gimmick. Were they
right? Well, I think not because uh this
old motherboard and display used to be
in my laptop, but they aren't anymore
because I replaced them both in like 20
minutes. So now, not only do I have a
faster and more efficient laptop with a
much better display, I have components
that I can use for other projects and
not in like incredibly difficult hacky
YouTuber only ways. Repurposing parts
like this motherboard, for example,
should be relatively simple. I mean, you
can literally just go buy a case for it
right now on Framework's website. But
because Framework has made a lot of
their documentation public, there are
tons of 3D printable projects out there
from simple cases to server clusters.
Heck, people have even turned these into
full-fledged gaming handhelds. Now,
we're not going to go that far today,
and I'm also not going to dive into how
to repurpose this screen, although it is
definitely doable. I actually have a
pretty cool project idea that I'll cover
in a future video, so maybe get
subscribed. Today, I want to briefly
talk about the upgrade process and my
current thoughts on this laptop. And I
also want to see just how easy it is to
repurpose this original mainboard. Maybe
we can see how well it'll work as a home
server, a media PC, or just a simple
desktop machine. Now, I'm not going to
talk a lot here about my thoughts and
experiences with the Framework 13. If
you're curious, you can go watch my
original video. Now, there was one thing
that I didn't do a great job of
acknowledging in that video, which was
why I bought a 13th gen Intel system
rather than an AMD one. A lot of my
complaints with the Framework 13 had to
do with the battery life, which would
have been a lot better had I gone with
the AMD platform. However, when I bought
mine, well, there weren't any AMD
systems available. I really needed a
laptop, though, and since then, I was
really only using it for emails and
writing scripts when I just needed to
get out of the house for a bit. I didn't
really need much. So, yes, picking the
Intel platform versus AMD probably
wasn't the best decision, but it was the
option I had. And for the review video,
it was the laptop that I had in front of
me and could review. Now, recently, I've
started using my laptop quite a bit
more, and here in a few months, it's
probably going to be used more
extensively in my YouTube workflow. So,
I wanted to get something that would
have a bit more performance and also
help with my battery issues. So, I opted
for a main board with the AMD Ryzen
AI, I'm sorry, 5340. This costs $450,
but they also recommend buying the AMD
Wi-Fi 7 card, which I did. However, I
tested it out with my previous Intel
Wi-Fi 6 card, and that seems to work
just fine. You also need some DDR5 soda
memory, but I already had some on hand,
so I opted out. Now, I didn't dislike
the original display. It worked fine for
most things and actually looked pretty
good, but I mostly use my framework for
script writing, and I like to have
Notion open in one window so I can
actually write my script and then have
like a Firefox window open as well so I
can do some research. I do have a
portable monitor that I occasionally
use, but sometimes it's a bit of a
hassle to get it all set up. And so
sometimes it's just easier to have my
laptop, but I still like to have as much
screen real estate as possible. And yes,
I know that's why 16-in laptops exist,
but I still prefer to have something
smaller for being on the go. So, I
decided to try out the framework 2.8K
display. This is a pretty decent upgrade
from the original in terms of
resolution, but it also has a matte
finish and a 120 Hz refresh rate. That
display costs $270, so in total before
tax, I paid around $750 for my upgrades.
And like I said, I already had DDR5 on
hand. But if I were going to pay for
like a 16 gig kit of DDR5, that'd
probably cost me like another 50 bucks
or so. Now, you might be thinking, well,
with that kind of money, why not just
buy a new laptop? And yeah, I guess I
could have. In fact, you can find
laptops with the same AMD chip for
basically what I paid for just some
internals and a display. That being
said, though, had I gone with one of
those cheaper laptops, I would have had
a much worse screen and probably a worse
build quality. I also wouldn't have the
same peace of mind knowing just how easy
and affordable it is to fix my laptop,
which I live in a house with a toddler,
so that's that's pretty nice. Now, to be
clear, I could have just kept the
original screen and also not bought that
Wi-Fi card and only spent $450, so
there's still that. So, all in all, I'm
pretty happy with my purchase. And
because I bought a framework in the
first place, I have this cool
motherboard that I can do something cool
with. Now, regardless of what laptop you
use or what little main boards you want
to repurpose, you're going to need some
USB power. And boy, do I have plenty of
it. Thanks to this Nexo 300 watt power
bank from today's sponsor, UG Green.
