new blog post.

author: Chris Xiong <chirs241097@gmail.com> 2023-11-14 02:16:44 -0500
committer: Chris Xiong <chirs241097@gmail.com> 2023-11-14 02:16:44 -0500
commit: 4115f9466b8a92580527e62d7b6d1215cf4fc4cc (patch)
tree: d0217ebf9f29e6e0ebf81c75da98e6cd832fe385 /blog/post/2023-11-13.html
parent: b2668f32fe74a8c01d446e96090fcc569170848d (diff)
download: web-4115f9466b8a92580527e62d7b6d1215cf4fc4cc.tar.xz
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+	<div id="panel" class="TText">
+		<ul id="panellist">
+			<li><a href="/"><h1>Chrisoft</h1></a></li>
+			<li><a href="/blog"><h2>Blog</h2></a></li>
+			<li><a href="#"><h3 id="title">Framework Laptop: Repasting &amp; Two Year Report</h3></a></li>
+			<li><span>Tags</span>
+			<ul id="tagslist">
+			<li><a href="/blog/list/device-review/">device-review</a></li><li><a href="/blog/list/computer-repairing/">computer-repairing</a></li></ul>
+			</li>
+			<li id="tocouter">
+				<span>Table of Contents</span>
+				<ul id="tocroot">
+				<li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch0">“Repasting” with PTM 7950</a></li><li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch1">Semi-long term review</a></li><li><ul class="tocnode"><li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch2">Disassembly reveals …</a></li><li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch3">Other early adopter issues</a></li><li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch4">How well did it hold up?</a></li><li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch5">Random rants</a></li></ul></li><li><a class="toctarg" href="#tocanch6">Contemplating upgrades</a></li></ul>
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+			<li style="margin-left:-0.5em"><a id="prevp" href="2022-11-27.html">Prev post</a></li>
+			<li style="margin-left:-0.5em"><a id="nextp" href="Privacy.html">Next post</a></li>
+		</ul>
+	</div>
+	<div id="content">
+		<h2 id="titleh" class="TText" style="font-wight:normal;">Framework Laptop: Repasting &amp; Two Year Report</h2>
+		<div id="datetags" class="TText" style="margin-bottom:1em;">2023-11-13<br>#device-review #computer-repairing</div>
+		<hr><div id="article" class="TText"><article>
+<h2 id="tocanch0" class="tvis">“Repasting” with PTM 7950</h2>
+<p>I’ve been reading testimonials from people replacing thermal paste in
+their laptops with
+<a href="https://thermalmanagement.honeywell.com/content/dam/thermalmanagement/en/documents/document-lists/technical/pmt-am-tims-ltm6300-pcm45f-ptm5000-series-data-sheet.pdf">PTM
+7950</a>, mostly praising the amazing effectiveness of the material,
+with some reporting a drastic 20 degrees C reduction. I was skeptical of
+such claims. Such temperature reduction just seemed impossible to me,
+especially considering the conductivity of PTM 7950 is pretty much the
+same as most non-terrible thermal pastes on paper.</p>
+<p>Anyway I decided to give it a try myself when I saw this mystic
+material on sale for barely above $10 the other day.</p>
+<p>The repasting process went pretty smoothly. However I did notice that
+the screw marked “3” on the heatsink seemed a lot looser than the other
+two. Maybe that has something to do with the horrible thermal I had
+before…</p>
+<p>Time for the results. Spoiler alert: it’s impressive. I cannot do a
+scientific before and after comparison, but I did ran a few of my
+day-to-day tasks as tests. Idle temperatures are already much better:
+50°C before vs 38°C after. Under a short code compilation load (around 5
+minutes), the initial temperatures are similar (~100°C before vs 96°C
+after), but the CPU was able to boost much closer to its designated PL2
+power (58W vs 45W, advertised PL2 being 60W). After the processor
+stabilizes at its PL1 power it goes down to below 80°C, while the under
+the old paste it was a constant 90+°C. The task also finishes ~10%
+faster than before.</p>
+<p>While my results aren’t as insane as some others got, it was still
+huge. The biggest improvement is that merely browsing the Internet
+without setting CPU power policy to powersave is now bearable – I’ve
+mentioned in my previous post that the fan noise of the Framework laptop
+is a pretty big issue for me personally, as the noise it emits when the
+processor is above 55°C is extremely distracting in a quiet room. I also
+got ~10% more performance out of this CPU, which probably makes this the
+best $10 I spent on tech-related products for the past few years.</p>
+<p>So would I recommend the PTM 7950? Yes, but only when you
+<em>have</em> to do a repaste. As I mention before, I was skeptical of
+claims about the magical power of PTM 7950. To be clear I wasn’t
+doubting the thermal conductivity of the material, but rather the cause
+of the temperature reduction people have been reporting – maybe their
+old paste had completely dried out, or the factory paste application is
+utter garbage. For my specific case – I have my reasons to suspect the
+same due to the aforementioned loose screw on the heatsink I had. While
+I have never touched the heatsink assembly myself since day one until
+today, and the thermal profile of the machine was fairly consistent for
+the past 2 years, I couldn’t rule out everything. So I don’t really know
+if it is a factory defect or something else. Also I’ve seen reports that
+<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/LenovoLegion/comments/tfxomi/">certain
+newer laptops already use similar phase change material as its <span title="Thermal Interface Material" style="text-decoration-line:underline;text-decoration-style:dotted;">TIM</span></a>.
