Asus ROG Strix GL702ZC / G702ZC / S7ZC with Ryzen 7 1700 8-core CPU and a Radeon RX580 GPU

Anybody able to extract these program/installer for

Asus Sonic Studio
Asus Sonic Radar
Asus Sonic Suite
Asus Splendid

For those who haven't format or reset their GL702ZC

 

It's very much individual to each model of laptop, some can benefit greatly from moderate increase in forced air through bottom vents, others take very high levels of air pressure to show any difference - which is very noisy running such high CFM fans at high RPM for long periods of time.

Just lifting a laptop off the surface it's resting on helps cool them, allowing freer air flow to the underside. Lifting the rear of the laptop an inch or two higher than the front to improve convection cooling - front to back - can make a big difference too.

Just putting something under the front and rear corners like erasers, or cups, or bottle caps, or little staple boxes can make a big difference - sometimes that's all you have available in the office supply cabinet - also check for dixie cup water dispensers - one at each corner (upside down with open side down) helps cool Macbook laptops greatly - their little fans stop spinning wildly and the red glow disapates

The best thing you can do is to provide free air flow around the laptop around all sides - point the hot air exhaust out into free space and don't jam it up against a wall or corner where heat will collect and reflect back into the air intakes after a short while. This also reduces noise reflections back from solid objects behind the laptop coming back into the users ears.

Pulling a desk away from a wall to give a few inches of air gap to allow for air currrents to flow drawing off hot air up and into the room away from you and the laptop.

Heat / cooling is simple, works with all objects the same way, learn how to use the physical world to improve cooling and don't always look to expensive things like laptop cooling stands.

Given that, I use the CoolerMaster Ergostand III at about this angle to improve cooling and hold the screen up higher - I'm tall.
http://www.coolermaster.com/mobile/notepal-all-notepals/ergostand-III/

I use a wired or wireless keyboard instead of the built in keyboard - keeps it clean for resale - I haven't needed to replace a single built-in keyboard due to food or drink spills since I stopped using the internal keyboard - except on rare mobile occasions away from a desk.

The Ergostand III is solid enough to hold an 18.4" laptop and small and light enough to use with a tablet or even a phone to hold it at a reading angle.

If you do experiment with how a forced air cooler works to improve your laptop cooling, please post how well it works - try to be unbiased in your measurements, it's always disappointing when I see someone post a single "after" number difference, saying it's 10c-15c cooler now, when I know that's a complete fabrication. I've only see those kind of temp drops from taking off the bottom panel and firing air-conditioner air directly into the laptop

Have fun

 

Im also interested in a laptop cooler for my ROG. If anyone has experiences with one of it please post realistic results.
II would say one with the fans located on the bottom entrance would help with airflow

 

Omg i think i really got a lemon Gl702zc haha
I before format was able to install ryzen master utility, now it prompt me

Ryzen Master requires AMD Ryzenmaster driver.

Ryzen master installs fine but when I launch it I get the error

 

You made it a lemon by erasing the original OS install

See if you can get another unit, return this one before the return period expires, and for the next unit don't connect it to the internet - don't let MS Windows Update run - and do a Macrium Reflect backup of the OS image and create the Macrium Reflect recovery USB boot flash drive.

And, this time just disable the "bloatware" you don't want running at boot instead of blowing it all away only to find you need it and can't download it from anywhere

 

I had the same problem.
It's because you picked the wrong Ryzen Master from the download page.
You need to download and install the Ryzen Master for Threadripper (for some reason the one for regular Ryzen doesn't work on GL702ZC).

hmscott

No, he didn't make a lemon by erasing the original OS install... I erased the original OS, and it made my life easier.
The newest AMD drivers recognized Freesync, so now I don't have any issues, and even ROG gaming center is working fine along with other software.

The Ryzen Master utility for regular Ryzen doesn't work on GL702ZC. This issue was the same for me on the original OS install.
He needs the version of Ryzen Master made for Threadripper (that one works on GL702ZC).

 

On another note, I just ordered another 16GB RAM for the GL702ZC (along with a 32GB usb stick... needed a new one with more capacity so I can play a bit with Linux without removing Windows), and it will be delivered this Saturday.

Finally, dual-channel and another 10% increase in FPS in games? Yes please.

I think I will also re-paste at the same time (provided of course I don't find any warranty seals).