This thing is nuts. With a massive
48,000 mAh capacity that can completely
charge an iPhone 15 Pro over 9 times,
it's perfect for family road trips,
outdoor activities, on location shoots,
or just people like me that, well, I
need a big battery because I typically
forget to charge them. Now, speaking of
charging, this thing can charge itself
back up in just an hour and a half
thanks to its 140 watt birectional
charging. It has five different ports,
so you can charge all of your devices
simultaneously. One of the USBC ports
can deliver up to 140 W, and altogether
it can deliver up to 300 W of total
output. It also comes with some nice to
haves like a carry handle, non-slip feet
on multiple sides, as well as this
really nice matte LED display that shows
remaining battery as well as the input
and output power. Oh yeah, and it also
includes this handy LED light with three
different modes. And with its automotive
grade lithium iron phosphate batteries,
the Nexo 300 W power bank will have a
much longer lifespan than traditional
power banks. So, if you're like me and
you enjoy your devices charged, consider
picking up a UGER Nexo 300 watt power
bank by using my link down in the
description.
The process of swapping everything out
was incredibly easy thanks to
Framework's design and the provided
guides. To get inside the Framework 13,
all you have to do is loosen five screws
on the bottom and then remove the input
cover, which is attached with just a
single cable.
There are a few cables to unplug from
the main board, as well as just a few
more screws, but they all use the same
Torx T5 bit. After getting the previous
board out, I reversed the process to
install the new board that, well, I
definitely didn't drop. Like I said, the
process was really easy, and by far the
hardest part was just trying to tidy up
the cables for the Wi-Fi card. Swapping
out the display was even easier. The
screen bezel is magnetic, so it just
pops off. And then all you have to do is
remove a few more screws and unplug a
single cable.
Once again, I just reverse the process
to get the new display installed. And
literally within just a few minutes, I
had what felt like a brand new laptop.
I've been using Fedora 42 for a few
weeks now. And while I definitely never
felt slow with that 13th gen i5, I did
notice that it was now just ever so
slightly snappier, which actually caught
me off guard. did not expect any
noticeable difference in basic usage.
The battery life has been well a little
bit better, but it would probably be a
lot better if I switched from 120 Hz
back to 60 Hz. But I I really like 120
Hz. The display looks great, though, and
I'm able to fit a lot more content on
screen without noticing that text is
getting fuzzy or anything. Now, there is
one weird quirk with this display, which
is that the corners are rounded. And
Framework was very transparent about
this. It was just uh something they had
to deal with with how they were able to
source these displays in a
cost-effective manner. I didn't think it
would bother me in the slightest, but
well, it it has. And it's not so much
that the corners are rounded off so much
as that it's well, it's just the top
corners that are rounded. Uh the bottom
ones are a bit more squared off. I feel
like it would help my brain a little bit
if they were the same, but I'm sure I'll
just stop noticing it all here soon
enough. But yeah, overall, I am really
happy with my new but not new laptop.
But this isn't really what I wanted to
talk about today. What I really wanted
to talk about was what we could do with
this. Now, obviously, I can't cover
every single motherboard that Framework
has produced. I only have this one. And
I guess the one that I just put in my
laptop that I'm not going to take out.
So, yeah, really, I only have this one.
All of the Framework 13 boards have
essentially the same design, though,
which is pretty simple. There's
obviously the CPU and the heat sink, as
well as two sodium sockets. There's just
a single M.2 NVME socket for an SSD, but
there's also an M.2E 2 E key slot for a
Wi-Fi card, but you could repurpose this
for something else. You also get four
USBC ports that are used for the little
framework expansion modules. And the
protocols on these somewhat vary
depending on the model. There's also a
teeny tiny little power button on the
board because, well, unlike most other
laptop boards, this was designed to be
usable outside of the laptop chassis.
So, like I said earlier, you could spend
$40 on this Cooler Master case or you
could just 3D print something. Framework
themselves actually produced a model
that's available for download, but there
are tons of community models available.
As I mentioned earlier, there's
literally a case you can print off and
turn your old motherboard into
essentially a Steam Deck. But I also
found some cool NAS cases. I found this
design to build a cluster, which is just
nuts. And there are so many other cool
designs, but I decided to keep things
simple and I settled on this design
here. This is just an improved version
of the original framework design, but
with better air flow and fewer parts.
