Pascal ROG Strix GL502/GL702 Thread

Sorrry how do you install this? I tried to copy and paste in rog gaming center but it asks for an .exe file? I have a GL502VM.
Thanks

 

That is for the VM versions which have a 1060 dGPU. If you have a VS model it will likely not work for you.

 

I've experimented with the GL502VM/FX502VM series for a while now and found that the best gaming experience can be achieved simply by disabling turbo-boost alltogether.
What I first believed to be a heat-throttling issue turned out to be a power-limiting issue instead, which means the heat we suffered was never the actual cause of throttling at all.

What really happens on the GL502VM/FX502VM series is that the device turbo-boosts "too much" on the CPU, effectively driving the power consumption above the 28-seconds PL1 average power consumption limit, which in turn causes the hardware to throttle itself back to its minimal power consumption state <= 800mhz, which in turn causes horrible lagspikes in games.
I've tried everything, from custom voltage curves for the GPU, CPU undervolts, PL1 parameter modification using XTU, etc. but have found that under permanent stress (on both the GPU and CPU), the highest average you can achieve on this notebook at somewhat-stable rates without exceeding the PL1 power limit is around 3ghz.

The amount of configuration required for this however does not warrant the gain, as you can achieve stable permanent 2.8ghz on your CPU by simply modifying the windows registry and enabling a hidden setting in the windows power settings to effectively disable turbo boost altogether.
Given that the device can't sustain stable 3.8ghz turbo boost beyond 28seconds runtime anyway, I think its the wiser choice, as it eliminates all lagspikes and makes this device a bliss to game on.

Long story short: Follow the steps I've outlined below and your device will behave, no questions asked, with no throttling, however, you will trade in a variable 800mHz~3.8gHz CPU frequency range, that often jumps between max and min value (3.8gHz -> 800mHz -> 3.8gHz -> rinse repeat), to a more stable, always stays at the top under load, 800mHz~2.8gHz variable frequency range.

1. Save the following text file as enable-hidden-power-settings.reg on your desktop: https://pastebin.com/QNKHPgkx
   
2. Double-click the newly created file and merge it into your windows registry.
3. Open your start menu and go into Power Options.
4. Click on "Change Plan Settings" next to your currently active power profile, which I assume, given this is a gaming notebook is "High Performance".
5. Click on "Change advanced power settings".
6. Scroll down to "Processor power management" and unfold the node.
7. Unfold the "Processor performance boost mode" node (this setting was hidden prior to you modifying the registry with my enable-hidden-power-settings.reg file).
8. Change the setting "On battery" and "Plugged in" to Disabled.
9. Click the "OK" button to confirm and save your changes.

I consider the "problem" solved at this point, as those settings give me solid 60+fps on 1080p ultra on pretty much every game, and even at 1440p ultrawide on my desktop monitor if I disable Parallax Occlusion.

 

Thank you for that.

I have applied these changes, need to do some game testing now.... fingers crossed

 

Thanks for your outstanding work.

I made several benchmarks with cinebench and it seems like that disabling turbo causes ~15% performance drop on avarage, but it fully eleminates the fps drops. In order to use your system's full potential you can quickly disable/enable turbo with this method:

I created two power plan profiles in Windows, one with turbo disabled and one with turbo enabled. I also made a batch file to quickly switch between them. When I am gaming I disable turbo with double clicking on my batch file otherwise I keep it enabled.

This way no undervolting is needed.

If you are interested I can share the batch file.

 

C'mon guys, really???

Disabling Turbo reduces your computer to Base Clock Speed, which is cutting out a lot of performance.

Just try a CPU benchmark with "High Performance" power plan with 100%, and again with 99% or less (Turbo Disable starts at 99%).

See how much performance you are losing.

If you are having cooling issues when running 100% CPU performance, even with best undervolt, then get the laptop up on a laptop cooler stand.

With the laptop at an angle to take advantage of convective cooling - and a clear path for the hot air to go so it doesn't come back into an air intake.

Re-paste if you must to be able to run at 100% CPU perforamnce, but don't neuter your laptop by disabling Turbo.

You might as well get a cheaper laptop with a worse performance CPU than neuter your high performance laptop by running with Turbo disabled.

 

Oh boy where to start...

First and foremost, as documented the issues with this notebook's lagspikes aren't because the CPU is overheating, it gets quite toasty, yes, but it isn't overheating and the throttle-reasons reported by the CPU are all PL1 power-limit related.
Which, I repeat myself at this point, are caused by an extensive unsustainable power-draw caused by the CPU/GPU combo, which exceeds the "safe" limit set by Asus.

