Put new thermal paste on my 1165G7

[DannyT]

So I had purchased some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut because I wanted to re-paste my aging 1060 GPU (doesn’t look like I will be buying a new video card any time soon ).

I also purchased a copper NVME heatsink that someone posted on here that fits nice in the framework case…

…then I figured, while I am here and have the thermal paste, why don’t I try it on the CPU on the framework!

…So glad I did it! Here are some pics during the process…

… I have actually had to re-paste many aging laptops in the past but this was the quickest \ easiest of them all to date.

I haven’t done enough testing so far but the new paste on the graphics card (as expected) made a huge difference! and so did the heatsink on the NVME… the cpu however (also expected) only seems a couple of degrees better since it was fairly new paste anyways. that being said… the CPU hasn’t hit 100 degrees on FarCry or Cyberpunk yet like they normally do… so maybe it did help… time will tell!

[Fraoch]

Does the M.2 heatsink press up against the underside of the keyboard? Does it heat up the keyboard?

I’m regretting returning it…this is the second report I’ve seen of it working well.

[DannyT]

I will double check when I get a chance but I don’t think it’s touching the underside (and keyboard isn’t warming up). I did take the following clearance picture when putting it back together, but will let you know for sure later.

[D.H]

@DannyT , nice write up. I will put the thermal paste addition on my potential mods list, both for the framework and my used GTX 1050Ti that I just got. Will try to get better before / after benchmarks on each, too.

Seeing the fan and heat pipe assembly off makes me wonder if it would be possible to amend the SSD heat spreader with another piece that extends towards the grate opening in in the case and into the fan opening area. I’m thinking of like a flat camping spork shape, to wick away more heat without seriously blocking the airflow any. No idea how much clearance is available to do that with / how thick the “spork” piece could be.

Fortunately, my Hynix P31 doesn’t need any of this treatment, I’ve never seen it over 55C, even when moving a ~39GB game from one partition to another…

[Mirage]

Out of curiosity, I wonder if anyone’s tried running graphite pads on a Framework yet? I’ve found them to be really convenient for other laptops that are a pain to repaste, as I’ve heard they last pretty much forever once installed. Of course, with how easy it is to repaste a Framework, the marginal loss in cooling capacity might not actually be worth it…

[AbqNP]

Have yet to get my framework yet, have always repasted cpus when I get a new device, even liquid metaled my old 4790k for fun, and worked quite well. Having added thermal pads to a few 3090s and seeing the massive results, the thermal grizzly minus or gelid might make a difference. Speaking of, anyone measure the thermal pads used under the cooler yet? Results of m.2 thermal pad cooling? What kind of pads are people using on the 1tb expansion cards?

[DannyT]

Update… I let my framework laptop run idle for 24 hrs with only things like Steam open in a warm room and got this…

… I then loaded Cyberpunk on the laptop and played for a while (I actually stream to an nVidia Shield box that “upscales” it to 4k on my QLED display. The Shield, mouse and keyboard are all wireless but I notice no input or display lag). This is the results during said game play…

… Even though my FPS bounce between 40 and 30 (on low settings cause of my old GPU) I think Cyberpunk plays WAY better on my framework laptop than it does on any console !

[AbqNP]

@DannyT have any temps of the CPU before the repasted?

[DannyT]

Well the CPU temps haven’t really changed at all (like maybe 1 degree colder), the thermal paste it was shipped with seems fine…

…However, when gaming for a while in Cyberpunk the temps used to bounce a lot between 100 and 80… that no longer happens… highest temp I have seen on the CPUs while gaming was 83 and it jumps back to 79 easy enough…

… keep in mind that might not have anything to do with the thermal paste (there was a recent bios update)… but I noticed the change after doing the paste soooooo? your guess is as good as mine.

[AbqNP]

Good to hear! Easy to do either way!

[DannyT]

Few more hours of playing Cyberpunk, even my roommates and gaming on their rigs so the ambient room temperature has definitely increased… but looks like the laptop is staying stable!

[5uie1]

@DannyT Thank you for doing this and posting the results. And apologies for resurrecting an old thread. I was trying to find the links to the copper heatsink that you refer to in your post, but am unable to find them on the forums. Could you please share the links?

[Jason_Dagless]

I re-did my paste with Cryonaut a week or so ago. Didn’t really get any major change better or worse. The stuff they use works pretty well. There is no great need to change it.

These chips run hot no matter what you do. Nature of the beast.

[DannyT]

@5uie1, I used the heatsink at the top of this thread: Heat speader on NVMe

[5uie1]

@DannyT thank you! Did you by any chance use more copper heatsinks on other parts? You pictures seemed to suggest that.

[DannyT]

@5uie1, sorry for the delayed response, no, no other cooper parts, what you see in the photo is the underside of the stock fan and the NVMe heatsink

[cowpod]

Do you experience any lag spikes, where the game slows to a crawl for a few seconds at a time?

[DannyT]

@cowpod

Do you experience any lag spikes, where the game slows to a crawl for a few seconds at a time?

No, Not at all, not even once.

[cowpod]

That’s awesome! I’ve had nothing but issues on mine. I’ve replaced the paste with MX-5, MX-4, replaced the mainboard a couple times, and it still randomly stutters to a few frames per second in any demanding games.
Interestingly, every time the old paste had dried out at the very center of the die; I’m going to try a thermal pad next, maybe that’ll help…

[Allenx51]

@cowpod

Interestingly, every time the old paste had dried out at the very center of the die; I’m going to try a thermal pad next, maybe that’ll help…

Thermal compound should not be drying out like that, and there shouldn’t be that hard stutter going on.

Few thoughts, maybe try a higher end paste like Thermal grizzly, and if you’re replacing the thermal pads, again aim higher, a thermal pad on the CPU is not going to get you where you wanna be.

As far as software, I’d take some time there to make sure the ducks are all in a row. Like, turning off the panel self refresh (PSR), and making sure that the power profiles/options are in order.

Edit: I now realize that MX-5 ‘is’ the upgrade to MX-4, Here I thought you were using the old school Artic silver, which ‘was’ king for a while, but pastes have gotten a bit better since then. Still not sure they should be drying out though so soon.