Most likely, I'm just going to repurpose
this as a little living room
entertainment PC or something along
those lines. So, something simple is
probably ideal. Also, for now, this
gives me sort of a test bench so that I
can try some different things out. I
didn't have any issues printing off the
case, and getting the motherboard
installed was dead simple. I also love
that this little power button
has such a nice, satisfying click. I did
notice one issue though after I printed
this case, which is that uh well, this
has room for the framework expansion
card slots, but uh I don't have any
extras. I only have the four that are in
my laptop. So, I'll just have to steal
those for now. But in the long term, I
might just have to find or design a case
that trims these off so that I can just
use the built-in USBC ports. Now,
speaking of USB, I know a lot of you are
probably already just a little bit
concerned. Relying on USB for IO as well
as power is totally fine for most use
cases, but it might raise some concerns
if you're looking to run this as a
server of sorts. While USB power
delivery is pretty awesome, I still feel
just a little bit weird using it for
something that I need to reliably run
24/7. But I don't know, I guess a ton of
people use things like Raspberry Pies
that are powered over USB. So maybe it's
just not that big of a deal. But only
having USB does mean that you're going
to need adapters for stuff like
Ethernet. You could use some of those
framework expansion cards I mentioned to
clean things up, like this 2 and a half
gig card, for example. But if you want
more options, you'll probably just end
up with some cables and dongles kind of
hanging out the side. That being said,
we do still have some PCIe available
through those M.2 slots. But well, you'd
have to get a bit creative to leverage
those. I'm getting tired of blabbering
on about this. I'm sure you are as well.
So, let's see what this little
motherboard can actually do. All right,
so I'm over here at my little workbench.
I have the Framework mainboard here in
half of this case. I didn't put the top
on just so it's easier to work in. Then
I also have just a little USB hub for
HDMI output as well as USB for my
keyboard. And then I have another USB
cable that's plugged into a 100 watt
power brick for power. So let's go ahead
and plug that in. And when we do this,
we'll probably get some lights.
And these are just because there's a
little switch here that if I if I do
that, it'll look all normal. But if I
lift up on this switch, um, then it's
going to give these little warning
lights because it's not inside the case.
But we'll be able to fix that. So,
there's a little power button right up
here. It's really hard to see, but I'm
going to hit that.
And this should give us a post here. Oh,
I didn't get the little popup. I'm just
going to reboot real quick. All right,
there we go. So, if you don't hit the
UFI hotkey, you'll get this little
message on the screen. Basically, you
can change this standalone operation to
enabled, which means that the
motherboard's expecting to run in just a
standalone case, not in the laptop case.
So, we'll switch that to enabled and
then hit okay. And here, if we go to the
setup utility, we can also see under the
advanced tab that there's this
standalone operation enabled. So, you
could just enable that setting before
you ever take it out of the laptop. That
way, you don't get that little warning.
So, everything should be good to go.
But, if you notice, it says my date is
January 1st, 2023.
And I think I know why. This mainboard
does have a little CMOS battery socket.
But when you buy the laptop, it's
actually not populated because it's not
needed because well, the laptop would
have its own battery, I believe. So, I
think I'm going to try to pop a battery
in here to see if that fixes our
real-time clock issue, which this is a
CR1220 battery. So, I'm just going to
try popping that in there. All right.
So, I've got the date set. I'm going to
hit F10 to save. And we're going to see
if this gets retained.
Hey, there we go. Okay, cool. So, that
actually seems to work. earlier when I
did this, just testing out a little bit
before I filmed. Uh, that date did not
stay the same. So, that's good. All
right, let's actually do something with
this system. I'm going to drop in a
little NVME SSD really quick. Then, I'm
going to grab a Proxmox installer. Let's
install Proxmox. All right, so I've got
Proxmox installed and running. I got
everything updated and it's doing just
fine. I ran power top autotune and the
auto ASPM script. And after doing that,
the idle power draw dropped to around
like six or seven eight watts somewhere
around there at idle. After that, I ran
some of the community scripts to get
jellyfin and home assistant installed.
Uh home assistant is running great in
Jellyfin. Everything was working good. I
was able to get hardware accelerated
transcoding working. And with that 13th
gen Intel chip, quick sync performance
is going to be pretty good. So if you're
going to use this as like a Plex or
Jellyfin server, that should work pretty
well. But this is a little bit boring
and basic. It's just a little
motherboard with an SSD and we're still
running networking off of USB. So, what
if we wanted to spice things up a little
bit? Well, we do have more USB ports
that we could use. And we also have this
M.2 E key slot. So, I'm actually going
to shut the system down really quick.
All right. So, with this shut down, we
can now plug something into this little
M.2 E key socket. And we could uh put
another Wi-Fi card back in, but that
would be boring. We could also grab like
a 2 and a half gig adapter or something,
but I actually have this M.2 E key to
M.2 M key adapter. And then plugged into
there, I have this little ASM 1166 port
SATA adapter. So, we could
drop this in real quick.
We'll find a a place for that somewhere.
All right, whatever. Let's just turn
this thing on.