 

Asus has been telling people it voids the warranty to repaste, but it depends on the region, so I'd open a ticket asking if it's ok to re-paste on your own - and if the warranty would still be valid. Sticker or not, it's not something you want to do without getting written confirmation from the vendor ahead of time.

I've seen people report several times over the years during an RMA Asus will deny warranty work if the tech sees a repaste was done by a non-authorized (logged by Asus) repaste.

If you have a note from Asus support saying it's ok, you just have to let them know what the ticket number is in response to their denial of service

With 32GB + new BIOS that enables VM, you don't need to reload the host OS, just create Linux VM's to play with, pretty cool stuff.

You might want to do some before / after Intel CPU bugfix testing with VM('s) responsiveness.

All fun stuff

 

Laptop Cooler Mini Review
I bought a Valore branded Cooling pad with 4 fan.
http://www.valore.sg/Valore/project/valore-cooling-pad-ac05/

The build quality for a SGD $24.90 is actually not too shabby, it spots a aluminium (i supposed) mesh, It have 2 dials that control the fans speed (reported to have up to 1200rpm having 63cfm) when full load and 2x USB 2.0 ports


Test Scenarios:
Flat Wood Table Surface (Black, and I wondered if black desk contributes to the heat)
ROG Gaming Center Fan Speed: Auto
MSI Afterburner Fan: Auto

Test Without Valore Cooling Pad
Idle Temp
CPU: 46°C ~
GPU: 47°C ~

GH Wildlands Benchmark
Max: 49.2 FPS
Avg: 45.7 FPS
Min: 30.1 FPS

1HR of Ghost Recon Woodlands
CPU: 68-71°C
GPU: 85-89°C

After 1HR of GH Wildlands + GH Wildlands Benchmarks Ultra
Max: 46.3 FPS
Avg: 38.9 FPS
Min: 26.6 FPS

After 1HR of GH Wildlands + 3D Mark FireStrike Score: 9266

Turned off for 1 Hour

With Valore Cooler

Idle Temp
CPU: 42°C ~
GPU: 44°C ~

GH Wildlands Benchmark
Max: 50.1 FPS
Avg: 46.8 FPS
Min: 31.8 FPS

1HR of Ghost Recon Woodlands
CPU: 63-68°C
GPU: 80-86°C

After 1HR of GH Wildlands + GH Wildlands Benchmarks Ultra
Max: 48.1 FPS
Avg: 40.4 FPS
Min: 24.7 FPS (Lewl???)

After 1HR of GH Wildlands + 3D Mark FireStrike Score: 9581

Pros:

Two Fan is situated perfectly at the ventilation area directly above the Laptop's fan.
Cheap and does its job
bottom 2 fans can be switched off for more silent operations
Lightweight
Holds GL702ZC pretty stable
Red/Blue LEDs depend on yr color

Cons:
Poor USB Speed (Use for keyboard's or your mouse would be btr)
Cooler stands off sightly flex holding this heavy beast
Can't turn off LED light

Lastly this cooler resemble Tree New Bee cooler which kinda a rebrand I supposed

 

Very nice, and typical for best results I have seen with a laptop cooler

You didn't mention if turning off the 2 "unneeded" fans changed temperatures, or did you not test that yet? Even if they don't point directly into the vents they cool the outside and create a high pressure area that may help, so it's worth doing a test run with them off as well.

Did you run the laptop cooler fans at highest speed? I am assuming you did, but wanted to double check. How noisy is it with all laptop cooler fans at full speed, and only 2 at full speed?

Thank you for the detailed review!!

 

I tested with all 4 fan on all the time at maximum speed. I never try testing it with only 2 fans, Noise level is fine I would say the laptop is louder than then cooling pad and I wondered how other people are getting over 11k on fire strike while I only manage to hit 9.5k .

I just received the update from Asus and I'm ............. Speechless.

Dear Leon Tan,

Good day to you. With regards to your issues, kindly be informed that our unit comes with Windows 10 Home. The softwares and apps are bundled with authorities, we won't provide this kind of apps and softwares on our website. Please take note that these software and apps only provided with our pre-installed Windows operating system. Kindly back up important data and factory reset back to original Windows 10 home. If it failed to resolve the issue, kindly proceed down to one of our service centers below for further assistance.

 

Yup, if you want to get the original install image you have to either have backed it up first thing out of the box, cloned the boot storage to another storage device, or you need to return it to RMA restore the original OS image by Asus.

Do the image backup before letting Microsoft Windows Update screw things up - do the image backup before connecting the laptop to the internet!!

