I’ve spent the last two weeks collecting data, designing reproducible test scenarios, and troubleshooting various issues with my Framework 16 such as:
- CPU throttling down to 544mhz (or other values)
- Framerate issues in the 1% lows on demanding games
- PROCHOT flags
- Performance degradation
- USB-C PD ports deactivating and becoming unusable until after an ES restart
- Note: I’m not 100% certain that this has been entirely resolved, but I think I’ve at least definitely mitigated it some. Time will tell.
Turns out, all I had needed to do was clean the vents of my machine, which I had done previously not too long ago. I was so confident that lint/hair build up was not the problem, that I spent tens of hours investigating something that I ultimately resolved with 5 minutes of maintenance. If you’re suffering any of those issues, I urge you to just take the 5 minutes to check, even if you’re “sure they’re clean”. I wouldn’t say I pulled a lot of lint out, but it was more than the 5 hairs I expected. I’d say ~4mm was partially covered, but that was evidently enough to pass a significant thermal threshold.
I am, quite frankly, incredibly embarrassed by this. But, if any of you are suffering the same, I wanted to provide the opportunity to learn from my mistakes.