+So if you’re considering to repaste your brand new laptop (which isn’t
+always a great idea in the first place) with PTM 7950, do remember to
+check if that’s the case.</p>
+<table>
+<tbody><tr>
+<td>
+<div style="text-align:center;max-width:98%;">
+<a href="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/fw-factorypaste.jpg"><img style="width: 33%;" src="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/ssbsthumb_1024x1024_fw-factorypaste.jpg"></a> <br>Factory
+thermal paste application
+</div>
+</td>
+<td>
+<div style="text-align:center;max-width:98%;">
+<a href="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/fw-unp.jpg"><img style="width: 33%;" src="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/ssbsthumb_1024x1024_fw-unp.jpg"></a> <br>Factory paste
+removed
+</div>
+</td>
+<td>
+<div style="text-align:center;max-width:98%;">
+<a href="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/fw-ptm7.jpg"><img style="width: 33%;" src="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/ssbsthumb_1024x1024_fw-ptm7.jpg"></a> <br>PTM 7950 applied
+</div>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</tbody></table>
+<h2 id="tocanch1" class="tvis">Semi-long term review</h2>
+<h3 id="tocanch2" class="tvis">Disassembly reveals …</h3>
+<div style="text-align:center;max-width:90%;">
+<a href="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/fw-batsw.jpg"><img style="width: 50%;" src="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/ssbsthumb_1536x1536_fw-batsw.jpg"></a> <br>First disassembly
+in 2 years.
+</div>
+<p>A few things jumped out when I opened up the laptop for repasting.
+The first, very obvious and somewhat worrying one is the mildly swollen
+battery (also known as SpicyPillows). I did not ran the laptop a lot
+during the first year, but the second year saw more usage with it
+unplugged (still not as frequent as my ThinkPad X1 yoga 1st gen). The
+swelling isn’t anywhere near extreme, and there’s not a significant
+reduction of battery life since I got the machine. For this reason I’m
+not yet very compelled to replace it. But I will definitely be
+monitoring it much more closely from this point on, as it’s very well
+known that SpicyPillows are potentially dangerous.</p>
+<p>The second, less obvious one is also about a battery, but this time
+the CMOS battery. It was completely flat. I was aware of a
+<a href="https://community.frame.work/t/rework-instructions-for-11th-gen-mainboards-to-enable-powering-the-rtc-circuit-from-the-main-battery/26922">design
+flaw</a> in these 11th gen Intel machines that the CMOS battery only
+gets charged when the laptop is on AC power. However I’m not sure this
+is the cause in my case as my laptop spends most of its lifetime powered
+on and connected to AC power. While I do appreciate the original,
+extremely detailed makeshift solution (which is under the “Archived”
+section of the post linked above), I’m not comfortable with the idea of
+scratching a trace off an expensive motherboard. Anyway now that there’s
+a solution that doesn’t involve scratching a trace off the motherboard,
+I’m going to install the
+<a href="https://guides.frame.work/Guide/RTC+Battery+Substitution+on+11th+Gen+Intel%C2%AE+Core%E2%84%A2/203">RTC
+battery substitute module</a> and update this post when that’s done.</p>
+<h3 id="tocanch3" class="tvis">Other early adopter issues</h3>
+<p>The touchpad is flaky. Being a touchpad hater as I am (and a
+trackpoint user for more than half my life), I had to deal with it when
+I’m on the go. A few months ago I found that physical clicks on the
+touchpad no longer works, and apparently I’m not the only one.
+<a id="n1" href="#note1" class="note">[1]</a> There appears to be a
+<a href="https://framework.kustomer.help/articles/-SJQQqt2Hu">simple
+fix</a> which consists of a single step that sounds a little ridiculous
+(“Try pressing the bottom middle of the Touchpad firmly a few times”),
+but it worked for me.</p>
+<p>I do venture out to become an early adopter of certain products
+sometimes, My ThinkPad X1 yoga 1st gen being another example where
+Lenovo experimented with the “yoga” form factor in their ThinkPad
+line-up for the first time. Being an early(-ish) adopter of the
+Framework laptop, I fully expected that there could be issues. So far
+I’ve come across the CMOS battery design flaw, touchpad issue, BIOS
+bugs, unreasonable level of CPU throttling and fingerprint reader driver
+overheating the power button. None of these are severe enough to be a
+deal breaker for me, and all of the listed issues have been more or less
+fixed. I guess my overall experience of being an early adopter has been
+overall positive.</p>
+<h3 id="tocanch4" class="tvis">How well did it hold up?</h3>
+<p>Performance wise, it’s still a beast in its class. These Willow Cove
+cores still eats the Rust compilation workload that I now have to deal
+with on a daily basis as breakfast. Gaming still is an option for me
+considering the only game that I play nowadays is Minecraft, but is
+likely a no-no for any heavier games. While it’s not the most power
+efficient solution available today, it still meets the requirements of
+my setup just fine.</p>
+<p>Battery life isn’t too great in the first place. But the lifetime
+seems to hold up decently despite having a slightly swollen battery
+pack. Again, still fulfills my needs.</p>
+<p>Internals…
+<a href="//filestorage.chrisoft.org/blog/img/fw-fanfilth.jpg">doesn’t
+look great</a> (CW: filthy looking fan). The fan seems to attract dust
+much faster than the one in my ThinkPad X1 yoga.</p>
+<h3 id="tocanch5" class="tvis">Random rants</h3>
+<p>I still find the default fan curve of the laptop downright stupid.