If you can get access to a brick and mortar vendor with one in stock, you might be able to convince them to let you do a backup from their untouched unit. Fry's, Best Buy, and Microcenter will often have units on display you can plug in a USB drive (ask first!!) to do the backup.

 

Linux runs great on this machine. Most (I think all?) of the games I play run through WINE really well now, so I think I'll be dropping the Windows install soon.

I'm fairly certain that repasting = voiding warranty means absolutely nothing from a legal standpoint, just like those 'void warranty' stickers. It probably means you'll have a bit more hassle with ASUS though.

 

On the repaste... how much of a difference would it make if you never tell Asus you did a repaste yourself?
Would they have any knowledge of the fact you repasted if you never told them?
Furthermore, the GL702ZC doesn't seem to have any warranty seals.

mhdvt
Have you found any warranty seals when opening the laptop and removing the cooling assembly?
I hadn't noticed anything like that when notebookcheck and other websites posted their reviews which contained pictures of the laptops innards.

As for having more hassle with Asus on the repasting=voiding warranty... the 'more hassle' could easily translate to Asus charging you hefty sums of money for the repairs in question if they somehow determine you repasted yourself and voided the warranty in the process... or they would say they refuse to do the repairs (so I don't know how one could reply to such a stance).

I guess one could easily request of Asus technical support their permission to repaste if I say I'm not satisfied with the thermals in the laptop and cannot afford to have it shipped back and waiting days or weeks until they repaste themselves (and raise previous issues/hassle I had with DPD).
Besides, Asus apparently did NOT use my GeLid thermal paste as requested... so I could use that as a reason as well.


EDIT: The main way I suspect Asus 'might' know you did a repaste if they had before photos.

 

After you work on the same hardware, into the hundreds of units over time, you get a good idea how it's supposed to look fresh out of production without any user intervention, and it's easy to spot any anomalies - after you find a few user intervention tracks - it stands out clearly.

Tool marks are one, forgetting to tuck under some cable is another. Missing tack downs (glue, sticky RTV, ties) missing are another dead giveaway. Anything that is different from when you first opened up the case - unless you are experienced with both POV's it's not going to be clear where and what not to "step on".

Basically the technician makes the call whether it gets warranty support or not, whether your intervention as a non-certified "technician" contributed to the failure or not. Usually evidence of re-pasting leads one to look even closer for other changes, damage, or evidence of abuse.

You can defend your changes, but without that "note from support" saying it's ok for you as a customer to do the re-paste or other work explicitly, they can be an ass about it - if you press it - escalate to management they will say they have to go by their support departments call, they will back them up not you.

The result is 50-50, maybe a little leaning toward them covering the repair, but it's tense and drawn out, so why risk the exposure - it's not fun - so just ask before doing it.

 

ASUS ROG Strix GL702ZC Ryzen Laptop Review
Published on Jan 5, 2018
”ROG Strix GL702ZC is the world's first gaming laptop featuring the AMD Ryzen™ 7 processor - Learn more at https://goo.gl/vbwscr
Available at Amazon- https://goo.gl/7Tgfa2

 

I already have Asus permission to upgrade the RAM without voiding the warranty ... remember?
Anyway, I can hold off on the repaste, but my primary concern is the possible eventual failure of the VRM's (again?) due to using the GPU a lot which could also cause my fans to stop working like before.

Someone on youtube mentioned that if you use 65W continuously on the GPU in this laptop, the VRM's are bound to fail.
To me, this definitely sounds like a design flaw on Asus part, especially since they are advertising it as a gaming machine.

That's why I was contemplating a repaste to fix their mistake and avoid a potential problem.
I don't want to end up with a broken laptop in a month's time (or less) again and being forced to send it back to Asus for repairs.
One month in my care and one month in their care?
No thanks. I'm doing some other work with the laptop and I cannot afford delays or loss of time (or money) like that again.

I can certainly ask Asus support if I can repaste the laptop myself since they refused to do that per my request and that I'm afraid the VRM's or something else might fail due to continuously using the laptop at maximum (which I do because I use 3d Studio Max for rendering, etc) and I can't afford losing massive amounts of time waiting for Asus to complete their repaste and send me back the laptop.

Plus if the laptop fails again, I will probably force Asus to give me a refund, accuse them of false advertising (as they say it's a gaming machine - one that apparently' cannot hold maximum load on the GPU without frying the hardware because they couldn't be bothered to design proper cooling) and even ask for damages compensation in lost time and their refusal to use my thermal paste and thermal pads).