This limit can not be modified (easily) without the assistance of Asus and an accompanying BIOS setting to toggle it, which means we are slaves to the PL1 power-limit they've set for us.
Buying a notebook cooler would do absolutely nothing to help us here.

Another note to consider is that when you set the CPU limit to 99% (like you did) you get 2.69gHz max clock, while with my method you at the very least get your base clock of 2.79gHz (2.8gHz), so you aren't even undercutting your base clock at this point yet.
I also love how you say that we are sacrificing our performance by doing this... while this might be true on paper, I will take a fluid consistent 60+fps over a theoretically higher average fps with 2-minute long power-limiting lagspikes inbetween.

There is however one thing I do agree on with you, if anyone bought this notebook series, and isn't in absolute need of the GTX 1060, I would definitely go with a cheaper but less PL1-limited GTX 1050 Ti notebook out there.
Dell's new IPS-equipped "gaming" notebooks come to mind.

However, a base-clocked GL502VM/FX502VM still performs way better than a boostable one of these, so in terms of raw power to price you are still getting a (slightly) better deal here, at the cost of having to handle this issue by yourself.

 

We should contact Asus, maybe they can patch the PL-1 power limit with a BIOS update

 

Already did... after a long time of haggling around with all kinds of support clerks I finally got in touch with one of their engineers but still, they refused to take action on the matter, which quite openly shows they don't care much about fixing this issue or making the PL1 power limit adjustable.
While it is possible to adjust the PL1 power limit in XTU, its not the setting we are actually looking for sadly as the hardware-set one still remains unchangeable, which means we can regulate it further down from the 45W default value, but not increase it beyond said value.

I mean we can... its just that it has no effect other than looking nice in the GUI.

 

That's very sad. Am I wrong in assuming that uv only eleminates the problem by using less power and therefore not exceeding the 45W limit?

 

Exactly.

From what I've found we got two ways of getting this box stable right now, at least in my experiments.

~150mV undervolt on the GPU
+
~75mV undervolt on the CPU
=
~800mHz-3.6gHz, settling at around 3gHz

no undervolt
+
registry power setting turbo boost disable
=
~800mHz-2.8gHz, settling at 2.8gHz

The first setting combo is more work and requires occasional reapplication due to XTU's watchdog resetting your settings every once in a while, but allows you to keep turbo boost for regular desktop applications.

The second setting combo is easy to do, is fully automatic and permanent once set, as in, not resetting back to defaults by itself, but limits your desktop computing to the 2.8ghz non-turbo maximum frequency.

For in-game scenarios, both settings pretty much behave the same.

The non-turbo one ends up clocking at solid 2.8ghz throughout the whole time, while the more complicated turbo boost setting hovers around 3.0ghz, slightly fluctuating (more downwards than upwards sadly).

A completely stock system, without any settings applied to it, will freely fluctuate between 800mHz on the lower end all the way up to 3.8gHz on the upper end.

The problem though is, in games this will go all the way to 3.8gHz at the start, and then, once it reaches the PL1 limit, throttle all the way down to 800mHz, where it will linger until it considers boosting to 3.8gHz as safe again, and then the cycle repeats.

Which means...
60+fps, 15fps, 60+fps, 15fps, rinse repeat... within minutes of starting the game.

 

What's interesting for me that I never saw my processor boosting above ~3.2 Ghz, definetely not 3.8 GHz.

I have the gl702vm. Could this be another limitation set for this model, or how did you reach 3.8 GHz?

 

You might have noticed that my findings are all related to the GL502VM(Z)/FX502VM series.

I don't have a GL702VM myself, so the findings might not apply 100% to that device.

 

Hello,
Can anyone please confirm that it is possible to install an Nvme ssd disk as a boot disk? Does the bios support it?

 

Yes it does. I'm running on one actually.

 

Yes. I am running a Samsung SM951 (the OEM edition of the 950 Pro)

 

Ok thanks, great, good to know.

Is it difficult to install windows 10 onto the samsung nvme ssd drive?
- Boot from a usb windows bootable drive?
- What BIOS settings?: disable fastboot? disable secure boot control? enable CSM?

I have read somewhere that the Samsung nvme ssd is not recognised in the BIOS but appears as a choice during windows 10 installation?

