How do i stop this laptop from sounding like a jet engine?

Community Support
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I have a gen 1 Framework 16. Lately, this thing just runs at 100% fan speed, even if the laptop is barely doing anything. One of the temperatures from “sensors” is showing 100 C, while the other ones are more reasonable, at ~35 C. Is there a way to disable a “bad core”? This thing is borderline unusable for daily use now.

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Possibly an accumulation of dust on the inside. Open her up and give her a clean. Redo thermal paste / pads. Otherwise… other FW16 users in this forum might have ideas -or- contact FW Support by way of a ticket.

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If it is gen 1 it’s likely using liquid metal. You could swap that for PTM, that should help.

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This..

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Contact support about getting the thermal interface material changed out. Something is likely wrong with the cooling in that particular laptop. It happens, it is one of the reasons they changed materials moving forward.

The liquid metal was a good idea it just did not pan out like they thought it would over time.

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Ok thanks, I reached out to them shortly after my posy and have not heard back yet.

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Following up, swapping to PTM fixed the issue.

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The Sixteen use pass through cooling (air intake from both top and bottom). After use on various dusty surfaces (including among pile of linen), its totally fine.

You can also just replace the paste with any other paste. Although, note that the chip (7840HS/7940HS) run very hot (due to PBO) and most regular paste will dry out in like a week if you use it heavily. Which is still better than no paste (liquid metal runoff).

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Not sure what terrible pastes are being referred to here; claiming that most pastes dry out or are ineffective after a week is quite hard to believe. Especially among likely a more experienced crowd on this forum. If there is substantial repeatable data to back this up, consider creating a new post to substantiate this.

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I’ll be the one to go against (or to be exact, advising to go beyond PTM swap) the common advice given here and suggest the following →

First of all, I believe the “Gen 1” Framework 16 was poorly designed in terms of acoustics (perhaps it wasn’t a priority…). I found myself dealing with the same “Jet Engine” fan issue, which comes down to the fact that a particular noise frequency profile is predominant. Swapping to PTM helped thermals immensely, but the fan noise stayed the same. Couple issues that “Gen 1” has:

  • Very poor fan profile - the laptop will prioritize making sure the components are as cool as possible, while sacrificing noise. I myself have tuned the fans to a much lower fan curve, which in testing has resulted temperatures rising (but staying within manufacturer safe limits) and reducing noise dramatically.
    • You may try these two solutions (Solution #1***)***:
      • (Newer) The framework bios now supposedly supports custom fan profiles, this wasn’t around back when I found the solution that worked for me, so I haven’t yet migrated over, but I’d try this first: https:// community.frame.work/ t/framework-laptop-16-windows-fan-control-tool-new-gui/74533
      • (Old) For older BIOS’es this tool is the only one I found that works for Windows without going “hardcore” into terminal only tools: https:// github. com/Steve-Tech/YAFI
  • Hardware fault: As mentioned before, I strongly believe the noise is a hardware design shortfall, its not something I am particularly “mad” about, since other large hardware manufacturers face the same issue time and time again, its a common problem in the industry, a famous example that I ran into before was the "loud SteamDeck fan disaster during launch”
  • (Solution #2***):*** A recent announcement by Framework did make my belief/accusation regarding a hardware fault more “justified”, in which the team announced a new Nvidia GPU module option, that includes updated fans that improve noise and acoustics (similar to the fix SteamDeck received…). So the 2nd solution is to buy an updated Nvidia GPU module OR to purchase “Gen2” fans for the existing AMD module.
    • I chose to purchase the Nvidia GPU module (my reasoning being noise + issues with AMD GPU drivers for Windows)
    • Having experienced the SteamDeck fan noise issue before, swapping the fans for that device has solved the noise issue “entirely”, I can blast the fans on it full throttle, and the sound is no more annoying than a desk fan (rather than a high pitched Jet)

Overall, I can’t fault Framework for not stepping up and offering “free” fan replacements for customers, since it would’ve been a big expense on their end (Similarly, Valve never offered free fan replacements either, they just “silently” fixed the issue in newer revisions).

P.S: I did see that the PTM swap has alleviated your issue, I still decided to post my experience in case other folks have other (more similar to my own) experience.

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