 

That's great, then you know the path to use to ask if re-pasting is ok too.

Hopefully there was an actual ECU (Engineering Change Update) or whatever Asus calls hardware fixes in your new parts / RMA, so it's not going to fail again.

Do you have 2 years or just 1 year warranty? With steady use that should be enough time to work out the design bugs, if not and you have a problem outside of warranty expiration I think your RMA is a good reason for Asus to extend your warranty a few months further.

 

2 years warranty.
I already fired off another query on repasting to Asus technical support and reminded them they previously gave me permission to upgrade the RAM so long as I don't misplace any screws and that the laptop has no spare access doors for the RAM alone (requiring removal of the lower panel).
I also explained to them that the cooling assembly runs over the RAM and that it would require it's removal in order to properly access and upgrade the RAM (I was polite and 'promised' I would be careful as I am experienced with it).

Plus, I told them the technician who repaired the laptop apparently ignored my request to use my paste and thermal pads (which I provided at the time) that was included in the paper describing the problem that first appeared - and that it would be a lot faster if I did the repasting as I can't exactly afford waiting over a week for this to be done.

I have no guarantees or indications of any ECU's being implemented as part of the RMA.

 

I ordered 1x 16GB RAM stick for my GL702ZC along with an USB stick (32GB from Kingston) from Scan UK... DPD again.
They said on Friday in an email that they will deliver that today, but again, no parcel.
I called them on the phone and thankfully didn't have to wait very long, but the adviser couldn't say anything about the delivery beyond the fact that according to the system, the parcel is on its way to Edinburgh depot.

I asked them why aren't notifications sent to customers if there's going to be a delay, and he said he doesn't know and doesn't deal with the auto notification system.
I told him that this is highly unprofessional as people tend to take days off for these deliveries and then end up wasting time when DPD doesn't live up to what they claim.
Highly misleading.

This is the second time DPD messed things up in terms of delivery (granted this isn't as urgent as the laptop, but still...).
What is up with them?

 

Just out of curiosity, I ran GPU-Z to determine the GPU's ASIC quality.
Mine is quite low. at 71.7% (and before you might ask, I didn't check the ASIC quality before sending the laptop for RMA but I suspect it would be similar)
What are everyone's else numbers in terms of ASIC quality?

This kind of ASIC quality is pitiful for a laptop of this caliber... especially for a GPU as efficient as this one.

 

What makes you think it's low, and why does it matter?

 

ASIC Quality 74.4% here

 

It indicates silicon quality. Namely, the lower the ASIC quality (the lower the percentage), GPU will require higher voltages to operate on at given clocks and is more susceptible to higher power leakage.
Also, if I gain the ability to undervolt the thing at some point via Windows, it might not do that well (or at all).

Also, a low ASIC quality chip will run hotter than a high quality one.

A good ASIC quality chip would be at about 85-90% or above.

This kind of silicon quality (71.7%) is pathetic/atrocious.
What was Asus thinking?

This could easily be the issue of early production units... but Asus had time to ramp up production... so why give me a replacement motherboard with an RX 580 whose silicon quality is this low?
They probably couldn't care less about ASIC quality and just did a mobo replacement.

Is there any way I can raise this issue with Asus to see what they say (or could do) about it?

 

I am not hijacking the thread but I have a 980M with ASIC quality 59 which is below par from most 980M samples. It overclocks nicely and need more voltage than normal because the quality is very low.
Try overclocking a bit to see if it can handle it.

 

Where did you get this info? It doesn't match with what I've read. Here are 3 sources stating that ASIC is leakage. Higher ASIC = higher leakage lower voltage. Lower ASIC = lower leakage higher voltage

Unwinder (MSI Afterburner developer): http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?s=f0d2213687f1af806557a1c0d189f2fc&p=4222314&postcount=131

Dave Baumann (AMD Product Manager): http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1344008&postcount=29

The Stilt (Finnish pro overclocker): https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/4rzo88/the_stilt_explains_asic_quality_on_amd_cards/

I think Nvidia is the same way. The notoriously hot/power hungry GTX 880M was the highest ASIC/leakage GK104 chip Nvidia put in laptops. It ran at under 1V by default, which was lower than the more efficient 780M and 680M.