 

After disabling CPU Turbo Boost in settings, the laptop is now very quiet during "normal" use (not gaming), hardly any fan noise at all, which is really nice....
Gaming performance still good.

 

Guys just touching base again back in this sub. I recently purchased a Razer Blade 2017. I kept my Asus GL502vs as its not as portable i thought the razerblade would suit me better. I undervolted my razer blade and got comfortable with that program. I thought to myself . . . why not open up the asus, re paste it ( always had somewhat high temps and loud under gaming ). After i completed this, using artic silver ( i believe it was m4? ) and undervolted the CPU by -0.125, i'm getting idle temps in the range of 32 degees lol. After playing 3 rounds of seasons in Overwatch, my max temp was 72 degrees. Now on idle, i can HARDLY notice any fan noise, if any. Now the razerblade on the other hand, gets hot, really hot, and really loud lol. I guess thats the price and trade off you pay for build quality and looks/size.

Cheers!
Let me know if you have any questons

 

Great work! Those temps are stellar considering the original thermals were in the high 80s. I guess the paste on the GL series isn't as good as it's on the higher end Asus laptops.
Good luck with the RB14 - I really hope it keeps itself together knowing Razer's history...

 

Excellent results. I was wondering about repasting, too.

Was it difficult? Is there anything special that we should pay attention for, during the proccess? Did you do it on your own or using a guide?

 

Normally it should be pretty straight forward. Though it does void warranty IIRC. Asus and Lenovo have the sticker on one of the heatsink screws.

 

Oops, that's a bummer for me. I guess i will wait for my warranty to expire. Btw, there is a new bios update adressing CPU temps.

Edit: gl702vm

 

By default, at least on the VT and VY models, the fans would only spin at 75% under max load to keep it quiet (it does that fairly well - my desktop DC2 GPU from Asus runs louder) but temps are a bit toastier. BIOS 300 sets fan speed to 100% - it's cool but I fear it may start levitating

 

 
is it an improvement btw?

 

Well, at stock yes.
With BIOS 203 and no other changes - load temps are 93-94*C under heavy load for the CPU and 86*C for the GPU @ 75% fan speed or about 3600RPM IIRC.
With BIOS 300 and no other changes - load temps are 85-86*C for the CPU under heavy load and 80-82*C for the GPU @ 100% fan speed or about 4200-4400RPM

I personally have a few tweaks in place and run BIOS 203 and thus get about 84-85*C CPU and 80*C GPU under heavy load while also having a quiet machine.

 

There weren't any warranty stickers on the laptop heatsinks, you can't even tell I opened the laptop.

 

My razer blade has been stellar actually. I've got 0 backlight bleed on the monitor, my temps are great under a slight undervolt, its been almost 2 months now no crashes, hiccups etc. But then again, typically, you only see post on forums that are noting problems, or not happy. Very rarely do you get someone coming back praising a product because they're satisfied. Almost which is what brings me to my post on re pasting and undervolting the GL502VS, I was happy with the results and wanted to report them.

 

Eeeh, it's too early to tell about the RB14 - I've had people who were swearing by their Razer devices until they broke and had to go through the worst RMA in the industry and never ended up fixed. Then they started hating on anything Razer. I simply advise caution as those devices come with a maximum of 1 year warranty for a reason.

 

Yea, i'm far from swearing by mine lol. Its actually a bit scary and worrisome owning a 2000+ dollar laptop knowing CS sucks and anything could happen lol.

 

Hi, just wanted to ask about the VM(skylake) , does it have TB3 and I saw they advertised it with 100% sRGB and 98% Adobe RGB coverage, Is that true?

 

Those colour percentages are for the 4K models that Asus also offers. The 1080p model comes in at about 90% sRGB and 55-60% Adobe RGB.

 

Wait but from the website it states this :
15.6" (16:9) LED backlit UHD (3840x2160) 60Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 72% NTSC with G-Sync
15.6" (16:9) LED backlit FHD (1920x1080) 60Hz Anti-Glare Panel with 72% NTSC with G-Sync
With WideView Technology

Doesn't that mean the FHD also should have the same color gamut?

 

NTSC is not Adobe RGB or sRGB - it's a different colour gamut used in TV mostly.

 

But I heard from someone that 72% NTSC = 100% sRGB = 98% Adobe RGB?

