I have a Batch 5 framework 13 Ryzen laptop and I’ve been noticing some weird temps. It was fine for the first month or so I have been using it usually no more than 75C briefly with web browsing and office work, but now it is pegged at 85+ often hitting 100C all on sensor 4 on the CPU. I don’t want to have to replace the thermal past but will do it if I have to (I have some NT-H2 if that is appropriate, or can use thermal phase change pads).
My only concern is if this would void the framework warranty. If it would then I have no issue sending it back as I can easily use one of my other laptops for work.
You are not alone. I have a batch 9 Framework 13 AMD Ryzen 7 7840u, and I’ve also been having issues with the thermal performance. This does not seem to be limited to a single sensor. But it’s very easy to push the overall temperature to 100c, even with a single core workload. The laptop was doing this right from the get-go. I contacted support and explained the problem to them. After some back and forth, I was instructed to try repasting the CPU/Heatsink with some NT-H1 that I had lying around from my last desktop build. This did not seem to make a difference. Support then sent me a tube of their stock thermal paste and instructed me to repaste it again. Still no difference. I noticed that the amount of paste between the heatsink and CPU would be pretty much none. Like the mounting pressure was enough to squeeze it all out. So I started to experiment, and I’ve found that if I leave the screws for the heatsink just a little loose, then the thermal performance is significantly improved. By a little loose, I mean that I turn the screws back in one turn at a time on each screw and that I stop one turn after I feel resistance on the screws.
Now, my laptop performs as it should, and it can sustain an all-core load and maintain a temperature of 90c after the fans kick in. Before, it would hit 100c with only one core, and I wouldn’t see the temperature drop until I stopped testing.
Great that this works for you, but I find it a bit curious. From a physics perspective, the more you squeeze out, the thinner the paste layer gets, the better your thermal conductivity. The optimum would in principle be a Metal-Metal contact without thermal interface material - but due to air trapped between the sheets, you need some thermal filler, i.e. the paste.
Paste is alright but the ptn is closer to liquid metal than to paste especially in the kind of power envelope of a laptop. I also didn’t believe it until I tried and then moved on to lm but that really wasn’t worth it.
Never had any issues with NT-H1 thermal paste on any of my desktop builds.