 

So i've installed last AMD RX 580 Drivers and i've lost FreeSync. How do i enable it back appart from having to install ASUS ones? :|

 

I've installed the latest AMD drivers 17.2.2 (ones offered as optional) and my Fresync works fine.
Perhaps what you can do is the following:
Install Asus AMD drivers.
Then try redownloading the latest chipset drivers from AMD and when running pick the latest gpu drivers (17.2.2 - under optional), after that, don't pick 'clean install', just a regular Install should do.
It's possible that a clean install removes some needed bits for FreeSync to be detected.

 

Stilt's information is a bit strange, considering that we know a higher ASIC quality chip will be able to operate at lower voltages.
So let's put it like this:
RX 580 (mobile) with ASIC at say 71% = 1077 MhZ at 0.98V
RX 580 (mobile) with ASIC at say 85% = 1077 MhZ at about 0.88V (or lower).

Even Nvidia GPU's work like this.
Dating back from 2008 (when I got my Acer 5930G with 9600m GT), we've seen reports of people undervolting their GPU's to varying degrees.
GPU's with higher ASIC ratings/percentages would be able to undervolt lower and consume less power at stock clocks (or might already operate at lower voltages from the factory)
GPU's with lower ASIC ratings/percentages would undervolt by a smaller amount (or not at all) and would consume more power at stock.

If ASIC quality is low, the GPU's ability to undervolt (or operate at lower voltages on same clocks) diminishes.

This is what the poster 'unwinder' stated (from your own first link) :

AMD uses the following table to select VID depending on ASIC quality:

up to 2F90 (up to 75% quality) - 1.1750V
up to 34D0 (up to 80% quality) - 1.1125V
up to 3820 (up to 85% quality) - 1.0500V
up to 3A90 (up to 90% quality) - 1.0250V

So, basically, higher quality = lower voltage = lower power consumption at given clocks.

 

Lower voltage but higher leakage, because as stated by multiple sources, ASIC is a leakage value. I provided the example of GTX 880M because that was well-known recent high ASIC/leakage chip, and it was anything but efficient.

 

But the thing with laptops is that OEM's design them with outdated cooling methods.
Higher voltage = more power consumption and larger operational temperatures at given frequencies
Lower voltage = less power conusmption and lower temperatures at given frequencies.

Higher temperatures have a tendency to reduce operational lifespan of hardware.
In a laptop, if you can reduce power consumption of your hardware by a nice amount, it will produce less heat, last longer and be more efficient overall on same/stock clocks... your battery life will improve as well.
Question is, how would power leakage affect this scenario?
Leakage occurs in higher amounts on lower manuf. processes... I think a certain 'threshold' was passed a while ago when we moved on to 45nm and below (currently we're on 16nm and 14nm).

 

The Stilt explained it here:

This is why 880M was so hot and hungry compared to previous mobile GK104 chips like 780M and 680M, despite running at lower voltage. 880M were high leakage (80%+ ASIC Quality) desktop leftover chips binned for high clocks at low voltage, at the expense of being very inefficient.

Low leakage chips are more desirable for laptops, while high leakage chips are more desirable on desktops and for extreme overclocking using H2O/LN2.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...0m-list-them-here.757508/page-13#post-9733050

 

As I said, Stilt is contradicting himself a bit.
Lower voltage = lower power draw and lower temperatures (not higher temperature and higher power requirements).
The high ASIC quality chips can undervolt better or ship with lower voltages at stock clocks as a result (resulting in more efficient hardware).
This was evident from AMD Polaris for example (early desktop 480 releases ended up with higher voltages at stock clocks, while later releases of same chips had lower voltages at stock clocks - similarly, the RX 580 is simply overclocked 480 with better voltages and higher ASIC quality).
Chips with lower ASIC quality can undervolt less reliably (or not at all) and might end up shipping with higher voltages for stock clocks (resulting in more power hungry hardware that's less efficient).

 

I think the bottom line is that even though chips with higher ASIC quality end up with higher power leakage, this ends up mitigated by the much lower voltages which reduce power draw and temperature (make hardware more efficient).
But it's not just that... the manufacturing process plays a part as well in how efficient the hardware will be.

 

Also, isn't Stilt's information translated from Finnish language to English by a Reddit user?

 

There is no contradiction. You're taking default voltage as the end all be all, but it's only one part of the equation and, as stated by Unwinder, is in fact assigned based on the ASIC/leakage level, to ensure that chips of the same GPU stay within a certain TDP range, as mentioned by AMD Dave.