+Ramping it up to 80% of full speed at 60°C doesn’t seem wise to me. Yes
+there are third party tools that can force a fan speed, but I’d rather
+program a more sane fan curve instead.</p>
+<p>Intel’s Xe driver for Windows is still hot garbage for graphics
+development.</p>
+<p>I do not like the forum software Framework uses (Discourse). The idea
+of infinite scrolling never clicked with me. You simultaneously get the
+worst from pagination and single-paged designs. And their page search is
+still crippled to this day. Okay I’ll stop here and keep my other 10
+objections to Discourse with myself.</p>
+<h2 id="tocanch6" class="tvis">Contemplating upgrades</h2>
+<p>Framework promised to provide an upgrade path to owners of their
+laptops and they delivered. Now I have the choice of replacing the
+motherboard in my Framework with a 12th/13th gen Intel board, or a Zen 4
+based AMD board. I’ve explained why I didn’t upgrade to the 12th gen
+Intel board in my previous post, and I’ll state the most important part
+here again: I don’t want to ditch my old board that’s perfectly
+functional. I’ll also say the silent part that was omitted in the
+previous post aloud: I don’t want to purchase the extra parts to build a
+complete computer out of the old board either.</p>
+<p>There are additional reasons that I didn’t upgrade to specific
+available boards. 13th gen Intel boards are especially objectionable due
+to the fact that they still use DDR4 memory. This is year 2023 and DDR5
+memory isn’t hard to find now. Yes I guess you get to keep your old
+memory sticks, but I don’t want an upgrade that seems half-baked thank
+you very much.</p>
+<p>AMD boards seem way more compelling, especially considering the
+performance boost they could bring at the price point they are sold at.
+But I’ve heard that they produce pretty much the exact same noise as the
+original boards once installed, runs as hot under heavy load, and would
+result in increased pain just by the virtue of being AMD <a id="n2" href="#note2" class="note">[2]</a>.
+And I would need to reconfigure the entire kernel <a id="n3" href="#note3" class="note">[3]</a>. For this reason
+I’ve pretty much shelved the idea of upgrading the motherboard in the
+very near future. The only reason for a motherboard upgrade for me now
+would be the old one straight up failing or become unsuitable for my
+tasks.</p>
+<p>There is one upgrade I want to make though. I would absolutely love
+to replace the glossy screen from factory with the new matte one. I was
+never a fan of glossy screens on any laptop and will take a matte
+replacement any day of the week. The price is a little steep though.</p>
+<p>There’s another upgrade that I’d love to get. A trackpoint keyboard
+with proper mouse buttons. I’m sure Lenovo would do anything to sabotage
+it, but I can always dream.</p>
+</article>
+</div><br><hr>
+		<div class="TText" id="notediv" style="font-size:80%;"><span class="TText"><a id="note1" href="#n1">[1]</a>: 
+<a href="https://community.frame.work/t/touchpad-clicking-issues/37059">[1]</a>
+<a href="https://community.frame.work/t/touchpad-click-not-working-and-getting-loose/16408">[2]</a>
+<br></span><span class="TText"><a id="note2" href="#n2">[2]</a>: their
+crappy GPU driver being a major PITA for me – my experience with AMD
+graphics seems very inconsistent with most Linux users. No I refuse to
+elaborate here because that would derail the entire post.<br></span><span class="TText"><a id="note3" href="#n3">[3]</a>: Because I
+run Gentoo. Now laugh at me as you wish.<br></span></div>
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author	Chris Xiong <chirs241097@gmail.com>	2023-11-14 02:16:44 -0500
committer	Chris Xiong <chirs241097@gmail.com>	2023-11-14 02:16:44 -0500
commit	4115f9466b8a92580527e62d7b6d1215cf4fc4cc (patch)
tree	d0217ebf9f29e6e0ebf81c75da98e6cd832fe385 /blog/post/2023-11-13.html
parent	b2668f32fe74a8c01d446e96090fcc569170848d (diff)
download	web-4115f9466b8a92580527e62d7b6d1215cf4fc4cc.tar.xz