All right, cool. So, it's up and
running. This is plugged in. And if I
run LSPCI, I can see down here at the
bottom that we have our AS Media ASM166
SATA controller. And if I run LSPCI-VV,
we can see that we're obviously
downgraded to one lane of PCIe just
because we're on an M.2E socket. But we
are running at PCIe Gen 3. So that's
still like around like 8 Gbits per
second or so. So unless you're running
like 10 gig off of this, uh, this isn't
really going to be a bottleneck if you
did want to hook up like six hard drives
to this and turn it into an interesting
little NAS. In fact, earlier I mentioned
a project for a 3D printable NAS case
for these framework boards. And I'm
pretty sure that uses basically this
exact same setup with a little M.2 E key
to N key extension and then this ASM1166
adapter. Now, obviously, you will need a
way to power any hard drives. And the
solution that I think they used for that
case was to use these cool little like
dummy USB power delivery plugs. So, it
basically requests 5 volts USB power
delivery, but then converts that just
into like a direct 5 volts that you can
just solder some wires to and have 5
volts for some 2 and 1/2 in hard drives
or SATA SSDs. Now, I mentioned doing
some faster networking and uh one thing
I thought to do was move the NVME SSD
over to a USB adapter or you could even
just buy one of those framework modules
with like a little 250 gig SSD for a
boot drive. Plug that in, use that, and
then now you have this M.2 2 socket
available for, you know, if you wanted
to add a little SATA adapter or my
thought was you could keep the hard
drives on the M.2 Eeky socket and then
use this 5 gig M.2 adapter that I have.
Uh, but I realized the USB adapter I was
going to use for the NVME. Uh, I let
someone borrow it, so I don't have it.
So, instead, we're going to keep that
SSD there. And I have a little 5 gig UG
Green adapter that I'm going to hook up.
All right. So, I have this 5 gig adapter
plugged into my uh QAP switch, which
supports like 2 and a half gig, 5 gig,
10 gig. And over here in Proxmox, we
have our two network adapters. I'm just
going to change this here to instead of
being Oh gosh, these are so long. I'm
going have to copy paste.
I'm just going to paste that bridge port
in. Hit okay. Then we'll hit apply
configuration.
Hopefully nothing breaks.
Okay, it appears to be working. I think
I'm actually just gonna unplug this
adapter entirely.
Oh, it just died. It just turned off.
Oh, I unplugged the power.
Oops. All right. So, I actually had to
go back and just plug in the gigabit
USBC interface. That way, I could put
this other one on a separate subnet.
That way, I could actually like test it.
But, I can confirm in IPRF 3 that we're
actually getting 5 GB or pretty close to
it over this USB adapter. So, that's
pretty cool. Uh, not exactly what I had
planned. I was hoping to use some more
of the NVMe stuff, but uh yeah, this is
kind of janky. It's kind of a mess. You
would definitely have to kind of figure
out the case situation. Uh whether you
printed or bought one, you might have to
like cut something out or you could find
some cool cases like that NAS case I
mentioned if you wanted to get a little
bit hacky. I think I mentioned this
already, but I don't plan on using this
as any sort of server or anything. I'm
actually going to probably put this in
my living room and be our new media PC
essentially. And so I actually designed
and uh printed off a a slightly modified
version of this modified version of the
case. But basically it just gets rid of
those USBC expansion port things and
trims them off. So the case ends up
being a little bit shorter. Here, I'll
go ahead and uh cut the power here.
Yeah. So as you can see, this
motherboard still fits in here just
fine, but it's substantially
substantially it's substantially shorter
than the other case just cuz it doesn't
have those little uh USB uh module
things. And then the lid can just pop on
and snap in place. And yeah, this whole
thing actually can print in just well,
two pieces, the top and bottom uh on my
Bamboo Lab X1C since it's a little bit
shorter. But yeah, this is probably what
this PC is actually going to live in.
And I'm probably just going to hide it
in my living room. And like I said, I
don't really need those modules because
realistically, I'm probably going to
hook up one USB hub that's going to be
for power, HDMI, and network um all just
on one port. That way the cabling can
kind of be a little bit tidier. That is
the framework mainboard that came out of
my Framework laptop which is still
working. It's just uh with a new main
board and I think that's pretty cool and
worth talking about. I do realize these
are expensive. You're definitely paying
a premium to get some of these features
but I still think it's a really cool
thing that they're doing and I'm happy
to throw my money their way and once
again I think they're still really cool
products. I also have that display that
like I said earlier I think I have a
cool idea for what I want to do with
that. So if you're interested maybe
consider getting subscribed if you're
not already and just stay tuned for it.
Hopefully, I'll get around to it here in
a few weeks. We'll see. But yeah, that's
about it for this one. So, as always,
thank you guys so much for watching.
Stay curious, and I really can't wait to
see you in the next one.