I broke the headphone jack on my Librem 15. (walking away with headphones on)
The plug separated from the board. looking at the inside of the laptop it appears that the sd card slot usb ports and headphone jack are on a separate board than the motherboard.
I know that something I broke because of my actions shouldn’t be covered under warranty, but i would like to buy that part again. Currently because the headphone jack separated the internal speakers wont work either. So there is no way to get sound from my laptop.
After sending an email to support a few months ago I think I was told there were no replacement part available.
I just want to confirm this is true. It seems silly that on such an expensive machine the only way to fix it is to buy a new one.
Sean, I’ve explained in the mail that we haven’t had the part at that time. We could now have the required part, but I’ll forward you to ops@, I cannot check this on my own.
walking away with headphones on
Now I began to understand Apple’s decision to get rid of the headphone jack… 
Is it time for Purism to ditch the headphone jack as well ? bluetooth headphone, anyone ?
cheers, HS
bluetooth headphone, anyone?
We first need to free the bluetooth driver.
btw my previous post was a joke, ridiculing Apple products I’ve had quite some personal experiences with their products and have had enough.
cheers, HS
I have this problem as well. I broke the headphone jack, and now the speakers are broken too because of that.
Is there any way to:
A) Buy a new headphone jack,
or at least:
B) Fix the internal speakers through software, which should work regardless of the headphone jack?
I can provide any debugging info if needed – please let me know what would help.
Habs, have you contacted us on support at puri.sm yet?
Hello,
I have a Librem 15 V3, and I now have the same issue (headphone jack broke off at the solder point). I was able to deduce that the multi-function board is easily replaceable, but it seems the part is not available. Are there any future plans for this replaceable part to be readily available in the near future? I currently have no sound from my speakers on my laptop.
I accidentally broke the headphone jack on my brothers Thinkpad Edge many years ago and the headphne jack on a separate board design wass similar.
Contact support. If they tell you the part isn’t available, don’t expect it to become available. I broke my screen a year and a half ago and emailed support right away to get it replaced. Support told me that they would look into whether they were able(!) to provide a replacement screen; I waited 6 months for an answer to that question and never really got a solid yes or no. After I asked one last time I switched to a System76 machine. Haven’t looked back.
This is not good. I’ve been really happy with my Librem 15 v3 too, with all of the open architecture and such. The fact that this easily-replaceable multi-function IO board is not available takes the wind out of my sails. Essentially I’ll be stuck with a laptop where the sound does not work, and that is not acceptable to me.
I know how you feel; I was in the same boat. I ended up going with System76 even though they’re less free than Purism (though the difference isn’t exacty huge) because they don’t have problems like this and because it filled my #1 priority, which was not buying from an OEM which would end up paying a Windows licensing fee to Microsoft. System76 is also now starting to port coreboot to some of their machines although that wasn’t the case when I purchased from them.
Of course it’s up to you if you think it’s still worth it and want to stay with Purism, and System76 certainly isn’t the most free company out there - in particular most (all?) of their desktop/laptop products include Nvidia GPUs, so you’re voting with your wallet there too in favor of a company that’s very hostile to free software drivers. But I wanted to give you something to think about and hopefully provide a different perspective
Either way I would encourage you to give Purism that feedback directly. I personally find it unconscionable that they’re pouring so many resources into their phone project (which is a complete moonshot given how Firefox OS and Ubuntu Phone - both from organizations much larger than Purism - failed to put a dent in iOS and Android’s market share) and now even a suite of online services when they can’t (or won’t) even support their existing laptop customers, and I told them so in the very last email I sent to them.
I totally agree that not being able to get the parts sucks, but it’s worth pointing out that most of System76’s laptops are barebones models from Clevo, whereas Purism designs its own laptops, which means it has very small production runs and can’t get replacement parts very easily.
Ideally Purism would order extra parts when it makes another batch of laptops, but this costs extra and Purism will likely lose money stocking parts that it may never be able to sell. I looked at this same issue, and decided to buy a Thinkpad instead of a Librem 13, because I know that I can get Thinkpad parts on eBay.
Another solution is to have a 3rd party company that collects used Librem 13/15 which are broken for scavenging parts in order to set them on eBay.
The headphone jack needs to be replaced on my machine. I’ve contacted Librem about obtaining the IO board for the headphone jack and they don’t have one in stock which kind of surprised me because my Librem is the current model. I’ve also contacted them about a replacement headphone jack (I suppose this part can be easily obtained but I could be wrong) so I can get someone to solder it back on the board but I haven’t gotten a response. I have no audio right now. Slow communications and lack of replacement parts will make me choose a different company next time.
Considering the open-source nature and mission of Purism, why is there not a parts section on the web store? I get there is risk in stocking extra parts that may never sell, but that does go with running a hardware company.
Fair enough but as was already pointed out almost everyone selling Linux laptops uses Clevo OEM reference models.
Purism has a lot on their plate and I believe for them to reach the goals they have, having a working phone helps them get there in a way a laptop doesn’t.
That said I really hope that once that rush abides they will put stock into getting parts only they can produce. There is no value being able to repair a Librem if you can’t get the parts to do so.
I love my L13 but would be beyond disappointed to have it break and not be able to fix it.
Do you know if it is referenced anywhere which Clevo models the Librem laptops are based off of? I went through all of the models on the Clevo site and could not find any that seemed to match with any reasonable variance.
I could have sworn I remember reading in one of these many threads that the case is a custom variant of a Clevo case… but I could certainly be wrong.
If I am wrong, all the more reason to have spare parts in the Purism store
Their lack of voicing things irks me. But i have already invested in a Librem 5, and i really hope all goes well. Hopefully in the future they figure things out and get extra parts in stock for their products which can be purchased easily on their website.