 

Consult here: http://ihffilm.com/videostandard.html

 

Oh I see , thanks

 

Just in case no-one has posted this already, I just installed the updated BIOS for the GL702VM and holy crap it works beautifully. No more throttling, no more problems with Intel Turbo Boost, no need for undervolting, it's the gaming laptop I actually thought I was buying a few months ago. Please see link below and download the 305 BIOS update. I used WinFlash from ASUS utilities to install it:

https://www.asus.com/us/support/Download/3/910/0/2/And0kom3y45pZcVP/45/

My 702VM is stock btw, 256 M.2 SSD and 1TB HDD. The only thing I've changed is adding 32GB of Ram just because I wanted too.

Edit: Sorry, just saw Atilla Papp posted this on Saturday. No infringement intended!

 

Anyone can estimate the lifespan of the GL502VM before it starts to die?Is it the same as other laptops which is around 2 years? Or can it last longer if you treat it right?

 

Questions to GL502 owners:

1. How is the battery life?
2. Does the screen suffer from any serious backlight bleeding
3. Can you set up any form of fan control?

 

Hi, just wanted to ask about 2280 m2 ssd. Could you recommend some models for boot drive on gl702vm-db71? ~256Gb with price <$120.

 

1. about 4.5 hours idle doing nothing. Take this as your baseline. Anything you do will come down from 4.5 hours.
2. yes. the corners. Bezels are probably pushing on the lcd panel too much
3. no. notebookfancontrol works on this, but it doesn't provide any extra cooling. You can't make the fans spin faster than stock.

 

So, when browsing does the fan kick out of nowhere quite often? And how long does it last while browsing?

 

It's mostly silent while browsing and can last up to three hours doing so. Also I've modded the **** out of mine since my last post in here and found some rather surprising things.

1. I can keep the whole setup from overheating as it used to do by swapping the stock paste for Conductonaut liquid metal (bringing things down from the 95°C crash point to a rather solid 82°C stable.

2. I managed to get things further down from there to about 72°C stable by taping off the vent cutouts on the rear bottom center. It seems that the extra holes somehow interfere with the airflow in the case.

 

Hmm, 95 does sound extreme and I didn't see those in reviews, but fine. Does it last 3 hours with battery saving or just normal balanced power settings. I'm considering swapping my P650 with it hopefully for quiet operations, but I'm certain as of yet.

 

Don't believe the reviews, they are rubbish and somehow no one mentions the heat issues.

The system easily races to 95°C when gaming at which point the system does a emergency shutdown.

They hid the issue on the included windows installation by messing with the drivers, causing the system to report a fake power limiting issue, forcing the system to throttle and hide the heat throttling flag.

Long story short: Asus cheated big time with this system.

A fully stock one will travel from 60 to 95°C at which point it will either shut down (on a clean new windows install) or heavily throttle (on the included windows installation).

A fully modded one (with liquid metal repaste and the bottom center vent holes covered) will go from 40 to 72°C.

Also, when hooked to an external monitor the system runs cooler as part of the monitor hinge covers part of the vent holes.

At the end of the day though the temperatures even out between internal and external monitor use for me as my external monitor is 1440p ultrawide.

That means, despite lower temperatures on external monitors the higher load on the GPU for my high resolution monitor drives the temperatures up to similar heights.

 

Well that seems serious! You sure of that? Did anyone else catch on it?

 

Yeah, only a handful of smart YouTube reviewers did though.

I have two of these at home though (one for me, one for my wife) and both exhibit the same behavior and end results after modding, so I can exclude the possibility of having got a lemon.

It doesn't bother me much anymore though as I'm tech-literate enough to fix my own problems.

The end result with 40 to 72°C isn't too bad and the tools required to fix the issue are 5 bucks only (a roll of Super 33+ high temperature isolation tape + half a gram of Conductonaut, aka. Gallium).

If I was a new guy around the block though and looking to buy a new device, or still within the return period, I would definitely try to avoid the Asus ROG brand at the moment, the devices and specs are great but the built-in cooling system is subpar.

If you aren't afraid of liquid metal repasting and taping a few holes though then the problem can be circumvented quite easily.

So, if you find the device in a sale, or someone tries to get rid of it because of its heating issues, you might just be in for a fairly cheap and capable gaming notebook that won't take a fortune to fix up yourself.

 

The BEST 15” Gaming Laptop? Asus Strix GL502VS Review

 

I never said it was bad. I love mine in fact.
And Linus even mentioned that the heatsink seating (???) wasn't the best, causing it to overheat at stock.

All of this pretty much matches up with what I've found out and reported.