I have a Framework i5 13th gen with a fan that gets kinda noisy when I use it closed and docked.
I’d rather not lower the performance or slow it down but I was wondering if the fan itself was replaceable with something more quiet but just as good at doing it’s job.
Either that, or any other “cool” ways to make use of the extra vents?
Thanks.
Have you tried ptm7950 jet? As far as cooling performance improvements go that’s a pretty low hanging fruit.
Unfortunately the FW13 is not designed to be used when closed, since it blocks most of the air vents.
Source?
The vents are all on the bottom.
Those are the intake vents, the air gets exhausted out the body into the hinge, which is blocked when closed.
Sarch for “closed lid” or “Clamshell” in this forum.
There are multiple threads about this topic
To be fair, it’s not much better when open either. I find when it’s open, the air gets pushed out the top of the bezel towards the screen and when closed, the bezel kinda directs it towards the bottom/the desk it’s sitting on.
There’s an extra vent space on the bottom though and an extra exhaust space on the right of the laptop. I’ve already tried redoing the thermal paste which seemed to help a little bit but would like to know if anyone has successfully done anything more like a hardware mod. It would be nice not to have to hear it that much during a load.
Seriously, you won’t get any easier gains in that department than ptm.
Sure but, what if I’m more so looking for something to do for fun rather than something easy?
I suppose I could give the pad a go though, I usually stick with the Noctua paste and haven’t tried the pad yet, I guess there’s a first time for everything.
Ruing it without the bezel should give it a bit easier airflow when closed so that may be worth a shot. Air-jets are going to need a couple generations to actually help but might be worth a revisit in a couple years assuming they didn’t fold and didn’t lie too hard about their generational improvements. Putting in a bigger cooler is going to take some quite invasive case modifications , especially since the heat-sink is on top of the main-board and not below it.
The stuff is pretty nice as far as effort/reward go, it isn’t quite the liquid metal without the liquid metal that some people hype it up as but it is closer to lm than even good paste and without all the mess and risks of lm. I’m still going to move to lm eventually but I was pleasantly surprised.
Hadn’t actually noticed those.
Sure doesn’t look like “It wasn’t designed to be used with the lid closed.”
Problem solved… lol
I eventually just got frustrated and cut the bezel out of the way of the vent. It’s much cooler both open and closed and for me it’s worth the eyesore.
Interesting Solution.
Perhaps there could be used some Mesh for the Hole, so it will be looking “better”.
Other solution could be to drill some holes or cut some slots with an dremel into the bezel before mounting it to the laptop for better Airflow.
Yeah those are pretty cool ideas, maybe I’ll pick up a new bezel and try some more reasonable solutions now that I’ve gotten the frustration out.
Aside from the look, it kinda sucks when fingers go through it while picking up the laptop. It’s surprisingly cooler though even with the CPU not pulling any punches, the fan barely has to work at all now.
Thank you very much for sharing the results from your cooling solution.
I run couple of 13 " Framework Laptops and searching for improvements.
On every new machine, i swap the thermal paste with MX 4, and put some 1,5mm thermal pads on the nvme ssd drive.
But i will now try your solution and cover the hole with some mesh, will keep you in touch with the results from there. (If it will works fine, I have to rework almost 30 devices from my colleagues 
)
Unexpected problem number two…
It would appear when sitting on a desk, the back lifting pad of the laptop isn’t high enough and the fan cant suck enough air out and the intake is also a little restricted.
I currently have it propped up with an HDMI cable under it to give it an extra cm which seems to fix that, so, airflow might suck overall in general lol.
Propping up a laptop is always a great free performance/temperature/noise improvement that basically applies to every laptop 
When my laptop first arrived, it did get loud quickly. I have since swapped the thermal paste with PTM7950 which helped noise quite a bit. under full sustained load, it does still get loud, but it takes longer to get there, thus performance is also slightly better.
That does pretty nicely match my measurements with the ptm, at low fan speeds it doesn’t make a very big difference but at higher fan speeds it helps a ton.
