Chrisoft::Blog(r#"Framework Laptop: Repasting & Two Year Report")

Updated 2023-11-27: Added stuff on the RTC battery replacement module -installation and part swap.

“Repasting” with PTM 7950

I’ve been reading testimonials from people replacing thermal paste in -their laptops with -PTM -7950, 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.

Anyway I decided to give it a try myself when I saw this mystic -material on sale for barely above $10 the other day.

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…

Time for the results. Spoiler alert: it’s impressive. I cannot do a -scientific before and after comparison, but I did run 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.

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.

So would I recommend the PTM 7950? Yes, but only when you -have 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 -certain -newer laptops already use similar phase change material as its TIM. -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.

- - - - - - -

Factory -thermal paste application -

Factory paste -removed -

PTM 7950 applied -

Semi-long term review

Disassembly reveals …

First disassembly -in 2 years. -

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 run the laptop a lot on -battery 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 hasn’t been 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.

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 -design -flaw 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 -RTC -battery substitute module and update this post when that’s done.

Other early adopter issues

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. -[1] There appears to be a -simple -fix 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.

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.

How well did it hold up?

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.

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.

Internals… -don’t look -great (CW: filthy looking fan). The fan seems to attract dust much -faster than the one in my ThinkPad X1 yoga.

Random rants

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.

Intel’s Xe driver for Windows is still hot garbage for graphics -development.

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.

Contemplating upgrades

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.

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.

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 [2]. -And I would need to reconfigure the entire kernel [3]. 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.

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.

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.

RTC -battery substitute module installation and upgrades

The battery module was sent out the day before US Thanksgiving. I -also decided to treat myself with the aforementioned matte screen -upgrade and a proper Chinese keyboard, which were sent out on the same -day.

Following the official guide linked above, the installation was -pretty straight forward. I don’t have stellar soldering skills or very -stable hands, but here are a few photos from the installation plus my -commentry.

- - - - - - - - - -

- - RTC battery -substitute module packing. Unassuming. - -	- - The module itself. - -
- - After soldering. I -applied a little bit too much solder. - -	- - Final position. - -

Troubleshooting the modded -laptop

Unfortunately, as things usually are for me, it didn’t go right after -this point. Immediately after finishing the mod the machine still -refused to turn on with the AC adaptor unplugged. It could boot with the -adaptor plugged in and stay on after unplugging it while the laptop is -running. Unplugging the machine with it turned off would erase all CMOS -data. This was the exact same behavior exhibited before I performed the -RTC battery modification.

So I had to start the troubleshooting process. The power wire to the -RTC battery substitute module measured 17.5 V to ground when the machine -was powered on, so I didn’t mess up the soldering [4]. The outer ring of the module measured 3.2 V to ground, -so the module itself is good. Neither values changed when I turned the -machine off or had it unplugged after that. At this point pretty much -all hardware faults that I could think of have been ruled out.

Then I remembered that my machine is on BIOS version 3.17, while the -latest release was 3.19 for this motherboard. So I decided to give that -a shot. I quickly grabbed the update from their website and installed -it, and voilà: the machine was able to turn on without the AC power -attached once the BIOS has been updated.

I still felt a bit iffy with my installation though, so I decided to -go through the official installation guide again to make sure I followed -everything – and of course I did not. There is apparently a specific -orientation requirement for the module (a working one is shown in the -second picture of step 3 in the guide). So I adjusted mine to match the -picture for good measure, which resulted in the final installation photo -shown above. There was also a comment under the official mentioning the -module orientation issue.

- - - - - - - - - -

- - 3.2 V present on -outer ring of the module with the computer powered on and plugged in. - -	- - 17.5 V going into -the module with the computer powered on and plugged in. - -
- - 3.2 V still -present when the machine is turned off but remain plugged in. - -	- - 3.2 V still -present when the machine is both turned off and unplugged. - -

By now I have the RTC battery substitute module fully working as -Framework intended. However I couldn’t help but notice that this still -doesn’t give the laptop the normally expected behavior according to the -schematic of the module and a statement from Framework themselves, both -of which can be found -here. For a -normal laptop one would expect when its main battery runs out it would -still be able to keep time and the BIOS configuration. However with this -modification being essentially just a voltage regulator (NCP718) and -having no significant energy storage at all, the machine -will lose all CMOS data once the main battery cuts out, -which functions more like a normal laptop with a dead CMOS battery. But -I guess it’s probably better than losing CMOS data even with a fully -charged main battery…

Other upgrades

I actually performed these part swaps between soldering the battery -module thingy in and the troubleshooting process. But that didn’t really -matter because these upgrades went pretty smoothly without any drama. -There were a lot of screws to undo and screw back in though (25 black -ones and 48 silver ones?? I couldn’t really keep track -of the number.) [5] These screws are pretty annoying to -handle because they have incredibly short shanks and are incredibly easy -to strip. With the official screw driver they easily stick together and -the ifixit screw driver couldn’t reliably pick them up. The sheer number -of them only added to the trouble I had to go through to replace my -perfectly working keyboard with one that has additional legends on the -keys that I will barely look at. Is it really worth the trouble? (Yes… -if it had a trackpoint goddammit!)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - The screen. Wanky -Apple-esque packaging. - -	- - Screen unboxed. -Apparently the newer 13 inch AMD model comes with this type of screen. - (which is objectively superior btw) - -
- - Keyboard unboxed. I -can type Chinese using bopomofo at like 3 ch/min and I barely remember -anything about Cangjie. - -	- - National guild of -screws. Nobody will get this reference. - -
- - The screens side by -side. Original screen on the left. The matte screen actually looked very -good for what it is. - -	- - Back of the screens. -Original on the left. Both made by BOE. - -
- - The new keyboard -with backlight on. Fun fact: practically all computers sold in mainland -China come with a standard US ANSI keyboard. - -	-