In a laptop at stock operation, lower ASIC is more efficient. Higher ASIC may scale better with overvoltage when overclocking, but at stock operation it has more efficiency lost as heat. Again, I point to 880M. Same fully enabled GK104 chip as 780M, but binned from higher ASIC/leakage desktop leftovers to run at higher clocks at lower voltage, resulting in roughly the same power consumption as 780M, but with far more thermal issues due to heat loss.

 

One of the reason 880M run Hot vs. the predecessor 780M was the added 4GB vram.

 

I upgraded the RAM to 32GB.
Laptop detected it properly and works in dual-channel mode it would seem... according to CPU-Z.

I also had to remove the cooling assembly to install the stick into the RAM slot (I tried without removing the heatsink, but that didn't work) as two of the cooling pipes go over the RAM slots (which makes me wonder... could the heat from those pipes potentially damage the new stick I just installed?).

After removing the cooling assembly, I couldn't find any warranty seals that would give Asus any indication I repasted (though my work would be 'cleaner'- because they really have some paste spilling over).

 

Did you do any pre RAM upgrade CPU benchmarks and CPU-bound gaming tests to compare?

What about the DX:MD benchmark I asked about before?

 

I have a few benchmarks from before which I posted in a GL702ZC owners thread which I created.

Otherwise, I will do the benchmarks over the next few days as I've been occupied/busy with other things.

 

Just ran Cynebench (latest)... scores are same as before the RAM upgrade.
I suspect that I will notice better results in games etc... which means, I have a busy schedule to do that.

 

If you play CPU-intensive multiplayer games like Battlefield 1, PUBG, and PlanetSide 2 at greater than 60 FPS, there will be a definite improvement.

Edit: Also AssCreed Origins

 

U removed entire cooling unit? Is it possible to unscrew abit and slide in the 2nd ram into the top slot without messing up the thermal paste?

You did try to undervolt your cpu using ryzen master, What are your undervolted settings, i wanted to use it as a guide line, although it varys from chip to chips.

 

I couldn't slide the ram into the slot without removing the cooling assembly.

As for undervolting the CPU... I tried that before the RMA, but the CPU already drops it's voltage accordingly under workloads to lowest settings. I tried using ryzen master to go below that, but my system froze every time I tried.

Granted, I hadn't tried that with my replaced mono.

 

Isnt that gonna mess up the default thermal paste, is it okay to add the ram stick and reinstall the cooling unit without replacing the thermal paste. I saw the gunk when the person did a tear down, its disgusting as...... Even on the mem chip.

i also have gelid extreme thermal paste that i used on my desktop cooler maybe i could use that

 

I tried to undervolt CPU but it had locked settings :|
Anyone tried to undervolt GPU? I don't really have any problem with CPU temps to be honest.. GPU seems the thing to heat up more in games, even tho its not that bad eather the laptop stays cool while playing league of legends for example. PUBG its a rocket plane in regards to noise but it doesnt overheat(temps in 65-70s with coolerboost 20% and settings to make it run cooler).

 

Looking "cleaner" - removing the gished out paste is one way to tell someone was in there and re-pasted. I said they notice differences, not that improving on the quality of the pasting is a bad thing, it just sticks out - looks different than every other laptop they open.

The heat pipes may / may not get hot enough in that area to conduct heat. There have been designs noticed that put a Wifi card too close to a heat pipe and it makes them hot - shorter life? - but they seem to work ok - putting a piece of ceramic insulator between the part and the heat pipe may work - but it can also conduct heat better if it's the wrong material.

I'm glad it's all working

No, you don't want to "lift" a seated pasted component and push it back down again - it may trap air bubbles in the paste and make the temps worse. You can try it as a first "Plan A", but if temps are markedly higher go to "Plan B" and open it up again and re-paste from scratch - clean off all old paste and do it cleanly"

 

My temps seem to have been unaffected by removing the cooling assembly and putting it back.
Though, if they DO get worse, I'll probably have to repaste.
It's Asus own fault for designing a cooling assembly with copper pipes running directly above the RAM slots.

 

Interestingly enough, the pictures in the OP seems to show two different heatsink designs, one without the joint heatpipes running over the RAM slots. Maybe UltrabookReview had a pre-production unit?

 

My speculation is that 6core variant of gl702zc may not have the extra heat pipe. But just my speculation, need mores people with 6 core to confirm