Giving Kryonaut a Shot

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Hello again! With thanksgiving nearing, this might be my final project post for the month.

Recently, I’ve received some free Noctua thermal paste as well as some Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. I’d like to see if there are any thermal gains or losses from swapping out the stock thermal paste on three of my machines vs the stock cooling paste.

Today I will test the following three machines with a simple stress test before and after the repaste. Thankfully all three are easy to take apart and get at their cooling:

  • Framework Laptop (i7-1185g7)

  • Pangolin pang10 (Ryzen 7 4700u)

  • Thinkpad X250 (i5-5300u)

On the Framework and Pangolin, I will test the differences between stock paste and the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. On the Thinkpad X250, I’ll be testing the differences between stock and Noctua NT-H1 paste.

Above are some images from the Framework Laptop after being stressed tested for a few minutes while sitting on a flat wooden surface, prior to applying Kryonaut. Now we test the X250 and Pangolin.

Next up, we have the Thinkpad X250 running some benchmarks before fresh NT-H1 repasting.

Above is the stress testing of the x250 prior to repasting. Below, we’ll now take a look at the cooler-running Pangolin pang10 model from System76 before being repasted, running the same stress test.

I would say that the Pangolin is running about 15c higher, when stress tested, than my Framework Laptop sits at idle prior to the repaste. Wowza.

Now, let’s take a look at those numbers after applying some fresh Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut to the Framework Laptop and Pangolin pang10 model!

Looks like the Pangolin is faring fairly well here, now sitting at exactly the same temperature that my stock Framework Laptop sits at while idling……..except while under stress.

Which is interesting, as the Framework has that newer iteration of the i7 processor and the Pangolin has a 4700u ryzen 7. Nevertheless, onward!

Above we see a screenshot of my Framework Laptop under the same stress test, though while plugged in to ethernet, as it was sitting at my desk when I ran this test, an IKEA standing desk, versus the same wooden table I did temperature tests with all three on earlier. This is mainly because my stupidness forgot to take more screenshots when all three machines were lined up on the table.

Below, I’ll add the pictures of the three machines stress testing while on that wooden surface.

Finally, we have the Thinkpad X250 up next after repasting it with a little dab of that Noctua compound. As we have quite a few tubes of those available at work, I grabbed one from there.

If you’ve read or looked this far, thanks for making it to the end! From what I’m seeing here, the Thinkpad X250 only improved by 10-13c in terms of lower temperatures. Then again, the Pangolin and Framework have much larger cooling assemblies, whereas the teeny little X250 has quite an anemic cooler…but perhaps the compound swap did make a difference.

Distros used:

  • Framework Laptop - Fedora 35 GNOME (5.14.17-302.fsync)

  • Pangolin Pang10 - Pop!_OS 21.04 (5.14.18 xanmod)

  • Thinkpad X250 - Fedora 35 XFCE (5.14.16-301)

Even though it wasn’t that intense of a stress test, it’s always nice to see how refreshing the thermal paste on your computers can extend their life. What was fairly cool to see, too, was that the Pangolin pang10’s fan rarely turned on unless it got above 50c. Nice and silent.

The Pangolin pang10 is a 15” laptop, whereas the Thinkpad X250 is a 12-13” laptop and the Framework is a 13” laptop. I feel the larger the overall size of the machine, the likelihood of the heat being dissipated well increases, regardless of paste.

As always, I’ll end this with a few cool things I’ve seen/read/watched on the internet recently!