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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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I was saying every other Linux laptop (most of them) with the exception of Purism laptops uses Clevo models.
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Wow, this is an old thread. If anyone else needs parts that Purism doesn’t stock, you can almost always get what you need at Digi-Key or Mouser. They won’t have something like a replacement case, but they should have headphone jacks, speakers, switches, and probably replacements for a lot of the other components used in the Librem laptops and phone.
Is there documenation available for their laptops? If I could have an exact part number, then I could possibly locate the part.
This is the closest thing to documentation I’m aware of:
You won’t be able to find schematics because Purism is contractually bound not to publish them (the motherboards are Intel reference designs, IIRC). Usually you can either identify a part by a number printed on it or by filtering all available products by dimensions, # of pins, etc.
Thanks, but they didn’t have any documention for the librem 15.
