I’m still waiting for a reply back on my support ticket. Depending on what they say, maybe I’ll try some alternatives to the factory liquid metal. PTM-7950, IC Graphite pad, etc. We’ll see. I don’t know that mine is bad enough that I’d want them to send me a whole new board or anything. Unless they are wanting to analyze the board or something. I’d just as soon have them send me a new thermal pad to try. Then I can try some other things first, just to see how they compare.
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Mine was bad enough that they cross-shipped me a new Mainboard which did meet their expectations - for a few weeks, that is. Now they want me to send the entire laptop in for analysis and repair. Quite the troublesome issue they’ve got on their hands here…
That’s another reason why I think I might lean toward trying some thermal pads before having them spend the money to send me a new mainboard that may not be any better.
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Yeah, I’m currently on the fence as to whether or not I actually want to commit to sending it to them or just winging it with modifications of my own.
The peculiar thing about the entire situation is that the current cooling solution has demonstrated itself capable of meeting and exceeding Framework’s own stated performance target of 45W of sustained load. The big question is what the point of failure is causing the drops in sustained power output (and performance, by extension).
As @PSierra117 documented over in FW16 Batch 20 Guild, switching to what he believed at the time was PTM7950 and lapping the contact plate on the heatsink brought his board beyond Framework’s own targets. Recently, he did report that performance had dropped again to just within spec, leading him to believe that the “PTM7950” he received may actually be a different TIM altogether, so the jury’s still out on whether that’s the cause of his observed performance loss after modification.
Like I said, it’s really strange stuff going on here. Here’s hoping the FW team can figure things out.
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Couldn’t have said it any better 
(Non Nativ Speaker)
When i am back Home in October i will try to get a Genuine PTM Batch and check up my cooling Solution 
But i will also Buy a Replacement Heatsink and the LM-Pads which should be available in October.
When they are here i will try to further modify the OG Heatsink, maybe even try to remove the Heatsinkextension sitting on the Vapor Chamber all together so i can shim it with a Copper Brick. I am willing to sacrifice my already done Work, just for Science 
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BTW i have an Answer from Framework regarding the RMA’s and if they have done some Investigation:
My Question:
“I would like to ask, did you Guys start an Investigation on why the
Heattransfer from the CPU to the Heatsink is degrading and all across all
Batches there are more and more RMA’s regarding that Problem?
Even freshly RMA’d Boards like mine do not hit the expected Performance or
start to degrade after a Month or so? We are really active in the Forum and
trying to find the Reason. It would be great to hear from you Guys.”
Answer:
"As for any issues brought up to us (especially hardware related) are tracked and investigated. When things go through our RMA process they are logged and if we find a widespread or niche weird issue, we send the hardware in a bad state to our engineers or manufacturing partners for deeper investigation. If things are found to be out of spec during warranty period, we are happy to go through the RMA process for those specific cases.
Few have gone through RMA process for being out of spec due to believed Thermal Pump out issue, but our RMA team is tracking things further. If we find things are incorrect or there is a manufacturing issue, it is something we would share and a process for things to be resolved."
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They have no idea or at least nothing conclusive yet.
I’m thinking maybe not sufficient LM or is the heat-pipe is suffering from effervescence and or diffusion?
I’m so curious for the answer.
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What are the materials of the Heat-sink, the type of liquid metal and the IHS?
Maybe there is some think going on with the differences of materials and effects that go with it, like expanding and concave and convex effects?
Even the smallest gaps could create inefficiency with the thermals.
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I didn’t have any major issues with performance (15,015 in cinebench R23) on my batch 5 7840HS. However, I could not match the sustained 10min performance of @PSierra117’s modified cooling solution.
I lapped my heatsink and bought some unverified PTM7950 on Amazon like @PSierra117. With the new cooling solution I have gotten above 16k in single cinebench runs and the fans take noticeably longer to ramp up. I am attaching some images of the original liquid metal and lapped heatsink.
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Thank you for trusting my Worklog and verifying my findings. Its a big leap of faith, doing something like this to an expensive Machine just on the Words of a Stranger in the Internet. As you said its alot more pleasant device after the Thermals are in Order
What did you use for lapping the surface?
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I used a 600 and 1200 grit diamond stone after covering the surrounding area with tape.
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How is the performance so far?
Is there any degradation compared to the liquid metal?
I’ll receive a new mainboard this week, but, I also have an extra heatsink that I plan to modify just in case.
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I switched a little over 4 weeks ago and have not experienced any degradation.
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For those who haven’t seen, I posted my experience over at FW16 Batch 20 Guild - #361 by lxke
Today, I ran another test, getting about 14,400 which is probably within margin of error of my previous score, considering that I had been using my laptop all day for work and only had powered it down to drive home, then run the test, so it likely wasn’t a ‘cold start’ as previous runs had been.
I had an idea today to go about replacing the liquid metal TIM with regular thermal paste and I’m happy to say that this has improved the situation somewhat.
Before, I would be hitting roughly 14.5K in Cinebench R23 at about 40w over a 10 minute run, and now I’m getting 15,359 which initially started at about 51w, dropping to 45w by the end of the 10 minute run.
Thermal-wise, I was previously seeing an almost 20c delta between the hottest and lowest core. Following the re-paste, the now have a delta of about half that, at 9c. When the CPU was hitting 52-ish watts package power, my hottest core was now core 5 instead of core 4 previously.
I’ll be update this thread to see if the performance degrades at all
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Did you modify the heatsink?
Also, can you please add the name of the thermal paste? It could help us keep track of what is working.
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No heatsink modifications (yet)
I used some old Gelid GC-Extreme from 2018 I had lying around, and have ordered some genuine PTM 7950 from moddiy which I’ll test out once it arrives.
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Just curious - how hard was the LM removal?
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Removing the liquid metal with qtips and rubbing alcohol was pretty easy for me. Removing the heatsink was the most difficult part for me - I had to use a plastic spudger to separate the heatsink from the CPU.
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I used GC Extreme some Years ago. Great Stuff, but degrades it Performance over the Course of a Year.
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You can rub it off with a paper towel but it was proving more effort than I wanted it to be.
Ultimately I used the plastic end of the included screwdriver to scrape it off with ease, it almost came off as a single piece, then cleaned it up with a tiny bit of rubbing alcohol.
I didn’t take any pictures of the LM TIM but it looked quite sparse, like, a wafer thin amount that in all fairness did cover the whole CPU die.
This morning I ran a cold run of R23 before heading to the office, managing a score of 15,640 - My highest yet. I’ve attached a screenshot which I took a few moments after the fact, so you can see hwinfo stats. CPU Package Power started at about 54w on the first run, dropping and stabilising to 48w by the end of the 10 minute sprint.
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